Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Weaver Adams 2017

Banner:  Tony Cortrizas, Jr

Weaver Adams 2017

U1800 Boylston Chess Club Championship 

The Weaver Adams U1800 Championship begins the annual club championship cycle. It is followed by the Reubens-Landey U2200 Championship, the winner of which is seeded into the club championship - a round robin tournament of Boylston masters.



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Past winners of the Weaver Adams are:

2017  Joaquin Carlson, John Graf
2016   Jonathan Mark Lee, Vlad Jan Gaciu, Bernardo Iglesias
2015   Tom Medrek
2014   Timothy O'Malley
2013   Joel Bryan Wald, Brandon Wu 
2012   Brian Perez-Daple  
2011   Ken Ho, Mike Griffin, Khikmet Sadykov 
2010   Alexander Paphitis 
2009   Frank Frazier 
2008   Jonathan Lee, Adam Yedidia 
2007   Alexander Paphitis 
2006   Alexander Paphitis, Jonathan Lee, Lior Rozhansky
2005   Robert Oresick, Joshua Blanchfield 
2004   Mike Griffin 
2003   Robert Oresick 
2002   William MacLellan 
2001   Mike Griffin 
2000   Stephen E. Smith 
1999   Bryan Clark 
1998   Bryan Clark, Charles G. Alex 
1997   Walter A. Driscoll III 
1996   Hector Perez, Jared Becker
1995   Miguel A. Santana 
1994   Andrew L. Yerre 
1993   Charles G. Alex
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about Weaver Adams:


WEAVER WARREN ADAMS 
(born Apr-28-1901, died Jan-06-1963) United States of America
 


Weaver Warren Adams was born on April 28, 1901 in Dedham Massachusetts. He was an American chess master. He participated in the U.S. Championship in 1936, 1940, 1944, 1946 and 1948. He won the Massachusetts State Championship in 1937, 1938, 1941 and 1945.


In 1939, he wrote a book entitled "White to Play and Win." After publication he played in the U.S. Open at Dallas. He did not win a single game as White (3 losses and 1 draw) and won all his games (4 games) as Black!


Weaver Adams won the 49th U.S. Open, held in Baltimore, in 1948. He also wrote "Simple Chess", "How to Play Chess", and "Absolute Chess."
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In May, 1947, Weaver Adams, New England Champion, gave a 16-board simul in San Jose, winning all his games.


Below is a photograph taken in Hastings on 28 December 1950. Lord Dunsany (standing on the right) is watching the first-round game between Alan Phillips and Weaver Adams.


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Weaver W. Adams An Autobiography 
Massachusetts State Chess Association, 1949, Robert W. Reddy (Ed.) p. 6-8

I was born on April 28th, 1901 to Frank H. Adams, native of Dedham, Mass., salesman for many years for Bellantine Breweries and later (after prohibition) for Ceresota Flour, and Ethel Weaver Adams, native of Newmarket, NH and graduate of Wellesley College. I am not directly related to the Presidents, John and John Quincy Adams, although the Adams's in and about Massachusetts are mostly of the same family, deriving from a Henry Adams who landed in Braintree in 1644. The family is quite famous and boasts of many statesmen, writers, historians, judges, preachers, etc. Footing the list comes a national chess champion. In the old days he would have surely been branded as a black sheep for wasting his time at so idle a pastime, and perhaps by many even today.
My schooling was conventional, Dedham Public schools and Dedham High School, but then they tried to make an engineer out of me by sending me to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The result was not too good. During the first year a half dozen of us, after playing a few games at Walker Memorial in Cambridge, would regularly trek across the bridge to Ye Olde Boston Chess Club on Ashburton Place or to various dives in the West End, not the least attractive of which was the Lighted Lamp operated by Boston's famous Ambrose Gring.

Those were really the balmy days of chess in Boston. Well I remember listening to tales told many times over by John Barry, Will Miller, George Babbitt, and a host of others most of whom are no longer living. I seemed to have been a favorite with John Barry because I would talk chess and analyze with him until 4 A. M. in the morning after everybody else had either gone home or turned to a bridge game. At any rate I believe I learned most of my chess from Mr. Barry, and in 1922 attained to the club championship.

