Those who have read my article "Examining the Past: Essential Tools for Exploring Chess History" (Lasker & His Contemporaries, Issue 5, pp.52-58; Thinker's Press 1997) might recall my interest in exploring local chess history. Those who have read my earlier contribution to this site, Stalking the Blue-Eyed Chess Score, have seen my interest in Buffalo, New York chess history. The Buffalo area has been my home for the past twenty years. Just down the road, though, and certainly not to be slighted, is Rochester, New York.

Much like Buffalo, Rochester has a fine chess history in its own right. Just as Buffalo hosted a number of New York State Chess Association mid-summer meetings, generally including three or more round robin tournaments, ranging from master class to experts to class play, Rochester has done so as well. Where as Buffalo hosted the 1901 event, won by Pillsbury over Delmar, Napier, and others (with a young Frank Marshall finishing next to last), Rochester can brag of the 1924 event, won after a delayed playoff by a young man by the name of Carlos Torre.

Rochester in 1924 already had a rich history of chess events, having hosted the NYSCA mid-summer tournament in 1910, for example. That event, a double round, round-robin tournament with five participants, including Roy T. Black, who would defeat Capablanca in their game the next year at New York 1911, resulted in twenty games being played. And all twenty were published in Hermann Helms' American Chess Bulletin (October 1910, pp. 240-245). Rochester also hosted the 1917 event, won by Oscar Chajes, as well as a very small, three-man, double round-robin tournament in August 1918, won by Kenneth S. Howard.

Born in LeRoy, New York on April 12, 1892, Howard of course is best remembered today for his extensive work with chess problems. His books, for instance, include How to Solve Chess Problems and Classic Chess Problems by Pioneer Composers, both of which have been reprinted by Dover Publications. Unknown to almost everyone, however, are his books written in conjunction with his vocation in advertising: How to Write Advertisements (1937) and Methods of Sales Promotion (1940). Some of us may be thankful the good folks at Dover have at least spared us reprint of such non-chess works, but no one will deny Howard's lasting contributions to the field of chess problems, both in his books and, for instance, during his tenure as Problem Department Editor for the American Chess Bulletin, a position he held for many years.

Howard graduated from the University of Rochester. He lived in the Rochester area for twenty-three years, married there, and raised his daughter in that city. Those interested in reading more about his life should turn to the American Chess Bulletin for 1941, at pages 66 through 71. Those interested in the young Howard's earlier contributions to chess journalism are encouraged to explore his chess column in the Rochester Herald, which ran from 1903 through 1905, when he was only in his early twenties.

Howard's Herald column, like a number of chess columns from the age when newspapers were king, was relatively extensive, often offering its readers two or more chess games weekly. While Howard tried to give his readers some sense of international chess events, he of course also offered games of more local interest, and at times even offered his own. And what many people don't recall today is that Howard enjoyed correspondence chess, publishing correspondence games authored, for instance, by his own University of Rochester chess club against other schools. One example, taken from Howard's column in the Rochester Herald for July 18, 1903:

University of Rochester - Cornell University
Correspondence Match, 1903
Queen's Gambit Declined
1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bf4 c5 5.e3 a6 6.Nf3 dxc4 7.dxc5 Bxc5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Bxc4 Nc6 10.0-0 b5 11.Be2 h6 12.Nd4 Bd7 13.Bf3 Rc8 14.Rfd1 Ke7 15.Nb3 Bb6 16.Bd6+ Ke8 17.Rac1 Bd8 18.e4 Be7 19.e5 Nh7 20.Nc5 Bxd6 21.exd6 Nb4 22.Nxd7 Kxd7 23.a3 Nc6 24.Ne4 Ne5 25.Nc5+ Rxc5 26.Rxc5 Nxf3+ 27.gxf3 Rc8 28.Rxc8 Kxc8 29.Rc1+ Kd7 30.Rc7+ Kxd6 31.Rxf7 Ng5 32.Rxg7 Nxf3+ 33.Kg2 Nd2 34.Ra7 1-0

Howard noted the game was from a correspondence match with Cornell "played during the past spring," thus identifying play as having taken place during the spring semester of 1903. As Howard was just turning twenty-one at the time, it is likely he was still a student at the University of Rochester himself, and that he had a hand in the game's unfolding. No identification of players on either team, however, appeared in the column, and thus it would be unwise to assume that Howard himself was on the Rochester team, however likely that might be. The second game, Cornell - University of Rochester, a twenty-six move victory for Black with the French Defense, gave the University of Rochester a 2-0 match victory.

