DRAFT

Dale Brandreth, Chess Archaeologist

1931-2019

By Bruce Monson

Photo credit: US Chess Federation

It was with great sadness that I learned of the passing of my friend and fellow chess historian, Dale Brandreth, who died in 2019 at the age of 87. When I say “fellow” chess historian, I mean it in reverence, like a greenhorn apprentice in colonial America given the opportunity to work with Benjamin Franklin at his printshop. As chess historians go Brandreth was a megalith, roundly respected and admired from all corners of the globe. And what a repository of information he was! Whenever I needed a rare book, chess publication or obscure source—anything—he either had it or knew where I could acquire it. Quite often he would dig into his own files on a subject, producing a nugget of information with the thrill of an archaeologist discovering an ancient artifact.

It just so happened that Dale’s and mine interests intersected on a few occasions, notably the little known Pasadena “Olympic” Chess Congress of 1932 of which we each had deep-seated interests that some might consider fanatical if not pathological. I had been researching it for nearly a decade, Dale thrice that. Mind you, this was back in the day before the ‘miracle’ of digitized media when ‘online search’ meant something quite different than it does today; when you would go online to order boxes of microfilm from some distant university or library and wait for it to be mailed to your local library where you would spend weeks (or months) poring through old newspapers and archived documents page by page. Although you would always find something of value, odds-on it wasn’t what you had been searching for. These serendipitous ‘nuggets’ were—and still are—the real reward behind the journey of research and one of the most valuable lessons I learned from Dale Brandreth. He also gave me the most important tip of advice about maintaining good posture while reading on those damn machines!

So, it was an honor when Dale asked me to be a contributor to the book, Pasadena 1932 International Chess Tournament (Caissa Editions, 2011) which, like all of Dale’s work, was an excellent production. Privately, however, Dale expressed to me some regret about the final product since, despite all our efforts, so much remained incomplete. He was referring specifically to the “missing” game scores which have defied extensive efforts to locate. In that sense too I have some regrets. My contribution was mostly original photos I had acquired in my research, including from the personal archives of Herman Steiner, as well as numerous anecdotes, newly ‘discovered’ games and game fragments. In fact, I had much more I could have shared on Herman Steiner but withheld lest the book become more about Steiner than the tournament itself. I also could have contributed more on the Minor Tournament, the Team event, and even the original chess problems created by Adolf Fink in honor of the event, all of which were virtually forgotten by history, along with the Women’s tournament.

It was this latter aspect, the women’s tournament, that really drew my focus, however, resulting in a comprehensive biographical examination on the winner, LaVieve Mae Hines, her chief rival Mary Bain, and the sad, tragic, downward spiral of the Los Angeles Times chess editor, Clif Sherwood.

The Women’s tournament, while a minor event by today’s standards, was nevertheless a hugely significant event in the early history of women’s chess in the U.S. and probably deserves a wider audience. As it happens another chess historian, Kerry Lawless, of Oakland, California agrees with me. Kerry has offered to post my essay as a featured article on his online California chess history site.

While Kerry’s primary focus is on Northern California chess history (in contrast to my focus on Southern Cal during the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood), it is impossible to speak of North without South. They are forever intertwined, left hand and right, palms out-stretched like Father Junípero Serra before the San Luis Obispo de Tolosa mission in San Luis Obispo. San Luis Obispo, incidentally, was once referred to by its mayor as the “Geneva” of California chess due to its geographical midpoint in the state (not quite but close enough) and thus “neutral” ground between the “warring factions,” as the personable George “Pat” Patterson would refer tongue-in-cheek to the rivalry between North and South in the 1930s.

For the most part the article I’m presenting here is identical to the 2010 version, though I have included material that was left out of the original for space considerations, and also corrected and updated a few other items. In particular I have increased the content on Mary Bain whose contributions to both women’s chess and social issues (issues that, incredibly, are relevant today, over 80 years later!) have gone largely overlooked in my opinion. I have also provided additional, and in some cases better quality, photos that I have acquired over the years.

The Pasadena Congress Women’s Tournament—Catalyst to Women’s Chess in the Modern Era

Bruce Monson

Sitting: LaVieve Mae Hines (champion) Standing: L-R: L. Marie Hinchman, Marian Fox, Alma Wolff, Alex V. Taylor (Tournament Director), Elizabeth “Betty” Hillman, Ruth Patterson (wife of G.S.G. Patterson), Graziella Jacoby (famous artist), Mary Bain (not pictured) (Monson Collection)

When the idea to hold an international chess tournament on the heels of the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics was put into action, suggestions for a minor tournament and a team event quickly followed. But there was no real impetus, initially, for a women’s event and really wouldn’t be until the venue was set for the Hotel Maryland in Pasadena, which was also home to the Pasadena Chess Club.

Formed in 1928 with the help of National Chess Federation president Maurice H. Kuhns[1], then vacationing with his wife in Pasadena, the club promoted women’s chess heavily and took pride in its policy of not segregating women from men, whether in competitive events or in electing their club officers. This radical approach not only gave women the opportunities they needed to improve their chess game but also gave them a voice in how the club was run. “Women are seldom made welcome at chess clubs,” wrote C.C.L.A. President Clara Cameron in a 1929 letter to the Los Angeles Times, “and are too proud to go where they are not wanted, and the Pasadena club, which caters so to women, should be congratulated for abandoning the caveman theory of inferiority of women.”[2]

The President of the Pasadena chess club during the build-up to the Pasadena Congress was Mrs. Elizabeth “Betty” Hillman. In fact, it would be the first time in U.S. chess history where a co-ed chess club would have a woman President. A tireless promoter of chess in the Southland, she was not only a key figure on the Pasadena Chess Congress organizing committee, but it was also largely due to her efforts that the Women’s Tournament was realized.

First American Women’s Chess Congress

The tournament was billed as both “The first major women’s chess tournament ever held [in the U.S.]”[3] and “The first women’s tourney in connection with a chess congress.” While the former was true in America, the latter wasn’t entirely accurate. There had actually been a women’s tournament at the Eighth American Chess Congress at Atlantic City, NJ in 1921, though there were only four players and the competitive level was not comparable to the group that played at Pasadena, 1932.

Each of the players at the Pasadena Congress had a minimum of five years experience playing competitive chess against male opponents of all classes. And unlike previous women’s events around the country, the Pasadena Congress had the first true national—indeed international—representation among the field, e.g., Buffalo, Chicago, Boston, Bedford (Ohio), Germany and Hungary.

It should also come as no surprise that of the six women who entered the tournament five were current or former members of the Pasadena Chess Club.

The Players:

Miss LaVieve M. Hines, Beverly Hills CC/Pasadena CC (Buffalo, NY)

Mrs. Mary Bain, Hollywood CC (Hungary)

Miss Marian Fox, Pasadena CC (Boston, Massachusetts)

Miss Alma Wolff, Pasadena CC (Berlin, Germany)

Mrs. Laura Marie Hinchman, Pasadena CC (Bedford, Ohio)

Mrs. Elizabeth Hillman, Pasadena CC (Chicago, Illinois)

Pasadena Congress Women’s Tournament*
PLAYERS		1	2	3	4	5	6	Original TOTALS	Adjusted TOTALS
1	LaVieve Hines	X	1-1	1-1	U-1	1-1	1-U	7-0	8-0
2	Alma Wolff	0-0	X	0-1	0-1	1-1	1-1	6-3	6-4
3	Mary Bain**	0-0	1-0	X	1-0	1-½	1-1	5½-4½	5½-4½
4	Marian Fox**	U-0	1-0	0-1	X	1-1	1-0	4-3	5-4
5	Elizabeth Hillman	0-0	0-0	0-½	0-0	X	1-1	2½ -6½	2½ -7½
6	L. Marie Hinchman	0-U	0-0	0-0	0-1	0-0	X	1-7	1-8

U = Unplayed games
* Attempted reconstruction based on available published data and forced result conclusions. Adjusted final scores and placement also added based on data.
**Mary Bain originally listed in 4^th place and Marian Fox in 3^rd place.[4]

The tournament was to be double round robin format, with the women’s games played on weekends and on the days adjournments were played in the Master’s event. From the start this caused scheduling problems that resulted in games being postponed and in some cases never played, though this did not ultimately affect the final result which was more or less expected. LaVieve Hines ran away with the championship uncontested. What was a surprise was the inconsistent performance of Mary Bain.

