Julius Finn (28 April 1871 – 6 December 1931) was an American
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
master.
Born into a Jewish family in
Władysławow,
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
(then
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
), he came to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 1887. From a humble start as a street peddler on the
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an im ...
, Finn swiftly rose to become New York's champion chess master and one of the country's best blindfold chess entertainers. Finn's first tournament in America was a Handicap Tournament played in New York's Café Boulevard in 1895 where he was ranked as a 2nd class player at the beginning of the competition. As it happened, he took home the 1st prize ahead of
William Ewart Napier
William Ewart Napier (17 January 1881, in East Dulwich, Surrey – 6 September 1952, in Washington, D.C.) was an American chess master of English birth.
Life
William Napier's parents emigrated to the United States when he was five years old. ...
,
Hermann Helms, and many other well-known players from the local American scene. In July 1897, Finn led a consultation team to victory against the veteran
Wilhelm Steinitz in the rooms of the Metropolitan Chess Club.
He won thrice the New York State Championship (1901, 1907, 1908), and won the
Rice Gambit tournament at the
Manhattan Chess Club
The Manhattan Chess Club in Manhattan was the second-oldest chess club in the United States (next to the Mechanics' Institute Chess Club in San Francisco) before it closed. The club was founded in 1877 and started with three dozen men, eventually ...
in 1903. Finn did engage in two interesting cable games. One with a Cuban team led by
José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (19 November 1888 – 8 March 1942) was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. A chess prodigy, he is widely renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play.
Capablanc ...
in 1903 and the other was the New York – Berlin Cable Match from 1905 where he played on the third board for New York, drawing his game with
Emil Schallopp.
Mr. Finn acted as referee at the
World Chess Championship 1921
The 1921 World Chess Championship was played between José Raúl Capablanca and Emanuel Lasker. It was played in Capablanca's native Havana from March 18 to April 28. Capablanca won the match by a score of 9-5 (4 wins, 0 losses, 10 draws) to become ...
which was played between
Emanuel Lasker and José Raúl Capablanca in Havana. He was one of the organizers of the
New York 1924 chess tournament and the president of the 1927 New York Tournament. He also served as adjudicator for the college chess league with which Columbia, Harvard, Yale and Princeton were affiliated. He had been a member of the Manhattan Chess Club and Rutgers Club for many years.
[http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles254.pdf ]
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Finn, Julius
Jewish chess players
Polish chess players
American chess players
Lithuanian Jews
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
Polish emigrants to the United States
1871 births
1931 deaths
People from Kudirkos Naumiestis