An autobiography is supposed to contain a statement as to when one learned chess, although it's not clear as to why this is so important. However, for the sake of the record, I began playing at the age of about twelve. An older brother of a friend next door taught the two of us to play, and would play us both simultaneously blindfold at Queen odds.

What I do think is important, however, is the time when he took us to Boston once to visit the Boston Chess Club which at that time was located in an alley off Boylston Street. I shall never forget the thrill it was to me to see for the first time the large club size pieces in action. Instinctively I seemed to feel that that was me. A friend of mine tells me that he had a similar experience on first visiting a stock exchange and seeing the ticker tapes in action. Curiously, all the rest of his life has .been spent in the stock market.

My chess activities , of course, did not have a good effect on my marks at M.I.T., and, due redness of my report card at the half year, I was politely asked to take a vacation. This I was quite agreeable too, since it afforded me additional time for chess playing. A year went by before my parents inveigled me into attending a military school in northern Vermont, and, six months later, re-entering my class at M.I.T. All knowledge is useful, and it is always futile to look back and say if we had done so and so, life would have been better. It is completely impossible to foresee the over all plan. We can live but a day at a time.

To continue my story, about 1924 Harold Morton had just won the championship of the Providence, R. I., chess club, and a purse was gotten up for a match to take place between Mr. Morton and myself for the championship of New England. Up to that time John Barry had been unofficially recognized as the strongest player in N. E., so, with his consent and approval it was logical that the winner of the match should hold that title. Thus, in 1924 I became the NE Champion and held the title until 1929 when Morton beat me in a succeeding match. Another match between us did not take place until about 1938 which Morton again won.

After his death in 1939 the title came under the control of the N. E. Chess Association and has been decided by an annual tournament (usually held over Labor Day weekend) ever since, which is all to the good, since I am strongly opposed to the awarding of titles through private matches. The tournament method is pre-eminently fair and much more attractive to both the players and the public.


Thereby closes the local chapter in my chess career. At this time – say 1936 - I think that both Morton and myself - I know I did - thought that we were pretty good chess players. We were in for a rude awakening. In that year (1936) was held the first tournament for the Chess Championship of the United States, due to the retirement of Frank J. Marshall.

I recall that after the first few rounds I kept figuring that I might still win the tournament, provided I won all of the remainder of my games. In fact, this went on for several rounds, before I finally gave up hope of first prize. After nine rounds I was relatively proud of my score, since I had three wins and six losses, while Morton had nine goose eggs in a row. However, we finished in a tie for last place, since in the remaining six rounds Morton got six draws, and it was my turn for goose eggs. I mention this experience in order to caution the reader that unless he happens to play regularly in the chess clubs of New York City, he shouldn't put too much store by his showing in the chess clubs of other cities. There is really a difference.

In a considerable sense I feel that my serious chess playing did not begin until after 1936. Hundreds of hours I spent on opening analysis, with the result that there began forming in my mind the idea that by means of precise play White could perhaps emerge from the opening with just enough edge to win. Thus developed a small volume published in 1959 by the David McKay Co. of Philadelphia entitled "White to Play and Win", by Weaver W. Adams. Forthwith, in a tournament at Dallas, Texas in 1940 I proceeded to lose all of my games playing white and win all of my games playing black!


However, I still stick to my theory, and even under the handicap of bucking my own analysis (most writers sedulously avoid playing a move which they have recommended as best, because of fear of having to play against a line which their opponent has prepared against it) and despite the hours which I am advised that many of my opponents spend in trying to discover mistakes in my published variations in "Simple Chess," I nevertheless lost but a single half point with the white pieces in the Open Tournament at Baltimore in 1948. And it wasn't because the boys didn't try. There were my moves open for all to see in "Simple Chess." They could select any one of a hundred different opening variations and I would play the exact moves as published. Is this not just a little significant that white can win? And, if so, why is my favorite opening the Vienna, so damned by faint praise, and so shunned by all the celebrities? You answer that one. I can’t.
I don't wish to take up space by tournament records. All in all, they could be a lot better, except perhaps locally, inasmuch as I have won every City of Boston, Massachusetts State, end New England tournament in which I have taken part since 1956 - some dozen or more altogether. I will merely say that having played in eighteen national tournaments, including U. S. National, U. S. Open, Ventnor City, and the Pan American in Los Angeles in 1945, I feel that this experience should mean something, and I hope eventually to demonstrate that it is possible to play chess with consistent scientific accuracy.