Mary Bain at the Pasadena Chess Congress

Mary Bain

Possibly passport photo from late 1920s

(Monson Collection)

Although it would be her very first tournament Mary was expected to do well. “Mary Bain’s play,” noted one columnist just prior to the event, “will be watched with great interest, as she has shown much strength against several leading men experts around Hollywood.”[5]

It was Mary’s unfortunate luck that she was paired against the tournament favorite, LaVieve Hines, in the very first round.

We do not have the game score but news accounts reported that Mary had the white pieces in a “King’s Pawn opus” and the game was very hard fought. The game was adjourned after four hours of play with LaVieve having the advantage in an rook and pawn endgame that many thought Mary should be able to hold with correct play. But on resumption LaVieve managed to infiltrate Mary’s position with her rook and Mary resigned soon after.

Day one of the women’s tournament on August 18. LaVieve Hines and Mary Bain on board 1, Marion Fox and Alma Wolff on board 2, Elizabeth Hillman and L. Marie Hinchman on board 3. Tournament Director, Alex Taylor looks on as the adjournment time approaches. (Monson collection)

Throughout her chess career Mary suffered from confidence problems, especially in all-women events (she always felt more comfortable playing against men where she was “not expected to win”). And when things went wrong they tended to get worse before they got better. That tendency manifested itself twice during the Pasadena tournament. In the very next round Mary again lost, this time to Marian Fox.

Marian Fox, like all the women who were longtime members of the Pasadena Chess Club, had hundreds of games under her belt in way of experience and was no pushover. Little is known of her except that she came from a well-to-do family in Boston and New York and lived with her two brothers (both physicians) in Pasadena. In 1936 she married Douglas Houghton, a former New York businessman who moved to Pasadena in the 1920s and later established the chess column in the Pasadena Star-News. He also wrote frequently for the Pasadena Post and gave free chess lessons twice a week at the Maryland Hotel.

Two losses in as many rounds was a devastating start for Mary, but she had a chance to heal in rounds 3 & 4 when she was paired against arguably the two weakest players in the field, L. Marie Hinchman and Elizabeth Hillman. Again, there are no game scores, but it’s likely she won fairly easily against Hinchman and then got back on track, perhaps playing her best game to that point against Hillman. Whatever the circumstances, she entered round five with an even score and newfound confidence and managed to win her game against Alma Wolff.

Alma Wolff was originally from Berlin, Germany and immigrated to the U.S. with her husband and son in 1929. She was a stalwart of the Pasadena Club and continued playing in Southern California for years afterward. In 1945 she would again meet up with Mary Bain at the famed Hollywood Pan Am, organized by Herman Steiner and famously promoted by such stars as Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich and Charlie Boyer. Mary Bain finished in a tie for first with Mona Karff.

Mary Bain sitting at chess board (decorative chess set) in the courtyard at the Maryland Hotel during the Pasadena Congress (Monson collection)

After the shaky start Mary found herself on a three game winning streak and in a position to change the course of the tournament. In round 6 she would again meet LaVieve Hines. LaVieve was undefeated, but because she had one game that was postponed her score was 4 points, while Mary was at 3 points. If Mary could win she’d be right back in the hunt.

All we have from the game is a concluding fragment with the diagramed position:

LaVieve Hines – Mary Bain

Pasadena 1932 Women’s Tournament

White to move

This position appears to have come out of a Reti opening or Catalan, possibly suggested to LaVieve by Alekhine since she was primarily an e4 player. White has a lead in development and nagging pressure against black’s queenside. However, it’s not obvious what white’s best move is. Of course, 1.Qd2 loses on the spot to 1…Qxc3, and 1.Rc1 Rd8! actually hands the initiative to black since any move by white’s knight can be answered with …Qxc1. 1.Nd5 seems natural, but after 1…Qd7 the knight will not be able to maintain its outpost without pushing her pawn to e4, which would leave black’s knight a secure outpost on d4. LaVieve finds the best move:

1.e3! Nf5?

Mary probably wanted to trade queens here, but for good reason feared the ending after 1…Qxc3 2.exd4 Qxd4 (2…exd4 3.Re1 Kf7 4.Rc1 is worse) 3.Qxd4 exd4 4.Bxb7 Rd8 5.Rfd1 when white has a solid extra pawn and will be able to torture black forever with no risk. Still, that may have been preferable to the text since white now keeps all her positional trumps while also generating direct threats against black’s exposed king.

2.Nd5

Now this lands with powerful effect.

2…Bxd5

After 2…Qd7 3.b6 axb6 4.Rxb6 Rd8 white has the nice tactic 5.Nc7+! Qxc7 6.Rxe6+ Kf8 7.Qb1 Ne7 8.Rb6 with an easy win.

3.Qxd5 Nd6 4.b6! axb6 5.Rfc1 Qe7 6.Rxb6 Rd8 7.Rd1 Nf7 8.Qb5+ Kf8 9.Rxd8+ Nxd8 10.Bxb7 g6 11.a5 Kg7 12.Bd5 Black Resigns

With this loss Mary’s chances for winning the tournament were effectively over, and she played like it the rest of the way scoring only 2½ points in the next four rounds finishing in 3rd place at 5½-4½.

Mary Bain in Hollywood

It’s not well known that Mary ever even lived on the West coast, let alone began her competitive chess career there.  When I spoke with her children, they both recalled living in Hollywood and even seeing movie stars like Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Lew Ayres and Harold Lloyd among others.  But neither knew anything about Mary’s participation in the Pasadena tournament.  Neither had they ever heard the name LaVieve Hines!

Well before Pasadena 1932 Mary Bain was already an accomplished chess player. She had learned chess from her mother at an early age and became a student of the game during high school in her native Hungary where chess was part of the curriculum. Her first chess notoriety came in 1921 when she was 17 years old, a passenger on a British ship en route to New York with hundreds of other mostly English-speaking passengers. Speaking only her native Hungarian (she also spoke German, Romanian and Ukrainian), Mary spent most of the voyage in lonely silence. Out of boredom, she had set up her chess set on the ship deck and soon had interested passengers pining for a game. Mary was beating one opponent after another, so much so the ship's captain took notice and had the purser arrange a game with her in the ship's salon that evening. He too went down to defeat, though Mary claims she was a bit lucky, having played through "a siege of stage-fright." As a prize he gave Mary a "loving cup" for which also earned her a round of applause. The Ballroom orchestra conductor offered to play her favorite song, but not remembering any musical numbers she picked one from a list of suggestions. The moment of high-seas drama was unquestionably the virus that infected Mary with chess fever. Her most important lession, though, was the discovery that chess was an "international language" that defied borders. She made many new friends through the "mental interplay that goes on over the chess board."

Almost nothing is known of Mary's time in New York after her arrival, or for that matter exactly when she arrived and on which vessel! Presumably her sister, Sadie, was still living in New York at the time and Mary lived with her, but even that is unconfirmed. Mary also had brothers, one of whom died in the war, but one or more may also have immigrated to the U.S. though

that is speculation. Mary notes that "shortly after [her] arrival in New York [she] played in a simultaneous exhibition given by an 'Hungarian master' whom she admired." That would undoubtedly be Geza Maroczy though he would not be in America until the famed New York 1924 tournament. In the exhibition Mary states she "drew her game and being a woman received a great deal of publicity for this feat." I have not yet found media coverage

of this exhibition, though it most likely occurred in 1924 or 1925, two or three years after her arrival.

In 1925 a then 21 year-old Mary Weiser was visiting her sister, Sadie, who moved to San Francisco in 1923. Sadie had immigrated to America in 1914 when she was only sixteen, evidently at the bequest of a man named Fred Brinner whom she would marry nine years later in 1923 although he was nearly twenty years older and--I was informed--already married! Originally named Manyhert "Fred" Kohn, he changed his name to Brinner, left his family and married Sadie.

