Fred Reinfeld: America's Chess Teacher
Alex Dunne, Fred Reinfeld: The Man Who Taught America Chess, with 282 Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2019. Paper. $45.00.
Fred Reinfeld (1910-1964) helped teach me chess. In fact, he was “the man who taught America chess,” as the sub-title of Alex Dunne’s splendid book says. Dunne notes that when Reinfeld’s library was donated to New York University in 1965, “he had over 1,000 books on chess and over 260 books that he had written” (170). The vast majority of this huge output were chess books. His widow, Beatrice Reinfeld wrote: Fred’s popular books brought many people to a deeper understanding of chess than they otherwise would have had….Was it Tarrasch who said something to the effect that ‘chess, like music, had the power to make men happy’? In his way my husband brought that happiness to many people” (171).
Reinfeld was a unique chess talent. When the first United States Chess Federation’s rating list was published in December 1950, Reinfeld was the sixth highest rated player in the United States at 2593. The top two were grandmasters Reuben Fine (2817) and Samuel Reschevsky (2770) followed by other Senior Masters (151). But Reinfeld turned from serious tournament play and becoming a professional chess master to becoming a chess journalist. So, Kester Svendsen remarked in Chess Life (December 1949): “It is not exaggeration to say that Reinfeld’s work is one of America’s most significant contributions to the chess world. The ideas and play of Tarrasch, Capablanca, Nimzowitsch and Botvinnik, among others, have clarified under his pen. A whole chess generation is indebted to him for instruction and entertainment” (149). Svendsen was later to write of Reinfeld’s, The Complete Chess Player: “What can one say except that Reinfeld has done it again? Everything the man touches turns to excellence” (155).
Reinfeld was born in New York City in the vicinity of which he lived his entire life. His father, Barnett Reinfeld, was born in Russia or Poland. His mother, Rose Pogrezelsky Reinfeld, was also of Russian ancestry. His younger sister, Lena Reinfeld, was born two years after Fred.
Reinfeld said he learned chess at age nine but did not pursue play. Soon after his eleventh birthday, he read that Capablanca had defeated Emanuel Lasker to become the World Chess Champion. Reinfeld looked up the article on Chess in the Encyclopedia Britannica and said, “Not having money to buy chess books, I haunted the public libraries in my free time, I copied out thousands of master games by hand….For years I never spent less than an average of seventy hours a week in chess!” (3-4; from Reinfeld’s, The Great Chess Masters and Their Games, vii.).
Reinfeld qualified for the DeWitt Clinton High School Chess team in 1924 and began to win most of his games. In 1926, he joined the Marshall Chess Club and was active in playing correspondence chess. In 1929, Reinfeld, who was studying accounting at City College, New York, won the New York State Championship, being undefeated. In second place was future chess great, Reuben Fine, also a City College student.
At the Pasadena tournament in August 1932, Reinfeld tied for seventh-tenth place. He drew with Alekhine and Kashdan and beat Reschevsky. Alekhine, future World Champion, won the tournament. Reinfeld conveyed a story of a strange habit of Alekhine: “‘Although he was virtually a chain-smoker, he always kept his cigarettes in his pocket. When he wanted to smoke, he would reach into his pocket and maneuver one cigarette out without removing the pack. In this way he avoided the social necessity of offering his companion or opponent a cigarette!’” (40).
Chess for Amateurs
In 1932, Reinfeld started writing about chess. He began a position as part-time chess instructor for the adult education program of Columbia and New York University and taught in this capacity for many years. During the 1930’s, Reinfeld ran an ad in Chess Correspondent magazine, offering to annotate any game sent to him for one dollar. The following year, he began Black Knight Press from his basement in the Bronx. He began mimeographing chess books and translated several German articles into English.
During this time, Reinfeld started contributing to Chess Review. He had an on and off relationship with this magazine for a number of years. In August 1933, he won the New York State Championship and was undefeated. Reinfeld won the 1934-1935 Marshall Chess Club tournament and it was announced that he was “seriously considering the publication of a series of first class chess books, at the sensationally low price of 75 cents each….Fred says, ‘If I could get at least 100 customers in the league for each book, I could afford to put out the very best books within reach of every one’s pocket, and in that way popularize the game tremendously.’ Can we give Fred some encouragement on his plan?” (64).
