Yearbook of the American Chess Federation. Volume 1, 1935 Comprising Sixty Games from the Milwaukee Tournament

68 pages with frontispiece, tables, diagrams and biographical sketches. Royal octavo (9 3/4" x 6 1/4") bound in original publisher's quarter brown cloth over green wrappers. From the library of Poul Hage. (Betts: 25-110) First edition. 

Thirty players showed up, and were assigned to three preliminary sections of ten players each. The top twelve players were seeded evenly between the three sections, with the rest distributed by lot. The intention was for the top three finishers to advance to the Championship Final, but ties for third place were not broken so that 11 players in all reached the final, nine of them being original seeds.

The three major favorites, Reuben Fine, Arthur Dake, and Isaac Kashdan all went through the tournament undefeated. Fine took his fourth straight title basically by drawing one fewer game than Dake in the final

Both Chess Review and the American Chess Bulletin give the inclusive dates as July 21-31. We know the latter is probably correct because Fine and Dake played the final round, but were back in New York in time to sail for Warsaw for the Olympiad on the morning of August 2. That's a 24-hour train trip today, and probably not much faster in 1935, so the 31st is the last day they could have been in Milwaukee.

Poul Hage (1906-1984) was born in Brandelev. He was Danish champion in 1937, 1938, 1949 and 1950.

Condition:

Poul Hage's book plate to front wrapper verso. Old hand written title taped to front wrapper, corners bumped else very good.