Newell Williams Banks (October 10, 1887 – February 17, 1977) was an American
checkers
Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. 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 dist ...
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
''Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper'', later renamed ''Leslie's Weekly'', was an American illustrated literary and news magazine founded in 1855 and published until 1922. It was one of several magazines started by publisher and illustrator Frank ...
, 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 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 t ...
,
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
.
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
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, 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 Frank Marshall, and
drew
Drew may refer to:
__NOTOC__ Places
;In the United States
* Drew, Georgia, an unincorporated community
* Drew, Mississippi, a city
* Drew, Missouri, an unincorporated community
* Drew, Oregon, an unincorporated community
* Drew County, Arkansas ...
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
Showalt ...
,
Samuel Factor, and
Oscar Chajes
Oscar Chajes (pronounced "HA-yes") (December 14, 1873 – February 28, 1928)* was an American chess player.
Biography
Chajes was Jewish and was born in Brody, Galicia, Austria-Hungary, in what is now Ukraine. In 1909, he won in the U.S. Open Cham ...
.
References
1887 births
1977 deaths
American checkers players
American chess players
Players of English draughts
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