Larry Evans was also the first teenager to ever win the US Championship (a nice bit of trivia, that).
1947 Chess
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iksarol wrote:
andy are you a trolll
You may be the only guy I've ever seen to use his driver's license picture for his avatar.
Aug 26, 2012
0
#84
Thanks for the recent photo Batgirl. They did use that style of photo for GM Larry Evans' column so most of us know him with the beard. 
batgirl wrote:
JG27Pyth wrote:
AndyClifton wrote:
Yeah, I remember Mona Karff. She was part of the pre-Savereide era.
My first (or second -- I played two games that evening and I don't recall which was first) rated chess game ever, played at the Marshall Chess Club in Manhattan, was against an elderly Mona Karff -- she was rated somewhere between 1800 & 1900 at the time. She won. I played white -- some sort of out of book Queen's Gambit Declined where I made a premature push of my c pawn to c5. She graciously called the idea "interesting" in the post mortem.
Mrs. Karff was born around 1910, give or take a year or two and was playing her best chess even before the rating system was created (Her obit in 1998 says she was 86, but I don't think that was ever established). Considering her engagements, other than simuls and occasional games, were played against women (who in those days were considerably weaker than men), she still attained strong chess skills, probably comparable to a WIM today. Even after the rating system was established she had a USCF of around 2100.
I just checked on the USCF site and it has Mona May Karff as holding a Women's International Master title. They also have Ms. Karff playing chess in 1992 her last rating -- 1831 (in a tournament that includes a 1700 something Irina Krush -- who would have been 9 years old in 1992!) My game would have been a couple years earlier.
Aug 27, 2012
0
#86
I think the USCF online only goes back to 1991. There were several strong women players in the 1940s and 1950s. Karff was near the top of the heap.
Yes, we did. It does cover in detail the development of organized women's chess in America and may be too tedious for many, but it wasn't meant for everyone.