There is still much to this story that remains unclear. And that includes about Mary herself, even her true age. According to her children she was born in 1903 (not 1904 or 1905 as is sometimes claimed). The stock story is that Mary's father (or stepfather?) had gone "missing" during the Great War, presumably dying in a POW camp, leaving her mother alone and broken-hearted, having also lost a son. Mary's older sister, Sadie (1899-1995),

immigrates to America before the war and Mary is sent by her mother to meet up with her "shortly after" the war ends.

While living with her sister in San Francisco, Mary met Leslie Balogh Bain, a U.S. citizen born in Logan, West Virginia in 1900.  After his father died his mother returned to Hungary, taking Leslie (still an infant) with her.  He grew up with the Balogh family in Budapest.[6]  It’s unclear how they met, but after a whirlwind romance Leslie and Mary married, starting a family almost immediately, having a son, Mitchell (b.1927) and a daughter, Eva (b.1929).

Leslie was a professional photographer and reporter who worked for numerous newspapers and magazines throughout his life including Look magazine, the New York Reporter, the Miami Daily News and the North American Newspaper Alliance.  He would become an award-winning photo journalist in both WWII and Korea, and was a foreign correspondent covering events live during the October Hungarian Uprising and the Batista—Castro Rebellion in Cuba where Bain was fortunate not to be killed after being clubbed in the head by a thug loyalist (Castro? Batista?) and woke up in a Havana hospital days later.  He would also become a political analyst, had a syndicated column (“The Long View”) and authored three books: "The War of Confusion" (1942); "Chaos or Peace" (1943) and "The Reluctant Satellites: An Eyewitness Report on East Europe and the Hungarian Revolution" (1960).   He even worked in radio, producing the popular program "The Order of Adventurers" for ABC (then called NBC-Blue) and later managed a radio station in Florida (WKAT Miami Beach).

Leslie Bain in 1940s (Monson collection)

In the early 1930s Leslie was working in film special effects and in 1931 he acquired a contract with the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation in Los Angeles, prompting the Bain family’s move to Hollywood, though Leslie had been working there sporadically since 1926.  It was a golden meal ticket—they thought—during the Great Depression.

The Bain’s rented a guest house (really servant’s quarters) on La Mirada Avenue in Hollywood. Their house was situated behind the home of Louis Marches, a struggling screen actor who was renting out rooms in his home to help pay the bills. Part of their rent included various and sundry ‘domestic duties’ within the main house as well as their own.

Original location of the Hollywood Chess Club at 5704 LaMirada Ave. in Hollywood, though it looks much different today. It was renovated many times over the years, eventually converted to a small apartment complex seen here. The “guest house” can be seen in the rear left.

Although a devoted mother and homemaker, Mary’s passion for chess was stronger than ever after her lackluster performance in the Pasadena tournament, and it was largely through her efforts that the ‘original’ Hollywood Chess Club was formed in the fall of 1932. Leslie also enjoyed chess, though he was not the chess aficionado Mary was. But he had many friends in the movie industry who played, especially screenwriter Richard Schayer who was fanatical about the game since he felt it helped keep his mind sharp and improved his writing.

Early Hollywood Chess Club members included Cecil B. deMille[7], Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joseph von Sternberg, Ernst Lubitsch, Slavko Vorkapich, Lew Ayers, William Wyler, Harold Lloyd, Ernst Laemmle and women players Carmel Meyers and Gypsy Clarke.  Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was named the first Club president, while state champion Harry Borochow (the “resident master”) was named as a vice-president. Mary Bain was on the board of directors.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Leslie Bain, Hollywood Chess Club, 1932.

This was one of a series of photos Fairbanks took of him playing chess

(I have another with him playing Harry Borochow) which would be

used to promote his upcoming film, The Narrow Corner (1933) then

in production.  (Monson collection)

They were not alone. Interest was such that some 50 members quickly overwhelmed the capacity of the Marches’ home (and his wife’s sanity)! The club moved to new quarters at 6735 Yucca Street in Hollywood, the former location of the Masquer’s Club, a private social club where Hollywood actors and writers could fraternize.

Unlike the stalwart Mechanic’s Institute Chess Club in San Francisco (which is still extant to this day!), the Hollywood Chess Club would change locations multiple times over the next few years, and not without controversy with the arrival of Herman Steiner and Capablanca, though that story extends beyond the scope of this article. What is clear--and should not be overlooked--is that Mary Bain played a significant role in the formation, development and promotion of chess among Hollywood’s literati and glitterati in the early days.

Dr. Robert Griffith and Mary Bain, Hollywood Chess Club on Yucca St., 1933
(Monson Collection)

Early examples of Mary’s play are rare. She was not noted for keeping her game scores and chess publications at the time afforded little if any space to women’s chess. Moreover, newspaper chess columnists were protective of the male ego and often sought ‘permission’ from male players before publishing games in which they had lost to a woman. But there are examples.

The following game is not enough to give a true account of Mary’s strength, but it’s arguably her most famous game, played against the Cuban legend, Jose Capablanca, at the Hollywood Chess Club, then on Yucca Street.

Capablanca-Mary Bain

23 board Simultaneous Exhibition

Hollywood Chess Club

Los Angeles, May 21, 1933

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Bc5 5.O-O O-O 6.Nxe5 Re8 7.Nd3 Bd4 8.Ne2?! Rxe4 9.Nxd4 Nxd4

With active play Mary has achieved the better game. But now the Cuban legend makes a surprising blunder . . .

10.Ba4??

. . . which Mary quickly pounces on.

10… Ne2+ 11.Kh1 Nxc1 (Diagram)

Final Position

White is losing a piece. Capablanca resigned on the spot which is a bit surprising since he could have tried to complicate matters with 12.Nc5 when 12…Rc4?! (best is 12…Rh4 13.g3 when Mary would have to spot the killer 13… Ng4!) 13.d4 d6 14.b3 Rc3 15.Qd2 Ne2 16.Nd3 is still better for black, but very messy and unclear.

Much like the Fine-Borochow miniature (From the Pasadena Congress) that has had so much controversy surrounding it, the Capablanca-Bain game also has its share of mythos. The Chess Reporter[8] records it as a draw, giving Capa’s final score as 21 wins and two draws (to Borochow and Bain). However, in Douglas Houghton’s chess column[9] the actual game score is given, noting Capablanca’s resignation after move 11. But with an asterisk, “Note—Mrs. Bain would not accept victory and conceded it a draw.”

Why she did this is not known. But even more curious is why Capablanca would agree to such a disingenuous result!

While winning against Capablanca was unexpected, it wasn’t entirely out of the question. She had previously scored draws in simuls given by Isaac Kashdan and Harry Borochow and had beaten a number of good players in the Los Angeles area under tournament conditions, including the following game against a mid-level player from the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

Paul Zens—Mary Bain

L.A.A.C. vs. Hollywood CC

Team League Match

March, 1933

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.d3 Bc5 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 g5 7.Bg3 d6 8.h3 Qe7 9.Nd5 Nxd5 10.Bxd5 Nd4 11.c3 Ne6 12.Ne2 c6 13.Qa4? Bd7 14.Bb3 Bb6 15.Qc4 Nc5 16.Bc2 Be6 (16…Ba5!) 17.Qb4 Na6 (17…f5!) 18.Qa4 f5 19.exf5 Bxf5 20.O-O O-O-O 21.d4 Bxc2 22.Qxc2 exd4 23.Nxd4 Qh7 24.Nf5 Bc7 25.Rad1 d5 26.Bxc7 Nxc7 27.Qd3 Rd7 28.Qf3 Rhd8 29.Qg4 Kb8 30.f4 Ne6 31.fxg5 Nxg5 32.Qf4+ Ka8 33.h4 Nf7 34.g4 Qg6 35.a4 b6 36.b4 Rg8 37.Ne3 Re7 38.Rf3 Re4 39.Qxf7 Qxf7 40.Rxf7 Rxe3 41.Rf4 Rxc3 42.Rdd4 Rh3 43.h5? Rxh5 44.Kf2 Rh2+ 45.Kg3 Rc2 46.Rf5 Rc4 47.Rdf4 Rxf4 48.Rxf4? h5 49.Kh4 Rxg4+ 50.Rxg4 hxg4 51.Kxg4 d4 52.Kf3 c5 53.bxc5 bxc5 54.Ke2 Kb7 55.Kd3 Kb6, White resigns

Bandits, Blue Moons & Fleas

The Hollywood chapter in Mary’s life was short-lived. In early 1934 the Bains moved back to New York where Leslie and fellow film special effects colleague, Slavko Vorkapich (also a chess fan), were under contract to Kaufman Astoria Studios in Astoria for a series of films by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, including Crime Without Passion (1934) starring Claude Rains, and Once in a Blue Moon (1935) starring Jimmy Savo.

