In Honor of Dan B McLeod

Dan B. McLeod started collecting chess books in the 1950s, shortly after he met his future wife, Nancy. Both of them knew just a little bit of chess, and after they were married, they found it an inexpensive form of entertainment. They started a match between themselves, and while Nancy won the first game, soon Dans wins were overwhelming. Irving Chernevs book, Invitation to Chess, came to Nancys rescue. The excellent diagrams in the book made it possible to study the game without setting up a board. Soon the match score was close to even!

Dan started reading the daily chess column that Blindfold Champion George Koltanowski had written in the San Francisco Chronicle for many, many years. When Koltanowski announced a tournament that welcomed C players (beginners), Dan and Nancy decided to give it a try. They surprised themselves with their success, and for Dan it was the beginning of close to 50 years of tournament play. Obviously, he needed to buy some books for his new pursuit.
Koltanowki was starting a new chess organization at that time, Chess Friends of Northern California (CFNC). It was an ingenious and very successful design that I dont know has ever been duplicated. It welcomed any chess club ready to sponsor a team of six players to compete with other local clubs in the Bay Area. Each team had two A (expert) boards, two B (intermediate) boards and two C (beginner boards). Because points scored on the C boards were equally important as the A boards, clubs were soon scurrying to get new C players. Often in the big clubs beginners felt intimidated by the many strong players, and the better players were not interested in the beginners, making it hard for new players to get tournament experience. CFNC quickly changed that.
Dan organized the San Bruno Chess Club, which first met in the couples small one bedroom apartmentafter their two babies had been tucked into bed! Soon a middle school teacher, Lou Tomori, was attracted to the new club and made it possible for it to meet in his schools cafeteria. Dan wrote a column in the local newspaper, new people joined, club matches were held, a monthly club newsletter, The Springer was published, and before long the San Bruno Chess Club was entering not one, but two, teams in CFNC competitionand doing well! The club was still thriving when the McLeods moved to Seattle in 1974. It later joined with the Burlingame club and during the heyday of Bobby Fishers Championship play, there were over 50 members coming regularly.
Another Koltanowski creation was an outdoor chess festival held in the large central plaza in Sonoma, CA for many summers. As many as 50 tables of four players each were set up with the winner of each round robin winning a prize, and a trophy going to the CFNC team that had the best score among its members. It was a popular event, and could easily be enhanced by a visit to the local wineries.
As their chess skills improvedthanks in large part to Chess Friends playDan and Nancy started playing in tournaments in San Francisco at the Golden Gate Chess Club and at Mechanics Institute. A. B. Stamer, then a man in his 60s or even 70s, was the director of Mechanics. When they first joined, Mr. Stamer took the young couple aside and, out of his years of experience, gave them this wise advice, Dont take chess too seriously. Remember, its only a game. Except for Nancy and one other occasional woman player, Mechanics--and Golden Gate also--were exclusive male chess domains in the 50s and 60s.
In one exciting tournament Nancy was leading up to the last round when she was scheduled to play Dan. A tie would have given her first place, but Dan opened with the Orangutang variation, an unsound, but tricky Pawn to Knight 4 opening, and beat her, giving the two of them a tie for second place. It is customary to break ties using a mathematical system called Sonnenberger points, but Mr. Stamer asked them if they would like to share a joint trophy with both their names on it. That may be the only such shared trophy in chess!
As they continued playing, their USCF chess ratings improved, and Nancy was invited to play in the US Womens Chess Championship. The Womens Championship had always been played in New York, but in 1957 Jacqueling Piatigorsky, wife of the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, decided to sponsor the tournament in Los Angeles. Dan supported Nancy all the way and took care of their two pre-schoolers while she went off with their eight-month old son to play chess for two weeks.
When Dan moved his family to Seattle, he was still buying chess books, and he began playing in tournaments in Washington state and Vancouver, B.C. Tournament play was beginning to change in the 70s. Instead of trophies to the winners, there were money prizes. Dan played in A or B sections depending on his rating and had some exciting wins: a queen sacrifice-- that worked!-- and a friend just happened to take a picture of it at the crucial moment, $750 in prize money in a Seattle tournament, a string of wins in Texas and New Mexico when the McLeods vacationed there and planned their itinerary according to where the next tournament was being held. This stranger wasnt too popular with the locals though! Shades of the Old West.
When they moved to Salem in 1985, Dan joined the state chess organization and played in several Oregon tournaments. His favorite Salem haunt became the Governors Cup, where his most exciting games were probably the titanic struggles he had trying to beat David Hands with the Sicilian Defense. Dan became interested in teaching chess to school children, and with the gracious help of principal, Ron Speck, he taught chess classes at Mary Eyre School.
When Dan died in January, 2003, he had approximately 200 chess books. In honor of his love of chess and his familys love of him, the family decided to donate his collection to Salem Public Library. This seemed the best way to make these books available both to the public at large and to the many young people in the Salem-Keizer School District who belong to chess clubs at their schools. Dan would have been happy to enjoy another resource for chess aficionados that has just begun in Salem. It is the newly organized Salem Chess Club which meets at the West Salem Library on Saturdays from 1 to 5 pm. Everyone is welcome.