From: "World Chess Championship", INTERNET:newsletter@mark-weeks.com Date: 00/02/15, 09:19 Re: Chess History on the Web (2000 no.4) The next review, following the Chess History bookmarks, is for the 'U.S. Chess Hall of Fame'. The bookmarks list this as the 'U.S. Chess Hall of Fame by US Chess Trust' and link to http://www.excaliburelectronics.com/uschf.html. This opens to the 'US Chess Hall of Fame & Sidney Samole Chess Museum'. I found another Hall of Fame site by Chesslinks Worldwide at http://www.chesslinks.org/hof/home.html. I'll look at both sites in this review. --- The main page for the Excalibur site is at http://www.excaliburelectronics.com/, which is 'The Official Web Site for Excalibur Electronics - The World's Largest Manufacturer of Electronic Chess Games'. The postal address indicates Miami, Florida. Who is Sidney Samole? An Alta Vista search on 'sidney NEAR samole' returns '9 pages found'. One page lists a testimonial from 'Sidney Samole, Fidelity International, Inc., Miami, FL'. Now it's clear -- Excalibur is an incarnation of the Fidelity computer company. The contact page lists President Shane Samole and Vice-President Stan Samole, so it's a family business; my guess is that Sidney is the family's patriarch. The Hall of Fame page has five links:- - Officers and Trustees - Hall of Fame News - Hall of Fame Photos - US Chess History - Hall of Fame Inductees [Officers and Trustees] lists 'Trustees 1998/1999', which includes the names of many U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) politicians. There is also a list of all USCF Presidents & Executive Directors. [US Chess History] says 'Each month, we present a new chapter in US Chess History'. The current article, dated August 1999, is 'Present Day New Orleans - A Chess Visit' by Kay McCrary. It says that it first 'appeared in the April 1989 issue of Palmetto Chess'. This site hasn't been updated for six months & the last update was a reprint. Oh, well! An [Archive Directory] lists 11 more articles:- 1999-07 The History of Chess Notation 1999-06 The Birth of Modern Chess 1999-05 The Beginnings of College Chess 1999-04 Chess in the Old West 1999-03 The Forgotten Forties 1999-02 Early Chess in the United States 1999-01 The First Chess Journalist's Association 1998-12 The US Presidents (and their vices) and Chess 1999-11 Early Women in American Chess 1998-10 Chess and Baseball 1998-09 William Steinitz - The American World Champion all by Robert John McCrary. I read a few of the articles, and they are very interesting. I won't explore them here, as they go beyond the theme of this review, which is the Hall of Fame. Who is Robert John McCrary? He was involved in last year's USCF elections, which are well documented on George John's page http://www.neosoft.com/~george/chess/USCF/politics/. This page points to McCrary's Web site at http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Mound/7575/. 'Thank you for electing R. John McCrary as a member of the USCF Executive Committee "Vision, not Division".' The page 'Bio Basics & Photo' tells us that McCrary has a Ph.D in Psychology. One of McCrary's letters on John's site informs us that McCrary has 'A COMMITMENT TO ENHANCE INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE: Here my "bridge-building" has paid off in the creation of a new World Chess Hall of Fame and Sidney Samole Museum, with cooperation between Excalibur Electronics, FIDE, and the US Chess Trust. My conversations with computer pioneer Sid Samole in 1997 and with FIDE Executive Director Omuku in 1998 led directly to this museum, scheduled to open at the beginning of 2000 in Miami. Don Schultz and Steve Doyle also played roles in helping to bring about this new idea, which will undoubtedly open vistas for new international influence for US chess.' There's a big clue here, when McCrary mentions the 'World Chess Hall of Fame'. An AltaVista search on this phrase returns '16 pages found'. All of the Web addresses are related to those I've indicated above, so I didn't look at any of them. The Sidney Samole Museum has wider ambitions than a Hall of Fame limited to U.S. chess history. This is an excellent idea & I hope that they succeed with their plans. On the downside, it appears that McCrary was the sole responsible for the content of the site & that he has stopped this activity since being elected a USCF official. Returning to the Excalibur page, the Hall of Fame lists 28 inductees. The charter members were Paul Morphy (*) and Robert Fischer (*), where '(*)' indicates that the Hall of Famer has a biography on the site. Other inductees, listed with the date of induction, are Pal Benko (1993:*), Hans Berliner (1990), Arthur Bisguier (1994:*), Robert Byrne (1994:*), John Collins (1991:*), Arthur Dake (1991:*), Arnold Denker (1992:*), Ed Edmondson (1995:*), Arpad Elo (1988:*), Larry Evans (1994:*), Reuben Fine (1986), Gisela Gresser (1992:*), Kenneth Harkness (1997:*), Hermann Helms (1988), Al Horowitz (1989), Isaac Kashdan (1986), George Koltanowski (1986), Sam Loyd (1987), George Mackenzie (1992:*), Frank Marshall (1986), Victor Palciauskas (1993:*), Harry Pillsbury (1986), Fred Reinfeld (1996:*), Samuel Reshevsky (1986), Wilhelm Steinitz (1987), and Milan Vukcevich (1998:*) --- Now let's look at the Chesslinks site. The main page for the site is at http://www.chesslinks.org/, which appears to be the same site as http://www.webcom.com/lawson/chess/. We learn on some of the other pages that 'Chesslinks Worldwide' is managed by Jerry Lawson. In addition to the Hall of Fame link, the main page links to:- - 'U.S. Chess Hall of Fame discussion group', which has two messages from 1999-12 - 'POLL: Should Irving Chernev Be Admitted to the Chess Hall of Fame?' - 'Page on Benjamin Franklin -- The newest member of the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame' The page 'U.S. Chess Hall of Fame' starts... 'Benjamin Franklin was inducted into the Hall of Fame during the 1999 U.S. Open. Chesslinks Worldwide has added a section to honor Dr. Franklin. ' ...and so appears to be more up to date than the Excalibur site. It also has information on the physical location of the museum... 'The U.S. Chess Hall of Fame museum, located at 1501 M Street, Washington, DC, describes the history of American chess. Formerly housed in the USCF headquarters in New Windsor, New York, it was moved to its present location in Washington, DC at the U.S. Chess Center in the early 90's'. ...The page also links to the U.S. Chess Center at http://www.chessctr.org/, where we learn that 'The U.S. Chess Center opened in downtown Washington, D.C., in July, 1992. The national U.S. Chess Hall of Fame and Museum was dedicated at the Center a few months later.' The Hall of Fame links back to Lawson's site, which has biographies of all 29 inductees. --- How much chess history is encapsulated in the biographies on the two sites? I looked at the bios for George Mackenzie, the inductee about whom I know the least. The Excalibur site has three paragraphs on Mackenzie. The Chesslinks site has 7-8 paragraphs & two links -- 'Download ten of Mackenzie's best games' & 'View Mackenzie's tournament record' -- both of which produced 'Not Found' messages. Which site should be linked from our bookmarks page? I'll accede to the wishes of the members of the Chess History discussion group. Bye for now, Mark Weeks