November 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover'

For the second month in a row, after October 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (October 2024), top U.S. tournaments dominated the covers of American chess magazines both 50 and 25 years ago. Artwork was also a recurring theme.

Left: '?'
Right: 'Knights, one and all...'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Pal Benko (left) and Vlastimil Hort, co-winners of the U.S. Open. Story and games [inside]. Photos by Burt Hochberg.

'Story and games [inside]' came after three articles on the 1975 World Championship. The first article was about the Karpov - Korchnoi match, the final match of that cycle's Candidate matches; see 1973-75 Candidates Matches (m-w.com), for a record of all the matches that took place during that cycle. The final match became a de-facto title match when Fischer forfeited his title in 1975. The introduction to the article said,

The Finals match in the 1974 Candidates series began in Moscow September 10. Aften ten games, the score was Karpov 2, Korchnoi 0. To win the match a player must score five victories or be in the lead after 24 games; if the score is even after 24 games, a coin toss (or other chance drawing) will decide the contest. Here are the first ten games.

The second article was the monthly column 'The Editor's Page - News & Views' by Burt Hochberg. It started,

World Champion Bobby Fischer, defending the match rules he favors, comments: "The whole idea is to make sure the players draw blood by winning games, and the spectators get their money's worth." The accuracy of his judgment is borne out by the current Karpov-Korchnoi match in Moscow, in which after 14 games the score remains 2-0 in Karpov's favor.

The third article was the monthly column 'Larry Evans on Chess', subtitled, 'The World Champion Speaks'. It started with a letter from Bobby Fischer and continued for two pages. The whole Fischer forfeit saga deserves to be documented from the USCF's point of view as recorded in the pages of Chess Life. Has this ever been done?

Only after the three articles on the World Championship do we find 'The U.S. Open: An Interesting Disappointment' by Burt Hochberg. It immediately took a dark tone, starting,

In this scientific age of ours, we are obsessed with numbers. Record-breaking is becoming a common concern of our daily lives. In chess, the establishment of records, to the point of pointlessness, already occupies the thoughts of a great many intelligent people.

After a few more paragraphs, Hochberg revealed the reason for the 'Disappointment'.

If we are convinced that record-making and record-breaking are legitimate concerns because of their incentive value, then we must also take it upon ourselves to explain why a standing record was not broken -- or even met -- despite every expectation that it would be far exceeded. To descend from the metaphysical to the specific: why did the 1973 U.S. Open in Chicago (a city of about 3.5 million) attract almost 50% more entries than the 1974 U.S. Open in New York (a city of about 8 million)?

A second article, 'New York's U.S. Open' by Bill Goichberg, explained the circumstances for the disappointment. It started,

After 35 years. the U.S. Open was finally held in New York. It was not an event I will fondly remember. Not only were entries far below what most people expected, but the out-of-town turnout was particularly poor. The host hotel had been guaranteed 100 sleeping rooms, and when the actual count proved to be far lower, we were socked with a whopping rental charge of $5,000.

Heavy financial losses were suffered by both USCF and the co-sponsoring Continental Chess Association. jeopardizing the latter's nationwide tournament promotion program. CCA has been losing money for the past year, and will have to cut back in many areas unless attendance suddenly recovers or enough voluntary donors can be found.

Chess historians accept that the 1970s Fischer boom started in 1972, but when did it end? It appears that 1973-74 was the start of a long slide to pre-1972 levels.

What happened to our two cover GMs? They each won $1.675 (which would be more than $10.000 today). Benko was last seen in October 1969 'On the Cover' (October 2019), although his compositions made the cover in both the January 1970 & 1995 (January 2020) and January 1972 & 1997 (January 2022) 'On the Cover'. Hort was last seen in June 1969 'On the Cover' (June 2019).

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Dragons or dragon-slayers, depending on your outlook. But they all wind up being Knights of the 64 squares. Huzzah! Huzzah! for our new Interplay champions Boris Gulko, Marcel Martinez, and Anjelina Belakovskaia, and for Gregory Serper (World Open), Alex Yermolinsky (U.S. Open), and Andrei Zaremba and Steven Winer (Denker champions).

And it is that time of year. The call for nominations for the Hall of Fame appears on page 23.

The cover design is by Patrick Kelly of Grand Rapids Michigan.

The first five players were also named in last month's 'On the Cover' introduction for 1999. They were the winners of four tournaments reported inside the November 1999 issue (Gulko and Belakovskaia won their respective sections of the U.S. Championship). Did the Chess Life editors have some trouble deciding what story to feature?

Since the U.S. Open was the featured tournament in the 1974 CL and was also the first of the four tournaments covered in the 1999 CL, let's continue with it here. The article '1999 U.S. Open: The Big Bang' by GM Edmar Mednis started,

The 100th Annual U.S. Open Championship at the luxurious Sands Regency Hotel Casino in Reno was held August 10-19, 1999. It started with a bang and never let up. At the welcoming ceremony in the evening of August 9, the participants were treated to an exhibition by Buckeroo Beau, the reigning world bullwhip champion and award-winning gun slinger and trick roper. For those having quieter interests there was Christa Lynn Jones, the reigning Miss Reno Rodeo. Some 80 people enjoyed the action and sumptuous Western-style barbecue.

How about the bang from the $63,300 prize fund unconditionally guaranteed by the Sands Regency? Truly a record -- just compare with the $22,000 of the 1998 Open! And the bang from the $10,000 first prize and the many bangs from the total of 61 cash prizes.

Bang, bang, bang, bang... The four bangs in that excerpt were followed by six more bangs in the rest of the paragraph. Anyone feel like banging their head against the wall?

The Hochberg report on the 1974 U.S. Open mentioned that there were 549 players. The Mednis report on the 1999 U.S. Open mentioned,

The 338 players at the start did a lot of banging and it became even louder when the busy-persons joined the action at the start of Round 5, bringing the total up to 485.

If 549 players were a disappointment, what can be said about 338/485 players exactly 25 years later? And what happened 25 years after that ... in 2024?