Early N.Y. Scholastic Championships

A recent post, Bisguier's Earliest Years, started, 'Over the last two weeks, the most important chess news stories were [...]'. There was another story that caught my interest, Golden Anniversary NY State Scholastic Shatters Attendance Records, because of the golden anniversary angle.

This year marked the 50th Anniversary of the New York State Scholastic Championship, and, as befits such a milestone, this year’s attendance shattered previous records. Last year, the event had 948 players, which was the third highest number since MSA began keeping statistics in 1991. The tournament had never broken the thousand player barrier—until this year’s total of 1165 players in eleven sections. Looking at previous MSA history, only six tournaments have broken that barrier, and five of those were New York City Scholastic Championships! • NB: If 'MSA' doesn't strike a chord, see US Chess Federation - Member Services Area.

For the past few years I've been spending one post per month on U.S chess news from 50 years ago -- the most recent was April 1967 'On the Cover' -- and I had the tools at hand to research this particular piece of chess history.

At first I thought the 'New York State Scholastic Championship' might have started as one of Bill Goichberg's early tournaments, but I soon learned that his event was the 'Greater New York Scholastic Championships'. As I gathered notes from different sources, I had trouble keeping track of the different bits of information, so I developed the following table to keep things straight. I know it's not easy to read, but it helps to know that 'CL66C077' means Chess Life 1966-03 ('A' through 'L' are months) p.77.

Event	Date	Announced	Reported	Rated
Greater New York High School and Junior High School Championships	1966-04	CL66C077	CL66E120	CL66H184
Greater New York Scholastic Championships	1966-12	CL66J255	CL67A014 CR67C078	CL67D095
(The Greater New York Scholastic Championships of December 1966 also received a mention in the March 1967 'On the Cover', where it was featured on the cover of Chess Review.)
Greater New York Scholastic Championships (3rd annual)	1967-12	CL67L401	CL68D140	CL68C097
New York Scholastic Championship (Ithaca NY)	1968-03	CL68A039 CR68B044	CL68F219 'second statewide high school event for New York State'	CL68E188
Greater New York Scholastic Championships (4th annual)	1968-12	CL68L461	CL69E205	CL69C114

Back to the golden anniversary angle, it's not clear to me if 2017 was the 50th annual event or the 50th anniversary (i.e. the 51st event). Whatever it means, the numbering is probably off by a year or two. Does it matter? I also discovered the '51st Greater New York Scholastic Chess Championships 2017' on gnyscc.com. If 1966 was the first, then 2015 was the 50th, and again we're off by a year.

Enough nitpicking. The early New York scholastic events were the start of a long-running tradition and set the stage for the Fischer boom a few years later.

***

Later: After posting the above table I continued to look for early NY scholastic events. I eventually found the first 'New York Scholastic Championship'; the announcement was in Chess Review ('CR') rather than Chess Life ('CL').

Event: New York State High School Championship (Liverpool [Syracuse] NY)
Date: 1967-03
Announced: CR67B038 (1st Annual N.Y. State Scholastic Championship; secondary school students)
Reported: CL67D088
Rated: CL67F165

After the 1968-03 event listed in my original table, I found the following.

Event: New York State High School Championship (Binghamton NY; CCA)
Date: 1970-05
Announced: CL70C174
Reported: CL70G399(?)
Rated: CL70H456

Event: New York State Individual & Team of Two High School Championship (Binghamton NY)
Date: 1971-04
Announced: CL71D223
Reported: ?
Rated: CL71H462

I couldn't find the 1969 event and I imagine that it was pushed aside by the first 'National High School Championship'.

Event: National High School Championship (New York NY; CCA)
Date: 1969-04
Announced: CL69B082 (article B083)
Reported: CL69E173 (cover); CL69F234 (teams); CL69F241 (article)
Rated: CL69G301

Taking all of this together with my original observation,

Back to the golden anniversary [NY State Scholastic] angle, it's not clear to me if 2017 was the 50th annual event or the 50th anniversary (i.e. the 51st event). Whatever it means, the numbering is probably off by a year or two.

It's fair to say that the 2017 NY State Scholastic indeed marked the 50th anniversary of the first such event.