The following is an example of such a game. It is one of five which I have thus far played with similar accuracy for the Log Cabin Chess Team of West Orange, New Jersey, of which I have recently become a member. It was played at Elizabethtown, New York, vs. a Montreal Team, and was part of the coast to coast 1949 match between Canada and the U. S.
Adams,W - Guze [B72]
US v Canada, 1940
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.h3 Bg7 7.Be3 Nc6 8.Qd2 a6 9.g4 Nxd4 10.Bxd4 0-0 11.0-0-0 b5 12.Bg2 Bb7 13.f4 Qc7 14.Rhe1 Rfd8 15.Qf2 Nd7 16.Bxg7 Kxg7 17.Nd5 Bxd5 18.exd5 Nb6 19.f5 Nc4 20.g5 gxf5 21.Qxf5 Qd7 22.Qf4 Rac8 23.Be4 Rc5 24.b4 Rc7 25.Bf5 Qe8 26.Qd4+ Kg8 27.Qh4 e5 28.Qxh7+ Kf8 29.Qh8+ Ke7 30.Qf6+ Kf8 31.Re4 1-0



Alex Cherniack has posted 8 games between Weaver Adams and Harry Lyman, where you can see Harry Lyman 's opinion of the forced win for white theory.


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read this profile of Adams by 
Stephan Dann

Weaver Adams
 Chess Journalist, Historian, and Organizer.


Weaver Adams "started" writing "White to Play & Win" in 1935, and, an early edition of this "informal" publication was with Harlow Daly's papers, ledgers and scrapbooks that Harry Lyman & I obtained in 1975...


Adams continued "publishing" revisions to his "dogged" theories for some 25 years, the last editions of what he termed "Simple" and "Absolute" chess being "issued" about 1960, though the last year his health enabled him to "carry on" might have been 1959...


The greatest collection of Adams' material published was "edited" by Sam Sloan in 2007, but few know of the existence of this "limited" edition, published on demand book that would have had Harry Lyman "giggling" with delight, as it was about chess, and not about the tragic life of one of its players. 

I posted copies of some crosstables from 1905 to 1939 at the Mass. Open in Leominster yesterday, including games from the 1964 U.S. Open.  It was an effort to "complete" the weekday/weeknight chess events in Massachusetts before 1940, but most of this would have been lost were it no for the dogged efforts of Harlow Daly to document them for his own records, to "index" his games...and you can view this & more today & on Monday in Leominster...

My work with John Donaldson and Andy Ansel (who attended yesterday in Leominster, driving up from Long Island with his daughter), focus on games as the real history, not the politics and "entertainment" that sometimes accompanies chess gatherings.  

Collecting games played by Weaver Adams, Harry Lyman and other past chess legends (you will see the many names in Daly's ledgers and scrapbooks from Abe Moses Sussmann--New England Champion at the dawn of the 20th century--to Putzman, Cabot, Gring, Morton, Sturgis, Welch, etc.) right at the Boylston CC in the box of 2,000 game cards, history that you can hold right in your hand.


The time has come to scan these cards, and, use them as the basis of the history of the club, history of Boston and Massachusetts chess, and as basis to do new promotional efforts for the game without borders on the Internet.  

E-books on Weaver Adams, Harlow Daly and the 1964 U.S. Open (as well as the 1964 Fischer Tour--also by John Donaldson) are not only possible, but are the next logical step in preserving the legacy of past chess giants and encouraging future educational and historical endeavors at the Boylston Chess Club, and the work of the Boylston Chess Foundation.

Weaver Adams' family is still alive and well in Dedham, and is confident that the chess community will continue to preserve his memory in the hearts and minds of future generations. Like Pillsbury, we will never forget his contributions to the Royal Game.

E-books may not in themselves help finance efforts to finance clubs or run tournaments, but these may validate the efforts of .org chess foundations to raise funds to carry out their missions. 

It's time for sharing the "wealth" of the 1975 donation from Harlow Daly beyond "75 years of affection for chess" and just 150 games. Just the typos in the hastily prepared 1975 volume would fill a page or two...and we owe it to the memory of Harry Lyman to do a much better job the second time around.  

You have my continued support in preserving the Boylston Chess Club as one of America's premier chess shrines.

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