Amusingly, for the first film Leslie, Slavko and their film crew were nearly caught up in a “bandit scare on Wall Street” when they parked their cars next to J.P. Morgan’s office on a Sunday morning to begin filming footage of New York skyscrapers to be used in the movie. Within minutes about two dozen of New York’s finest, sirens blaring, descended upon their position “from all directions,” evidently tipped-off by security guards that bank robbers were about to make a hit! Following some tense moments credentials and permits were confirmed and the would-be bandits were allowed to proceed with their filming, which also included some impressive skyline views taken from atop the Empire State building that can still be viewed today.

The logistics for Once in a Blue Moon also had its share external drama, the film requiring some “five-thousand extras” who descended upon the sleepy lakeside town of Tuxedo, New York where the outdoor scenes were filmed. Mary Bain was among them! Ironically, now three-thousand miles removed from “Tinseltown,” Mary and her two children (Mitchell and Eva) would have their “acting” debut, cast as peasants in Tsarist Russia!

Mary Bain as a Russian peasant in Once in a Blue Moon (1935)

(Monson collection)

The role of a peasant wife was tailor-made for Mary who grew up, quite literally, in the shadow of Imperial Russia. The pay was a pittance, but the experience was a great “teaching moment” for her children, at least in context as explained by Mary. Her homeland of Karpatská Rus (or Karpato-Russia) was located in the meatgrinder region of Transcarpathian Hungary situated between Poland, Romania and Ukraine which changed nationalities so frequently the “Ruthenian” peoples developed an identity independent of whatever flag they were currently claimed.

It would be Mary’s only foray on the silver screen.

Despite Leslie being gainfully employed, times were still tough due to the lingering depression and Mary took a job stitching leather at the I. Miller Shoe Company to make ends meet.  But she still found time for chess, quickly becoming a figurehead at the famous Marshall Chess Club where she received special attention from both Frank Marshall and the grand “gentleman of chess,” Geza Maroczy, each encouraging her to compete internationally, with an eye toward Vera Menchik’s throne.

Although Mary would eventually dip her toe in international waters, her primary focus was always on family, equal opportunity education and fighting against discrimination in any capacity, not only for women.  As Mary’s daughter Eva told me, Mary once chastised Regina Fischer for letting the young Bobby play chess all day rather than making him go to school.  She also caused a rift at the Marshall club when she stood up for a young African-American boy who wanted to join the club.[10]  Both Mary and Leslie were well ahead of their time on social inequality issues and did not back down from controversy.  Leslie even did a documentary film, Harlem Sketches (1935), which showed “a real cross-section of Harlem life” during the depression, revealing the harsh conditions African-Americans lived under in their tenements, living quarters and vacant lots where half-starving children gathered.  The film (no longer extant) was so controversial it was banned in some states because it “advocates equal social rights for Negroes.”[11]

Of course, past is prologue and we know that Mary went on to much grander days in her chess career. For the better part of three decades (1930s-1960s) she was one of the top female players in the nation, representing the U.S. in several international events, including the 1937 Women’s World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden where she placed 5th out of twenty-six competitors (Vera Menchik won). She also won several U.S. Open Women’s titles.

Her greatest result was winning the U.S. Women’s closed championship in 1951 by a near perfect score of 8.5/9, a full point ahead of a field of the strongest female players in America including perennial juggernauts, Gisela Gresser and Mona Karff. Although Mary’s level of play was on par with her top competitors these events had become an exercise in nail-biting anxiety for her, and the final result was anything but an expected outcome. Over the years she had many times come close to winning the U.S. Championship, but her nerves always seemed to cost her at some critical moment. Even this event was no exception since Mary had to “survive” an agonizing 107 move battle against Gresser lasting 10 hours over three sessions in which she was down material. In years past this was the kind of pressure that would prove her undoing. Not this time!

In the mid-1950s Mary would establish another chess club, the “Mary Bain Chess Studio,”[12] at 145 West 42nd Street not far from Times Square in New York, a club which also catered to bridge players according to Mary’s son, Mitchell.  She would later sell the club to Larry Evans.  Mitchell also shared an anecdote about his mother’s club that she had found amusing.  Down the street from Mary’s club at 210 West 42^nd Street was the Chess and Checker Club of New York, more commonly known as “The Flea House,”[13] which was badly damaged by fire in February 1960.  “When the FDNY ordered everyone out,” he said, “the chess players, carefully holding their boards, scurried across the street to mom's club to continue playing!”[14]

Although Mary and Leslie were divorced in 1948 (largely due to Leslie’s foreign correspondent work) they remained on friendly terms and in frequent contact.  Both were lifelong smokers and both died in their 60s, Leslie in 1962 and Mary on October 26,1972.

Despite all her success in chess, I can’t help but wonder whether Mary’s greatest regret was never getting a chance to avenge her losses to LaVieve Hines at Pasadena. When she returned to Hollywood in 1945 to play in the Hollywood Pan Am women’s tournament, she must have had a sharp eye out for LaVieve’s name in the tournament table. Alas, it was not to be.

For LaVieve Hines Pasadena 1932 was to be her history.

LaVieve Hines, America’s Forgotten Champion

LaVieve Hines, Los Angeles 1931

LaVieve Mae Hines is easily the strongest American female chess player you’ve never heard of. And if her results are any indication (almost exclusively against the strongest male players on the West Coast), she is likely the strongest female player (and prospect) the U.S. had ever seen up to that time.

Born in Buffalo, NY in 1896 to a stock speculating father and an overbearing mother, LaVieve (“Net Net” as she was called by family) was driven headlong toward stardom from an early age. She was lauded as a child prodigy on violin and nearly as skilled at piano, having studied under famed composers Joseph Joachim (violin) and Moritz Moskowski (piano).

But her talents extended well beyond classical music. She was an astute student of Russian ballet and other forms of dance. She was fluent in three languages and five dialects and, as one Buffalo writer put it, she was said to have “a voice range of two and one-half octaves and capable of upper F with a clear tone.” By age seven she was already under management of B. M. Garfield and his famous “Buster Brown” company. An early playbill from 1904 headlined:

THE GREATEST CHILD ACTRESS IN THE WORLD Little Lavieve Mae Hines And her own Juvenile Company under the management of Burdett Milton Garfield

LaVieve and Brother James performing their “New Dutch Act” (1904)

Her destiny was clear. Or so it would seem. She was to be Shirley Temple before there was a Shirley Temple; Mickey Rooney, before there was Rooney; Jackie Coogan, before Coogan.

But that didn’t happen.

In 1913 William Hines, LaVieve’s father, lost most of the family fortune after investing heavily in a failing Canadian mining company. The loss put a strain on not only William’s financial stability but also his marriage to Amelia, LaVieve’s mother.

There was also the Great War that got underway in 1914. Wars change everything and as U.S. entry became imminent in 1917 the insecurities of life started to hit home for Amelia who saw the lifestyle she had envisaged for herself and her children slipping away. She began to press William relentlessly to move the family to Hollywood so LaVieve could finally realize her potential (and by proxy, Amelia’s) on the silver screen. William refused, but Amelia was steadfast in her determination and in 1918 she, LaVieve (now 20) and son James packed up abruptly and left for California.

William was devastated and died of melancholy four years later. His anger is evident in his last will and testament:

I give and bequeath to my wife Amelia M. Hines, my daughter LaVieve M. Hines and my son James Wesley Hines each the sum of Five Dollars; I also give and bequeath to my daughter LaVieve M. Hines one Stainer violin which is now in her possession with the hope that its music will cheer and brighten her life. No other provision is made for my said wife or children for the reason that they have all deserted me without provocation.

They would contest the will on the grounds that William was under psychiatric care and incapable of making sound decisions, though in the end the matter was moot since there was so little remaining of the estate.

