Frank J. Marshall

Frank J. Marshall (1877-1944) was a premier American chess player who had significant tournament wins and endeared himself to those who played and followed chess. “‘He dressed like a Victorian gambler and was rarely without his ascot tie. His hair was reddish and grew darker as he aged. He chewed cigars and usually had one in his mouth, according to Arnold Denker, who was in his teens when he met the then august Marshall in the late 1920s. ‘When asked to speak he had the nervous habit of always clenching his hands behind his back, thus thrusting out his chest and rocking back and forth,’ Denker recalled.” [Andy Soltis, Frank Marshall, United States Chess Champion: A Biography with 220 Games (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1994), 2].

            Chess Review said, in a tribute: “‘He had a peculiar combination of characteristics we call “color,” a natural air of distinction, a keen sense of showmanship. When he entered a public place, people turned to look at him, then leaned their heads together and whispered’” [Soltis, 2].

            The Oxford Companion to Chess notes that Marshall “ranked among the world’s best ten for about 20 years from 1904” and “he was the leading American player after Pillsbury’s death in 1906 until Kashdan’s rise to fame around 1940” [David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 204, 205]. Marshall “compared his style with Jack Dempsey’s approach to prizefighting. ‘I have always liked a wide open game and tried to knock out my opponent with a checkmate as quickly as possible. I subscribe to the old belief that offence is the best form of defence’ [Golombek’s Encyclopedia of Chess, ed. Harry Golombek (New York: Crown Publishers, 1977), 193].

            Marshall is a personal favorite of mine. On the grandest scale, as Soltis says: “Frank Marshall was the most beloved chess master America has ever produced” [Soltis, vii].

            Here is a Crossword conveying a small slice of Marshall’s life and work.

For more on Frank Marshall see Andy Soltis' fine book Frank Marshall, United States Chess Champion: A Biography with 220 Games.

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