In 1935, Reinfeld wrote seven chess books and became known as America’s foremost author of chess books. These early works began with The Book of the Cambridge Springs International Tournament 1904 in which Reinfeld, Irving Chernev, and many of the participants annotated all the games. Books that followed included Colle’s Chess Masterpieces (1936); Book of the 1935 Margate Tournament (with E.G.R. Cordingley); Instructive and Practical Endings from Master Chess (1937); Keres’ Best Games 1932-1936; and Botvinnik’s Best Games 1927-1934. In December 1937, P.H. Little said in Chess Review that Reinfeld’s “prodigious labors have made him one of the four or five greatest chess analysts in the world” (75). Little also wrote, in relation to the book on Botvinnik, that Reinfeld with his “tireless devotion to hard work, is determined that the game must be interpreted; to the rank and file of chess players, he feels, the bare game score offers nothing of the psychology and technical ideas entering the minds of the two masters playing. To this determination he brings, besides the aforementioned linguistic and creative talents, a delightful sense of humor, the kind which still retains elements of whimsy in a most cynical world” (75).
While continuing some tournament play, Reinfeld kept producing books. His Practical End-game Play (1939) was called, in 1950, Reinfeld’s “most valuable contribution to chess theory.” In 1939, against the background of international tensions, Reinfeld wrote in the Preface to this book: “In these days, the most critical the human race has ever known, it might seem to some people the height of triviality to write a chess book. But we want to cherish civilization, we want to preserve its gracious amenities, of which chess constitutes a minor but very satisfying part” (111).
Reinfeld’s innovative presentations were featured in Chess Mastery by Question and Answer where the author asked insightful questions about 16 master games. In the second half of the book, Reinfeld answered his questions. This was a “learning by doing” method, he said. A review in the South African Chess Magazine (March-April 1939) enthused: “I honestly think that Chess Mastery is the most outstanding chess book ever published in any language” (112).
Two Reinfeld Books
Reinfeld retired from active play and his stream of books kept on coming. His Immortal Games of Capablanca (1942) was a classic. He annotated 112 games and wrote a biographical study where he criticized the great Capablanca’s later style of play (131). Through the years, Reinfeld also ghost-wrote books for others. There includes, perhaps, Frank Marshall’s, My Fifty Years of Chess. Reinfeld also wrote a number of non-chess books, including 14 on coin collecting and titles on atomic science, geology and outer space (131; cf. 168).
On his popular books, Reinfeld was quoted as saying that “I played and wrote seriously—and got nothing for it. When I pour out mass-produced trash, the royalties come rolling in” (132). Relatedly, Reinfeld said of his Hypermodern Chess: As Developed in the Games of Its Greatest Exponent Aron Nimzovich (1958; a reprint of Nimzovich: The Hypermodern, published in 1948): “I frankly aimed at a ‘popular’ book, one which could be relished by all chessplayers regardless of their playing ability. I avoided over-long games, which (let it be confessed for once!) tend to bore the reader. I wanted relatively short, sharp, witty encounters which make their point in an unforgettably drastic manner” (162).
Fred Reinfeld—America’s Chess Teacher
When Reinfeld died of a virus infection at 54, the obituary in Chess Magazine said he was “the most indefatigable and prolific of all chess authors” (168). Fred’s son, Don, wrote of his father: “As a teenager I was astounded when I was forced to conclude that he remembered absolutely everything he read and every move of every game he had ever played or perused when browsing through chess journals. He worked all the time, every day, from right after breakfast until late at night” (169-170).
In 1996, Fred Reinfeld was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame. After paying tribute to Reinfeld’s accomplishment, the memorial concluded: “Decades after his death, many of his writings remain standards in the field.” In 1976, a photo was taken at the U.S. Open Championship of a player hunched over the board. He was wearing a tee shirt with the large message: “Reinfeld Lives”!
Great thanks to Alex Dunne for providing 282 of Reinfeld’s own games and giving us the story of the remarkable Fred Reinfeld, who “taught America chess.”