As for LaVieve’s movie career . . . well, Hollywood is fickle. Aside from a life that could be characterized as somewhere between Mommy Dearest and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, the closest LaVieve came to film in Hollywood was a few gigs modeling women’s fashion in the early 1920s. Reality soon set in and she fell back on her musical talents, eventually getting full time work with the Pasadena Symphony as a violinist. Amelia gave piano lessons.

LaVieve Hines modeling “hand painted Louis Mead gowns” for a Los Angeles Herald fashion article in 1920.

By any standard LaVieve was an eccentric woman. She was fanatical about her appearance, rarely appearing in public without one of her exotic dresses and she often went to great lengths to conceal her real age, even on official census reports. She was sharp witted, outspoken and contemptuous of authority, particularly in men. One Los Angeles Times chess column from 1931[15] printed one of her quips about the sterner sex: “Men aren’t so bad if they are chessmen—You can generally get them to do as you wish.” And after crushing the Pasadena Chess Club champion, Alex Taylor, in a game she was quoted as saying, “Just another one of those games where a man plays and pays.”

It’s not clear when LaVieve learned chess, but it’s thought by family that she was taught the game by her father while still a young girl in Buffalo. What is clear is that in 1928 when Maurice Kuhns ‘discovered’ the group of chess players meeting daily in Pasadena’s Central Park and formed them into an official club, LaVieve Hines was among them and she was already a very strong player.

A year later in 1929 she had her first of three encounters with World Champion, Alexander Alekhine. It’s clear that she had already earned the respect of many men in the Los Angeles area. The Los Angeles Times column[16] even notes that Alekhine “had been told of this young lady’s prowess and the champion’s frequent hesitation at her board indicated that he respected [the] same.”

The game itself isn’t LaVieve’s best performance. But it wasn’t a disaster either, and in the three games she played against Alekhine she improved in each.

Alekhine – LaVieve Hines

50 board Simultaneous exhibition

Los Angeles Athletic Club

May 7, 1929

1 d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Nbd2 c5 7.Bd3 a6 8.cxd5 exd5 9.Rc1 b5 10.dxc5 Nxc5 11.Nb3 Nxd3+ 12.Qxd3 Bb7 13.Nfd4 Ne4 14.Bxe7 Qxe7 15.O-O O-O 16.Rc2 Rac8 17.Rfc1 Rxc2 18.Qxc2 Nd6?!

Too passive. With 18…h5!? (seeking rapid kingside counterplay) black could answer 19.Qc7 with 19…Qf6! when 20.Qxb7 Qxf2+ 21.Kh1 Qxe3 gives black dangerous counterplay.

19.Qc7 Qd8 20.h3 Qb8 21.Na5 Rc8 22.Qxb8 Rxb8 23.Rc7 Ba8 24.Ra7 Nc4 25.Nac6 Re8 26.b3 Nb2 27.Rxa6 Kf8 28.Nxb5 Bxc6 29.Rxc6, black resigns.

Her second encounter with Alekhine came in August, 1932. This time LaVieve was ready to scrap.

Alekhine—LaVieve Hines

Simultaneous Exhibition

Los Angeles Athletic Club

August 9, 1932

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bg5 c6 7.e3 Bg4 8.Bd3 Nbd7 9.Nge2 Be7 10.Ng3 h6 11.Bxf6 Nxf6 12.Bf5 Bd6 13.Bxg4 Nxg4 14.Nf5 Bf8 15.O-O-O g6 16.Ng3 Bg7 17.Kb1 a5?!

Best was simply to castle. Now white is able to develop an initiative which LaVieve will have to work hard to parry.

18.e4! h5? 19.h3 Nh6 20.exd5 cxd5 21.Rhe1+ Kf8 22.Qb3 h4 23.Nge2 Nf5 24.Nxd5 b5!

Excellent! Having lost a pawn LaVieve realized that she must now grab the initiative and generate threats at all cost, which she does.

25.Qxb5 Rb8 26.Qc5+ Kg8 27.Nec3 Kh7 28.Re4 Rc8 29.Qb5?

Suddenly having to start thinking about defense Alekhine now falters.

29…Nd6 30.Qd3 Nxe4 31.Qxe4 Re8 32.Qf4 (diagram)

Black to move

32…a4!

I give the exclamation mark not for the technical accuracy of the move but rather for her thought process. Objectively, the quiet defense of the f7-pawn with 32…Kg8 was best (at least according to our modern silicon friends), but the move chosen by LaVieve was by far the more psychologically annoying move.

33.a3

Alekhine likely didn’t give much thought to capturing on f7, since in the mind’s eye it would allow the black rook to infiltrate white’s 2^nd rank. But 33.Qxf7 Rf8? 34.Qe6 Rxf2 35.Ne7! actually works out in white’s favor.

33…Rb8 34.Nb4 Qb6 35.Qxh4+ Kg8 36.Ncd5 Qe6 37.Qf4 Qe4+?

A mistake that must have eased Alekhine’s nerves considerably. The last thing black should do at this point is exchange queens. Having succeeded in putting her opponent on the defensive, a useful waiting move like 37…Rbd8 or even 37…Rb7 (defending f7 and leaving possibility for doubling rooks on the e-file at some point) would have kept the tension on Alekhine. In the latter case a logical move like 38.Ne3 could then be met by 38…Rxb4! 39.axb4 Qb3, with an array of dangerous threats. But even now all is not lost.

38.Qxe4 Rxe4 39.Nc6 Rbe8 40.Ne3?

Logically wanting to shut the rooks out, but this turns out to allow black a saving defense. After 40.Nc3 Re1 41.Kc2 things are still in order for white.

40…Bh6 41.d5 (Diagram)

Black to move

41…Bg5

The losing move. However, it’s easy to see how LaVieve and even Alekhine himself may have missed the study-like defensive resource for black after 41…Bxe3! 42.fxe3 Rxe3, and now after the seemingly winning 43.d6? black actually wins after 43...Re1 44.Rxe1 (44.Kc2 transposes) 44…Rxe1+ 45.Kc2 (45.Ka2 Rd1) 45…Re6! when the pawn cannot advance since the knight can be captured with check!

42.d6 Bd8 43.d7 Rf8 44.Nd5 Re6 45.Ndb4 f6 46.Ka2, and with no counterplay prospects, Miss Hines resigned.

Not a perfect game by any means, but it demonstrated that LaVieve understood the importance of the initiative and used it to great effect. After the game, in fact, Alekhine paused to acknowledge LaVieve’s play even in a losing effort. “What do you mean by annoying me for 46 moves?” he said. This game also registered something important about LaVieve skill level in Alekhine’s mind, though it would be another year before he made it known.

Expanding Her Horizons

In 1929 LaVieve was awarded the title of Pacific Coast Women’s Champion. Though only an honorary title, it was warranted since there were no official women’s tournaments at that time and what female players she did contend with were well below her skill level. She was subsequently the subject of several articles in Pasadena newspapers in which she (and the other ladies) garnered the praise of their male colleagues.

By 1931 LaVieve had joined the Beverly Hills Chess Club where some of the strongest players in the Southland congregated, including state champion Harry Borochow, Irving Spero and George “Pat” Patterson. By her own account she joined the club because of “the opportunity it gave her to meet the many state, city and interstate champions and foreign experts who reside in Hollywood and are active in chess.”

If LaVieve’s affront to the Beverly Hills club was her way of testing herself, then it was a resounding success. In the main club championship tournament LaVieve was the only woman in the field. It was her first real tournament and included some of the top players in the club, including Henry MacMahon whom she defeated. She finished 4^th “just outside of prize winners,” but earned the respect of her peers.

Then came the Lindley Memorial Tournament in honor of the recently deceased Dr. Charles L. Lindley, one of the founders of the Beverly Hills Chess Club. The tournament is special in the history of women’s chess because I know of no other American tournament prior to this where a woman was allowed to compete in a men’s event. Her remarkable score of 9½-½ stunned even her staunchest supporters while also removing all doubt from her detractors. The performance even sparked yet another feature article on her, this time in the Los Angeles Evenening Express with a photo and headline: “Female Intuition Bests Masculine Logic at Chess.”

