Teed

     The latter part of the nineteeth century saw many fine chess players in the New York area.  One of the best of these players was Frank Melville Teed.

     Teed was born in Westchester County, N. Y. during the last month of 1856 but didn't learn to play chess until after he moved to Norwalk, Connecticut in 1871. He moved back to New York as an adult and won the New York Chess Club Handicap Tournament in 1878 and the Manhattan Chess Club championship in 1881. He won the Brooklyn Chess Club Handicap Tournament in 1889.

      The American Chess Magazine called him  "...unmistakably a genius. He is brilliant, though of sterling soundness." He was known for being a fast player who never encountered time trouble (clocks at that time were just coming into vogue).

     Teed beat Steinitz +1=1 in a two game casual match in 1883 at the relatively fast time control of 30 moves/hour. Below is his win against Steinitz:

     Another well-known game was played between Dr. Louis Cohn and F. M. Teed:

     But what is probably his best know game is this extreme minature against the somewhat erratic master-strength player Eugene Delmar:

from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1898

     Teed served as secretary of the Brooklyn Chess Club and treasurer of the Manhattan Chess Club.  But he was most interested in and proud of chess compositions and considered himself more a composer than a player.  He was editor the problem department of Orestes Augustus Brownson's "Dubuque Chess Journal" and an associate editor for the "American Chess MAgazine." He collected over 30,000 chess problems which he collated in a sytem of his own device.  He himself authored over 800 problems, most of which were published.

     Below is a sampling of his compositions.

Frank Melville Teed died on May 25, 1929