Of more historical interest, however, was Kenneth Howard's two game correspondence match testing the McCutcheon Variation of the French Defense. And why is this of some historic interest? His opponent's name was John Lindsay McCutcheon.

The two game match resulted in two victories for McCutcheon's pet variation. I have in passing written elsewhere of the development of McCutcheon's 4. …Bb4 in the French Defense, including what appears to be one of his earliest successes with that move in a simultaneous display against a rather well-known opponent: Steinitz - McCutcheon, French Defense, New York Simultaneous Display, 1885, 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4 5.e5 h6 6.Bxf6 gxf6 7.Nf3 f5 8.Bd3 c5 9.dxc5 Bxc5 10.0-0 Nc6 11.Qd2 Qe7 12.Qf4 Bd7 13.Nb5 0-0-0 14.c4 Be8 15.Rfc1 Kb8 16.a3 a6 17.Nc3 dxc4 18.Bxc4 Nd4 19.Ne2 Nxf3+ 20.Qxf3 Bc6 21.Qh3 Ka7 22.b4 Bb6 23.Nc3 Rhg8 24.Bf1 Rd2 25.Nd1 Qg5 26.Rxc6 bxc6 27.Qc3 Qf4 28.Qxc6 Rxd1 0-1. See Napier: The Forgotten Chessmaster (Caissa Editions 1997, pp.96-98). McCutcheon, a Pennsylvania native, would die in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 17, 1905, less than two years after his correspondence games against Howard.

According to Jeremy Gaige's wonderful Chess Personalia, McCutcheon was forty-five years old at the time of his correspondence match with Howard. He was thus twenty-five years older than his Rochester opponent—a true battle of the generations, generations ago.

Here are the two games from the match. Both were given by William Ewart Napier, the original Brooklyn boy wonder, in his chess column published in the Pittsburg Dispatch. (Pittsburgh, as it is now spelled, for a time dropped the "h" to its name). The notes to the first game are entirely Napier's. Howard also published the second game in his Rochester Herald. I have given the date of play as 1903, though the games could well have started in 1902, as suggested by their earliest publication. Napier published them both in his March 23, 1903 column. Howard, however, did not publish his win against his older opponent until December 12, 1903. The attentive reader will be pleased to learn that even the great Emanuel Lasker showed interest in these games. See the comment at move seventeen of the second game.

Howard - McCutcheon
Correspondence Match, Game 1, 1903
French Defense, McCutcheon Variation
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4 5.e5 h6 6.Bh4 g5 7.Bg3 Ne4 8.Nge2 c5 9.a3 Bxc3+ 10.Nxc3 Qa5 11.Bb5+ Bd7

McCutcheon - Howard
Correspondence Match, Game 2, 1903
French Defense, McCutcheon Variation
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4 5.e5 h6 6.Bd2 While this move does not force Black to further weaken his kingside by the advance of the g-pawn, it retards the counter attack and allows White to make the formidable Qg4 play. 6...Bxc3 7.Bxc3 7. bxc3 is much stronger. The text move was in the nature of an experiment.—Howard We prefer infinitely 7. bxc3. Mr. McCutcheon, however, was bent on trying an experiment, which is, to say the least, specious.—Napier. 7...Ne4 8.Qg4 0-0 Doubtless too hazardous. In a game Leander Turney - J.L. McCutcheon, the latter played 8. ...g6, which is probably the correct move.—Howard 9.Ne2 c5 10.Ng3 Nxc3 11.Nh5 g6 If 11...Qg5 12.Qxg5 hxg5 13.bxc3 and White could have established a winning attack on the kingside before Black could bring his pieces into action. 12.bxc3 Qa5 13.Kd2 Nd7 14.Bd3 Kh7 15.Nf4 Threatening, of course, 16. Bxg6+, etc.—Napier. 15...Rg8 16.h4 f5 17.Qh3 Emanuel Lasker thought that 17. exf6 would have been the best play for White. The game might then have continued 17.exf6 Nxf6 18.Bxg6+ Kh8 19.Qf3 cxd4 etc., leading to a very complicated state of affairs.—Napier 17...Nf8 18.g4 cxd4

While I certainly wouldn't pretend to try and explore how the games fit into opening theory, those interested in such matters will find the position in Game 1 after 8. …c5 to be said to give Black "good counterplay" by Lev Psakhis in his The Complete French (1992) (American Edition), at p.165. Howard, Napier, and Psakhis agree that White's 7. Bxc3, as played in Game 2, is less than the best, though White's subsequent 8. Qg4 is not among the four alternatives at White's eighth move given in the 7. Bxc3 line in the same book.