It is unfortunate that none of her games from these events survive. Like most of her games they were missing from her personal archives and the chess publications maintained the status quo for not publishing men’s losses to women. There are, however, numerous reports of her scoring wins and draws against the top ranking players in the region, such as Sidney Weinbaum, Irving Spero (the former Ohio champion whom she “beat in 26 moves”), George Patterson, Alex Taylor (whom she defeated 4-2 in a “rapid transit” match) and even state champion, Harry Borochow. She also scored draws in simultaneous exhibitions against Alekhine, Kashdan and Dake.

From 1930-1932 LaVieve herself gave four simultaneous exhibitions, mostly as fundraisers to support the Pasadena Congress. She played against both male and female opponents and was noted for her rapid play and confidence. Her finally tally of +32-4=1 stands as a credit to her ability at this form of play. It is also notable that with the exception of Mary Bain all of her opponents from the 1932 Pasadena Chess Congress had played boards against her in one or more of her simultaneous exhibitions and lost.

Among LaVieve’s personal archives she did have a few game scores and position fragments, including one she was obviously proud of—a spectacular win against Harry Borochow. Borochow was a strong master, around 2350 strength and at the height of his skills in the 1930s. The event is not given, or even a date, though it was likely an “impromptu game” or “social chess” (i.e., a casual game) played at either the Pasadena Chess Club or the Beverly Hills Chess Club sometime in 1931. The game is significant not only because of the manner in which she dismantles the sitting state champion, but she does so with the black pieces against his favorite opening, the Vienna!

Harry Borochow—LaVieve Hines

“Impromptu Game”

Beverly Hills Chess Club, 1931(?)

Vienna Gambit

1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4 d5 4.fxe5 Nxe4 5.Nf3 Bb4

Already black is leaving the trodden path, which was Breyer’s 5…Be7. LaVieve liked to portray herself as an intuitional rather than scientific player, but she did study openings and likely studied the Vienna at some length preparing for an eventual encounter with Borochow.

6.Qe2 Bxc3 7.bxc3 O-O 8.Qe3 Nc6!?

This simple developing move was LaVieve’s innovation. It had occurred only once before, Spielmann-Vidmar, Semmering, 1926, in a game which black lost. It’s unlikely she had ever seen it before. Borochow apparently was not aware of it either given that he goes wrong almost immediately.

9.c4?!

This doesn’t lose, but neither does it offer white any advantage. Necessary was 9.Bd3 (or 9.Bb5 per Keres) 9…f5 10.O-O when white’s two bishops, unified center and half-open b-file give him an advantage according to Tesitlin & Glazkov in The Complete Vienna. Certainly this is better than Borochow’s choice, though black’s prospects after 10…Qe7 hardly seem worse.

Update 2020: It is interesting to note that LaVieve had notes on the Vienna in her archives where she addressed this very line with 9.Bd3 and evidently would have continued with 9…Re8! which is the move recommended by the latest version of Stockfish, giving black, at worst, complete equality! While LaVieve often spoke of the power of “intuition” in chess—particularly female intuition!—she was nevertheless interested in opening theory. It is my opinion that Alekhine was the one responsible for this change in her mindset.

9…Bg4! 10.cxd5

After this white’s position already starts to get shaky. Better was 10.Bb2 with a difficult but tenable position.

10…Bxf3 11.Qxf3?

Necessary was 11.gxf3 Qh4+ 12.Ke2 Nf2! (12…Ng3+? 13.hxg3 Qxh1 14.dxc6 is good for white) 13.dxc6 (after 13.Qxf2? Nd4+ 14.Ke3 Nxc2+ 15.Ke2 Qb4 the Ra1 falls, leaving black up an exchange along with all the other positional trumps) 13…Nxh1 14.Qg1 Rfe8 15.Bb2 Rad8! when 16.Qxh1? loses (correct is 16.Bc3 but 16…b5! keeps an edge for black) 16…Qb4 17.Bc1 (17.Bc3 Rxe5+ 18.Kf2 Rxd2+! -+) 17…Rxe5+ 18.Kd1 Rde8 19.Bd3 Qh4 -+

11…Qxd5 12.Bd3 f5

A good practical decision but the engines suggest a clearer win with 12…Nxe5! 13.Qxe4 Nxd3+ 14.Qxd3 Qe5+, winning the rook.

13.exf6

The problem with 13.Bxe4 is black avoids the exchange of queens with the zwischenzug 13…Qxe5. However, this would have been preferable to the text which opens more lines of attack for black’s pieces.

13…Rae8 14.O-O Qd4+

LaVieve’s one real mistake in an otherwise brilliant game, though it’s not obvious why. The idea is correct but she interposed her moves. Stronger was the immediate 14…Rxf6 15.Bxe4 (15.Qe3 Nd6) 15…Qd4+ 16.Qe3 Rxf1+ 17.Kxf1 Rf8+ 18.Ke2 Qxa1 with a winning material advantage.

15.Kh1

Returning the favor. After 15.Qe3 Qxa1 16.Bc4+ Kh8 white has the saving resource 17.f7! which keeps the f-file closed and keeps the fight going. It’s easy to see how this could be missed since it requires that white not capture the knight on e4, thus remaining a piece down for the foreseeable future.

15…Rxf6 16.c3 (diagram)

Black to move

16…Nf2+!

Sufficient also was 16…Rxf3 17.cxc4 Rxd3, but LaVieve seeks a more elegant solution.

17.Rxf2 Qxd3! and white resigned.

It’s easy to see why she was proud of this game. The fact that it was never mentioned, let alone printed, is what makes me think it was from a private casual game. Had it been played in a tournament or other public event it would have caused a sensation and been reported as a “brilliant win by Miss Hines,” as was the case in other games where she had crushed her male opponents but the game scores were never published.

LaVieve Hines: U.S. Women’s Champion?

In lieu of the string of accomplishments LaVieve had amassed, it seems almost a letdown to speak of her winning the “women’s tournament” at the Pasadena Congress as the apex of her chess career. She simply outclassed the field, probably by 400-600 points by modern rating standards. The only woman who was thought to be even a remote threat was Mary Bain but that proved not to be the case. Clearly, she was head and shoulders above everyone else.

There is a strong argument that LaVieve should be recognized as the first U.S. women’s champion based on her results alone. There is also much historical precedence of women being labeled with that title in various verbiage either through their own volition or by others, though none with much credibility behind the claims. One young lady—the typing sensation Birdie Reeve—even went so far as to proclaim herself World Champion!

To my knowledge LaVieve never claimed the title of U.S. champion, but the notion was certainly inferred by her contemporaries whom, after seeing her battle tested successes against some of the best players in Southern California, gave her the honorary title of Pacific Coast Women’s Champion. They also noted in chess columns that she was likely the strongest woman in the nation. But the most compelling argument is a remarkable endorsement by the sitting world champion, Alexander Alekhine!

August 1932. LaVieve Hines and Alekhine

at her home at 1814 Maple St. in Pasadena

Prior to the Pasadena Congress Alekhine spent several days with LaVieve, residing at her home in Pasadena. This was not a romantic encounter, although given Alekhine’s known propensity for older women it’s interesting to contemplate his thoughts about LaVieve’s mother, Amelia, who also resided at the same residence.

During this time Alekhine shared with LaVieve all of his games and analysis from the recently concluded London tournament of 1932, which included his famous brilliancy prize winning game against Koltinowski. LaVieve’s notebook is filled with the game scores along with Alekhine’s personal notes, not only in LaVieve’s handwriting but also Alekhine’s himself.

She also notes that Alekhine was “coaching her” for the upcoming women’s tournament at the Congress and gives some of the opening variations that he had suggested for her.

Among LaVieve’s artifacts was a photo of Alekhine with an inscribed note to her that read:

To the future American chess womens (sic) champion.

Sincerely, A. Alekhin

14, Aug. 1932

Of course, there was no ‘official’ U.S. women’s championship tournament at that point and wouldn’t be for another five years. But in Alekhine’s mind LaVieve was a shoe-in for the title; a point he reiterated in his remarks at the closing ceremonies for the Pasadena Chess Congress where he said LaVieve was “The foremost woman chessist of the United States.”[17]

What is an endorsement by the world champion worth?

