A Century of Chess: Frank Marshall (1920-29)

Marshall was very much yesterday’s man by the 1920s, but was still a world class player, something like the permanent US champion, and placed surprisingly highly in international events — above all, coming close to the winner’s circle at New York 1924.

Andy Soltis writes that by the ‘20s Marshall’s characteristic swindling ability "took on magical proportions," and that’s maybe the best way to think of Marshall in this era, playing his own chess, with laws of physics that seemed to apply only to him. He continued to be a wonderful innovator in the openings, constantly finding new ideas to introduce complications into positions, and his gift for the swindle — which Soltis defines as the effort to "make winning difficult for an opponent" — meant that just about every one of his games resulted in a ferocious multi-part struggle. 

High-level chess had disappeared for close to a full decade, but an attempt to fundraise for an Alekhine-Capablanca match led to a major international tournament in New York in 1924. Marshall was the 'host,' well out of the loop in terms of hypermodern innovation, but he ended up standing for something like 'common sense in chess,' bringing the play back to a schoolboy rumble. His fourth place finish was much to the delight of the hometown crowd. Marshall called it a "most satisfying experience." 

It also inspired Marshall to undergo a European tour. "Everything seemed different and sadder," he recalled of the broken continent. But, from a chess point of view, the tour was a surprising success. He finished shared fifth at Baden-Baden 1925, shared third at Marienbad, and fourth at Moscow where he became something like a folk hero to the Soviet players. Years later, Boris Verlinsky would recall, "I don’t remember ever feeling such admiration for my opponents as I had for Marshall," while Pyotr Romanovsky wrote, "I had never thought that he, terror of all champions, was such a kindly, plain, and fine person." 

The point was — as Marshall had been demonstrating throughout his career — that impressions could be deceiving. Chessmasters were supposed to be brooding, unearthly types — as so many of them were. Marshall, meanwhile, was absolutely a regular person — kind of a hayseed, modest and easygoing — and yet had remained in the absolute front rank of the chess world for three decades. It was a triumph for common sense, an easygoing approach to life, and an unquenchable passion for the game. 

Sources: For this I have relied on Marshall's Best Games of Chess and Andy Soltis' Frank Marshall United States Chess Champion.