Harlow B. Daly won the Maine State Championship an unprecedented seven consecutive times from 1959 to 1965. He also chalked up another two wins in 1969 (sole first) and 1970 (shared with Stanley Elowitch). During his long chess career, Mr. Daly played in numerous simultaneous exhibitions against a cadre of chess paragons including the likes of Alexander Alekhine, Emanuel Lasker, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, Jacques Mieses, Frank J. Marshall, Ruben Fine, Carlos Torre and Arthur Dake.
Continue reading "ChessMaine Profiles: Remembering Harlow B. Daly" »
Ray Routhier, a features writer with The Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, examines the central question: What draws people to chess? Particularly in this age of multiple competing demands on our time, how is it that chess has remained popular? Mr. Routhier's story appeared in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram.
After a brief hiatus, due to some technical difficulties with our server, we're back online! Thanks to our web team working vampire hours over the last few days, we were able to get up and running again relatively quickly. Check out the new look of our game viewer and be on the lookout for some interesting upcoming stories.
As part of our ongoing mission to serve the Maine Chess Community, ChessMaine's newest link is the Maine Chess Club Directory. Whether you're in Waterville on Monday, Ellsworth on Thursday, Portland on Friday or somewhere else in Maine on another day, you can find a chess club that would be delighted to have you. Support the backbone of American Chess, visit your local chess club!
ChessMaine.net caught up with State Champion Joseph St. Pierre recently at the Downeast Open in South Portland. St. Pierre gave an intriguing interview and provided a deeply annotated game--one he calls his most creative effort--from the Maine State Championship Tournament. A must read!
This weekend is the 56th New Hampshire Open. Because this tournament has been continuous for more than 25 years it earns the title: A Heritage Event. Here's to playing chess in the Granite State!
Games from the 2006 Downeast Open are now available! There are many interesting battles in both the Open and U1600 sections including a bona fide miniature between the tournament's only two masters and a sixty-eight mover that clinched the U1600 prize. To replay these games, using our interactive game viewer with annotations provided by Fritz 9, click the following link or click on the Games link from any ChessMaine.net page.
State Champion Joseph St. Pierre and Jarod Bryan both scored 3.5 out of 4 to share first at the 2006 Downeast Open. The tournament, which attracted twenty-four players, was held in the campus center at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland on Saturday, June 17th. The statue is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of Portland's favorite sons who once wrote in The Divine Comedy Paradise Canto XXVIII: Their coruscation all the sparks repeated, and they so many were, their number makes more millions than the doubling of the chess.
The 2006 One Day Downeast Open and Downeast Rated Beginners Open are this Saturday, June 17th. Hope to see you over the board in South Portland! 
Skyrocketing fuel prices might have you thinking twice before you register for your next tournament. Maine is a large, rural state and it can be difficult and cost prohibitive to get to the next tournament. Enter the internet, which has been refered to as the perfect medium for chess. We started to muse: Would it be possible to play USCF-rated tournaments and matches over the internet? The short answer is yes...and no.