Four days later LaVieve would meet Alekhine in their third and final encounter:

Alekhine—LaVieve Hines

26 Board Simul

Los Angeles Athletic Club

September 2, 1932

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 d6 4.d4 Bd7 5.Bxc6 Bxc6 6.Nc3 Nf6 7.dxe5 Nxe4 8.Nxe4 Bxe4 9.exd6 Bxd6

LaVieve has emerged from the opening with the two bishops and a slight lead in development against the foremost openings expert on the planet. One common tactic for simul players is to go for early draws against stronger opponents to cut down on their thinking time. I believe Alekhine’s mindset moved in this direction here.

10.O-O O-O 11.Re1 Re8 12.Bg5 Qc8 13.Nd4 Bc5 14.c3 Bg6 15.Rxe8+ Qxe8 16.Qe1 (now clearly heading for the draw) 16…Qe4 17.Qxe4 Bxe4 18.Re1 Re8 19.f3 Bc6 20.Rxe8+ Bxe8 21.Be3 Bxd4, draw

(L) LaVieve Hines posing with Pasadena Congress ‘Cup’ and chessboard

showing final position from her drawn game against Alekhine (1932)

(R) The Pasadena Congress Cup as it looked in 2009

That LaVieve was happy with the result is exhibited in the fact that she posed with the final position on the board along with her Pasadena Congress victory cup in a photo. The game is further evidence that she had the skills to match the claims.

But there was also the it factor.

What set LaVieve apart from almost all other women had as much to do with her attitude as with her skills on the board. Her confidence was unshakable and she didn’t buy into the chauvinistic convention that women are intellectually inferior to men. “Women” she said “could play chess equally as well as men if they were not psychologically beaten before they started.”[18] In another article she extrapolates further, noting that women could not only be “as great or better players than men if only they would apply themselves,” but women are not using their best asset, “women’s intuition,” which she attributes to much of her success. “A good intuitional player,” she says, “can beat a good logical player with surprising frequency.”[19]

Whether or not LaVieve’s views on women’s intuition holds up is really of no consequence. The fact that she scoffed at the idea of male superiority in chess put her in a class by herself, and not only for 1930s America. During the U.S. Women’s Championship in 1946 all the players, which included Gisela Gresser and Mary Bain, were polled on the question of male dominance and each of them admitted outright that men were better players than women. The reason? Emotionalism. “Even those cool, capable women chess champs,” said Edith Weart, “can’t eliminate their natural emotionalism which does not blend with chess playing.”[20] That too was the view of Harry Golombek, speaking on the “defect” in Vera Menchik’s play. Revered human qualities like kindness and modesty, it seems, are the bane of chess greatness.

Perhaps Gisela Gresser, the regal 9-time U.S. Women’s Champion, had it right when she said the reason men are better is that “Women are too intelligent. They have more important things to do than play chess. To be a really great chess player you have to give up your whole life to it.”[21]

There can be little doubt that had LaVieve continued playing the future dominance of American women’s chess by Gisela Gresser and Mona Karff would have looked very different. More, had she studied under the mentorship of someone like Isaac Kashdan, whom she admired, there was a good chance that America might have seen a world champion in women’s chess.[22] It should be remembered that Vera Menchik studied under Geza Maroczy whose solid, positional, style gave her the perfect bedrock to build on and easily outclass her nearest rivals in women’s chess. She was even allowed to compete in all-men events, notoriously opening the Vera Menchik Chess Club[23] of which no one wanted to be a member but many were. Kashdan was of the same class as Maroczy, both as a player and as a person. In fact, in 1932 Kashdan was already the strongest player in America and easily among the top ten in the world. His style was smooth and solid. He had excellent openings and impeccable endgame technique, especially with the two bishops which he played better than anyone in the world. Add to that that LaVieve was a notoriously good student and was all too familiar with the rigors of real work while studying under noted ‘masters’ of dance and music.

This is one of several publicity photos taken at the Pasadena Congress. (Seated): Henry MacMahon, LaVieve Hines, Dr. Robert Griffith; (Standing) Harry Borochow, Isaac Kashdan (with hands on LaVieve’s shoulders), Arthur Dake. That LaVieve was included within ‘the group’ is noteworthy in itself. She was not just a prop but a peer!

The problem with talking about someone’s ‘potential’ is that you’re really highlighting their failure to achieve something. They should’ve, could’ve, would’ve achieved this, if—but for whatever reason did not. Ultimately, LaVieve did not go on to greater things in chess. In fact, shortly after the Pasadena Congress she literally seems to disappear off the face of the planet! After around mid-1933 there is not another mention of her in chess, nor for that matter in anything.[24]

The Girl that Got Away...

So what happened? And more, why should we care? As it turns out both questions have the same answer.

I thought she must have settled down, gotten married, had children, etc. Life. Sometimes promising chess talents just move on with realities that extend beyond a 64-square board. Had she moved back to New York or London or Paris, perhaps playing in orchestras with the Piatigorskys and Rubinsteins of the world? Had she died? The newspapers of the time are riddled with daily accounts of fatal auto accidents. A few years later while returning from a tournament Herman Steiner was involved in a head-on collision that nearly took his life. His passenger Dr. Robert Griffith, one of the organizers of the Pasadena Congress, was killed instantly.

None were the case.

LaVieve Hines lived to be 101 years old (one of the great feats in human history)! After moving to Pasadena in 1918 she and her mother lived together in the same house at 1814 Maple Street until Amelia’s death in 1943, and then she remained there until aged 90 when she had to be moved to a nursing home after a bad fall off a ladder. She was never married and never had children. She did have a male ‘companion’ after Amelia died, but with separate rooms and no romantic inclinations, at least not on her part. In fact when she was 98 years old she confessed to her nephew that she was “still a virgin, and proud of that.”

So what gives? What could have happened that would cause this firecracker of a woman to withdraw so suddenly—and completely—from chess and society? Interestingly, for family this has always been a mystery, though it was thought that it had something to do with Amelia and the power she held over LaVieve. Perhaps. But maybe there was something else.

The White Blackbird

As it turns out there was one man who aggressively injected himself into LaVieve’s life over a three-year period. A man who was widely lauded for his weekly chess column in the Los Angeles Times, but on June 19, 1933 wrote his name in the annals of chess infamy when he murdered Gabrielle Andrieux, a young French girl who had shunned his marriage proposals. His name was Clif Sherwood.

The same Los Angeles Times Sherwood worked for ramped up the hyperbole in their headline the next morning:

“Checkmate!”

Death, with immutable fingers, slipped across the chess board of life yesterday afternoon and ended the game in which police were waiting to move against Cliff Sherwood, 40-year-old chess expert, for the murder of Gabrielle Andrieux, French modiste, in her home at 1748½ Wilcox avenue, Monday afternoon....[25]

On the run, Sherwood was found twelve hours later by Burbank police, seven miles away from the murder scene. He was slumped over the steering wheel in his crashed car with a single gunshot wound to the head, self-inflicted. He was taken to General Hospital where he would die early the following morning, never regaining consciousness.

Clif Sherwood and Gabrielle Andrieux (Monson collection)

It would be easy to use a tragic event such as this to sensationalize the relationship between LaVieve and Clif Sherwood, but it’s not necessary; in this case reality really is stranger than fiction.

Born in 1884 in Newark, New Jersey, Clif Sherwood grew up in Westport, Connecticut and was the nephew of former Connecticut governor, Phineas Lounsbury. It’s unknown why, but he moved to Los Angeles in 1920 and was active in chess circles almost immediately. He took a board against the 11-year-old “Boy Wonder” Sammy Reshevsky[26] in Los Angeles, 1921 during his famous simul tour of the U.S.[27] He ran the chess column in the Los Angeles Evening Express for one year between September, 1921 and October, 1922, and then started the Los Angeles Times chess column in October, 1927. Outside chess he worked as a door-to-door salesman and other odd jobs. But he always had trouble supporting himself and changed residences frequently.

Mental illness also ran in his family. His father had been declared insane and spent the last years of his life in a sanitarium in Connecticut. Police later discovered Sherwood had also been committed to a sanitarium for two years, explaining his four-year absence when he abruptly left California in 1922 only to return suddenly in 1927.

That Clif suffered from manic-depressive disorder and likely other forms mental illness is evident in his chess columns, which he frequently utilized to reveal odd points about himself or others. In one example from 1931 he cites the suicide note left by chess player, Kenneth Haegg who had recently attempted suicide (and failed):

“Instinct orders ‘Live.’ But reason says ‘Life is senseless, therefore abandon it.’ Not being a fool, living in a world of fools is too great a strain.”

