Newell Williams Banks (October 10, 1887 – February 17, 1977) was an American checkers and

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 ...

player. Banks played his first game of blindfold checkers at age five years and six months at the Detroit Chess and Checker Club. In 1909, according to Frank Leslie's Weekly, he defeated Hugh Henderson for the national championship. In 1947, at age 60, for 45 consecutive days (4 hours per day) Banks played 1,387 blindfold checker games, winning 1,331 games,

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...

54 and losing only two, while playing six games at a time. He also set a new blindfold speed record playing 62 games in four hours, winning 61 and drawing one at the Convention Hall,

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. Banks also played chess and is counted among the few players who have mastered both games. In the Master's Invitational Chess Tournament in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, 1926, Banks defeated

Isaac Kashdan Isaac Kashdan (November 19, 1905 in New York City – February 20, 1985 in Los Angeles) was an American chess grandmaster and chess writer. He was twice U.S. Open champion (1938, 1947). He played five times for the United States in chess Olymp ...

and

U.S. Chess Champion The U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational tournament held to determine the United States chess champion. Begun as a challenge match in 1845, the U.S. Championship has been decided by tournament play for most of its long history. Since 1936, i ...

Frank Marshall, and drew with former champion

Jackson Showalter Jackson Whipps Showalter (February 5, 1859 in Minerva, Kentucky – February 5, 1935 in Lexington, Kentucky) was a five-time U.S. Chess Champion: 1890, 1892, 1892–1894, 1895–96 and 1906–1909. Chess career U.S. Championship matches Showal ...

Samuel Factor Samuel ("S. D.") Factor (Faktor) (22 September 1883,His birth year is sometimes given as 1892. According to the Szachowa Vistula article about Factor, his obituary in the 1949 New York Times gave his age as 65, which would support the 1883 bir ...

, and Oscar Chajes.

References

1887 births 1977 deaths American checkers players American chess players Players of English draughts {{US-chess-bio-stub