Site review - U.S. Chess Hall of Fame
Mark Weeks
Chess Hall of Fame'. The bookmarks list this as the 'U.S. Chess Hall of
Fame by US Chess Trust' and link to
http://www.excaliburelectronics.com/uschf.html. This opens to the 'US
Chess Hall of Fame & Sidney Samole Chess Museum'. I found another Hall
of Fame site by Chesslinks Worldwide at
http://www.chesslinks.org/hof/home.html. I'll look at both sites in this
review.
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The main page for the Excalibur site is at
http://www.excaliburelectronics.com/, which is 'The Official Web Site
for Excalibur Electronics - The World's Largest Manufacturer of
Electronic Chess Games'. The postal address indicates Miami, Florida.
Who is Sidney Samole? An Alta Vista search on 'sidney NEAR samole'
returns '9 pages found'. One page lists a testimonial from 'Sidney
Samole, Fidelity International, Inc., Miami, FL'. Now it's clear --
Excalibur is an incarnation of the Fidelity computer company. The
contact page lists President Shane Samole and Vice-President Stan
Samole, so it's a family business; my guess is that Sidney is the
family's patriarch.
The Hall of Fame page has five links:-
- Officers and Trustees
- Hall of Fame News
- Hall of Fame Photos
- US Chess History
- Hall of Fame Inductees
[Officers and Trustees] lists 'Trustees 1998/1999', which includes the
names of many U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) politicians. There is also a
list of all USCF Presidents & Executive Directors.
[US Chess History] says 'Each month, we present a new chapter in US
Chess History'. The current article, dated August 1999, is 'Present Day
New Orleans - A Chess Visit' by Kay McCrary. It says that it first
'appeared in the April 1989 issue of Palmetto Chess'. This site hasn't
been updated for six months & the last update was a reprint. Oh, well!
An [Archive Directory] lists 11 more articles:-
1999-07 The History of Chess Notation
1999-06 The Birth of Modern Chess
1999-05 The Beginnings of College Chess
1999-04 Chess in the Old West
1999-03 The Forgotten Forties
1999-02 Early Chess in the United States
1999-01 The First Chess Journalist's Association
1998-12 The US Presidents (and their vices) and Chess
1999-11 Early Women in American Chess
1998-10 Chess and Baseball
1998-09 William Steinitz - The American World Champion
all by Robert John McCrary. I read a few of the articles, and they are
very interesting. I won't explore them here, as they go beyond the theme
of this review, which is the Hall of Fame.
Who is Robert John McCrary? He was involved in last year's USCF
elections, which are well documented on George John's page
http://www.neosoft.com/~george/chess/USCF/politics/. This page points to
McCrary's Web site at http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Mound/7575/.
'Thank you for electing R. John McCrary as a member of the USCF
Executive Committee "Vision, not Division".' The page 'Bio Basics &
Photo' tells us that McCrary has a Ph.D in Psychology.
One of McCrary's letters on John's site informs us that McCrary has 'A
COMMITMENT TO ENHANCE INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE: Here my "bridge-building"
has paid off in the creation of a new World Chess Hall of Fame and
Sidney Samole Museum, with cooperation between Excalibur Electronics,
FIDE, and the US Chess Trust. My conversations with computer pioneer Sid
Samole in 1997 and with FIDE Executive Director Omuku in 1998 led
directly to this museum, scheduled to open at the beginning of 2000 in
Miami. Don Schultz and Steve Doyle also played roles in helping to bring
about this new idea, which will undoubtedly open vistas for new
international influence for US chess.'
There's a big clue here, when McCrary mentions the 'World Chess Hall of
Fame'. An AltaVista search on this phrase returns '16 pages found'. All
of the Web addresses are related to those I've indicated above, so I
didn't look at any of them. The Sidney Samole Museum has wider ambitions
than a Hall of Fame limited to U.S. chess history. This is an excellent
idea & I hope that they succeed with their plans. On the downside, it
appears that McCrary was the sole responsible for the content of the
site & that he has stopped this activity since being elected a USCF
official.
Returning to the Excalibur page, the Hall of Fame lists 28 inductees.
The charter members were Paul Morphy (*) and Robert Fischer (*), where
'(*)' indicates that the Hall of Famer has a biography on the site.
Other inductees, listed with the date of induction, are Pal Benko
(1993:*), Hans Berliner (1990), Arthur Bisguier (1994:*), Robert Byrne
(1994:*), John Collins (1991:*), Arthur Dake (1991:*), Arnold Denker
(1992:*), Ed Edmondson (1995:*), Arpad Elo (1988:*), Larry Evans
(1994:*), Reuben Fine (1986), Gisela Gresser (1992:*), Kenneth Harkness
(1997:*), Hermann Helms (1988), Al Horowitz (1989), Isaac Kashdan
(1986), George Koltanowski (1986), Sam Loyd (1987), George Mackenzie
(1992:*), Frank Marshall (1986), Victor Palciauskas (1993:*), Harry
Pillsbury (1986), Fred Reinfeld (1996:*), Samuel Reshevsky (1986),
Wilhelm Steinitz (1987), and Milan Vukcevich (1998:*)
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Now let's look at the Chesslinks site. The main page for the site is at
http://www.chesslinks.org/, which appears to be the same site as
http://www.webcom.com/lawson/chess/. We learn on some of the other pages
that 'Chesslinks Worldwide' is managed by Jerry Lawson. In addition to
the Hall of Fame link, the main page links to:-
- 'U.S. Chess Hall of Fame discussion group', which has two messages
from 1999-12
- 'POLL: Should Irving Chernev Be Admitted to the Chess Hall of Fame?'
- 'Page on Benjamin Franklin -- The newest member of the U.S. Chess Hall
of Fame'
The page 'U.S. Chess Hall of Fame' starts...
'Benjamin Franklin was inducted into the Hall of Fame during the 1999
U.S. Open. Chesslinks Worldwide has added a section to honor Dr.
Franklin. '
...and so appears to be more up to date than the Excalibur site. It also
has information on the physical location of the museum...
'The U.S. Chess Hall of Fame museum, located at 1501 M Street,
Washington, DC, describes the history of American chess. Formerly housed
in the USCF headquarters in New Windsor, New York, it was moved to its
present location in Washington, DC at the U.S. Chess Center in the early
90's'.
...The page also links to the U.S. Chess Center at
http://www.chessctr.org/, where we learn that 'The U.S. Chess Center
opened in downtown Washington, D.C., in July, 1992. The national U.S.
Chess Hall of Fame and Museum was dedicated at the Center a few months
later.' The Hall of Fame links back to Lawson's site, which has
biographies of all 29 inductees.
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How much chess history is encapsulated in the biographies on the two
sites? I looked at the bios for George Mackenzie, the inductee about
whom I know the least. The Excalibur site has three paragraphs on
Mackenzie. The Chesslinks site has 7-8 paragraphs & two links --
'Download ten of Mackenzie's best games' & 'View Mackenzie's tournament
record' -- both of which produced 'Not Found' messages.
Which site should be linked from our bookmarks page? I'll accede to the
wishes of the members of the Chess History discussion group.
Bye for now,
Mark Weeks
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
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