Sherwood’s cryptic response: “His diagnosis may have been quite correct but his method of cure not so impressive.”[28]

Even more frequently his column was used as a singles forum in blatant attempts to drum-up a romantic connection. Each week he presented a chess problem that readers would write to him with their solutions and those who got it had their names printed. Tragically, Gabrielle Andrieux’s name can be found among those who “wrote in.” Most likely she attended one of the “social chess for women” or other “ladies especially invited” ruses he used to draw in women.

One woman wrote in asking whether chess players make good husbands. If there’s a positive side to the tragic figure of Clif Sherwood it’s the humorous self-degradation he was at times capable of, as evidenced by his response:

“The chess editor, knowing nothing about marriage and almost as much about women, ventures to guess that while the wife of a chess player might complain the first year of their married life about his staying out nights (at the club) it’s a safe bet by the second year she’d complain if he didn’t stay out.”[29]

LaVieve Hines also wrote in to his column, almost weekly. And starting in 1929 he became more and more obsessed with her. His columns mentioned her on dozens of occasions, often with some sort of romantic innuendo. And no other woman besides LaVieve received such attention. “Miss LaVieve Hines of the Pasadena Chess Club,” he notes in a column from 1929, “is trying to organize a team of women. If they’re all like Miss Hines the writer would gladly furnish a team of men to play them and enjoying (sic) losing every game.” In another, also from 1929 he says: “Miss LaVieve Hines plays their [Pasadena Chess Club’s, ed.] best men to a standstill . . . but one look at this pretty young lady, and what man wouldn’t let her win?” And this from 1930: “Miss LaVieve Hines . . . has been winning so regularly of late from some of the strongest men players that we have a suspicion the charming young lady’s smile has something to do with it . . . Anyway, she needs watching: maybe that’s the trouble.”[30]

Pasadena Star-News article with photo showing

Sherwood standing next to LaVieve at chess board.

“Girl awarded chess title”

But it did not stand at mere words of infatuation. Sherwood went to some length to get involved in real life events surrounding LaVieve’s chess and possibly other activities. He was a piano player and very likely played up to her musical talents as well.

In 1930 when LaVieve was awarded the honorary title of “Pacific Coast woman’s chess champion,” who was it that appeared with her in the AP photo? Clif Sherwood. In the article it even notes that Sherwood “has volunteered to act as a manager for her.”

In an earlier photo published in the Pasadena Star-News in 1929 headlined, “Pasadena Woman Will Play in Simultanous Chess Match” [against Alekhine, ed.] Sherwood also appears with LaVieve, sitting next to her at a chess board.

And there were many other examples, in each case with Sherwood demonstrating some gesture of infatuation toward LaVieve. And it’s worth noting that among LaVieve’s scrap books she had copies of all the newspaper clippings he had written about her.

Perhaps even more interesting is what is not in her scrapbook. While there were numerous articles in the media about Clif Sherwood’s murder of Gabriella Andreiux and his subsequent suicide, there is no reference whatsoever to those events among LaVieve’s papers. Naturally, she would have been shocked by the events and shunned any reference to it.

Others did the same.

Under the heading “Chess and Crime” in the July-August 1933 The Chess Reporter, Henry MacMahon spoke collectively for the entire Southland chess community by distancing themselves from Sherwood in no uncertain terms. Several times MacMahon refers to Sherwood as a “white blackbird,” which is a turn of the century term for an anomaly of nature, “an aberrant curiosity that fascinates spectators,” like Alexander Dumas’ The Black Tulip or Horace’s black swan.[31] Which was all just another way of saying Sherwood was not one of us. “Chess players,” MacMahon said, “are proverbially honest, they’re not out to do you except on the black-and-white battlefield.” He goes on to lambast the media for calling Sherwood an “expert” at chess and reminds us that he was not, stating that chess was merely “an escape” for Sherwood, but “never a major interest or any kind of obsession.”

MacMahon is being a bit disingenuous here. Although Sherwood was indeed well below “expert” strength as a player, he was quite knowledgeable about the chess world he wrote about. He also had a sizable following of “friends” through his chess column, receiving numerous praises from MacMahon himself within the pages of the The Chess Reporter as well as from other respected commentators such as Herman Helms in New York and even as far away as England. He was afforded honorary memberships to most of the chess clubs in the Los Angeles area and he was even the master of ceremonies for many chess events, including Alekhine’s much touted simultaneous exhibition held at the Los Angeles Athletic Club in 1929.

After MacMahon poetically cleansed chess (and chess players) from any stains Sherwood might have left on our dear game, those dark memories gradually faded into the background noise. Chess went on. Even the Los Angeles Times chess column went on when the recent New York transplant, Herman Steiner, took the reins when no one else would touch it with a ten-foot pole! Club tournaments, city and state championships, simultaneous exhibitions all continued. People didn’t just stop playing chess.

Except for LaVieve Hines.

After June 1933 there is no further reference to LaVieve having anything to do with chess or chess players! Not once in the next twenty years did she write in to Steiner’s column to give a solution to a chess problem. Or Isaac Kashdan’s column after him, or Jack Peters’ column after that. That could be just a coincidence. Perhaps she’d already decided to hang up her pawns after the Pasadena Congress, but it’s not likely. To the contrary she had expressed interest in playing in the next cycle of the Southern California Championship.

Here’s what I think happened.

The murder of Gabrielle Andrieux scared the hell out of LaVieve! Seeing how close Clif Sherwood had managed to get to her she must have imagined the very real possibility that it could have been her lying dead, head bludgeoned and shot twice in the chest. But even that might not have been the final straw were it not for her mother, Amelia, who most likely settled the issue in no uncertain terms—finis!

Whatever it was, LaVieve Hines disappeared from the chess arena forever. Inexplicably, even with all the media attention she had received in the press and the long list of great masters who knew her, talked with her and even played games against her, her name somehow drifted into oblivion and she was forgotten.

If nothing else, I hope this article will at least change that.

Update 2020: While it remains true that LaVieve Hines never returned to chess, there were two glimmers of hope that the flame might be reignited. The first was in 1937 when Douglas Houghton, the tireless chess promotor and editor of the chess column in the Pasadena Star-News, expended some effort to bring LaVieve back into chess. He convinced her (initially, at least) to perform a simultaneous exhibition at the 1937 Morphy Day festival in nearby Sierra Madre, a favorite event of hers which she had helped organize from its inception in 1930. “Champion Returns” was the headline Houghton gave in his column. “A feature new to the Morphy Day program will be the women’s rapid-transit tourney and simultaneous exhibition by Miss Le Vieve (sic) Mae Hines, Pasadena and women’s champion of California. Miss Hines has been absent from the carnival for the past three years. Her return to the lists of the chess arena will be welcomed by her host of friends.” Unfortunately, no such exhibition took place and it is not known whether LaVieve even attended the event at all. The second glint was from LaVieve’s notebook in which she had written down some chess openings under the date “1945” which suggests she may have been contemplating playing in the 1945 Hollywood Pan Am tournament, organized by Herman Steiner. The women’s event included Mary Bain who ultimately tied for first with N. May Karff. It seems likely that she would have at least attended, perhaps incognito. I have perused many photos from the tournament searching for her familiar face, thus far without success.

[13] The real name was the Chess and Checker Club of New York, owned by John Fursa, but was called the “Flea House” by patrons, evidently due to the club’s proximity to an actual flea circus that had been located nearby on 42^nd Street at one time.

[31] Impossible Purities: Blackness, Femininity, and Victorian Culture, By Jennifer DeVere Brody

[13] The real name was the Chess and Checker Club of New York, owned by John Fursa, but was called the “Flea House” by patrons, evidently due to the club’s proximity to an actual flea circus that had been located nearby on 42nd Street at one time.

[31] Impossible Purities: Blackness, Femininity, and Victorian Culture, By Jennifer DeVere Brody

[13] The real name was the Chess and Checker Club of New York, owned by John Fursa, but was called the “Flea House” by patrons, evidently due to the club’s proximity to an actual flea circus that had been located nearby on 42^nd Street at one time.