David R. Sands

It’s said you get only one chance to make a first impression, and two promising young American chess talents badly botched their audition.

We’ve had nearly 250 years of trying, but it’s still hard to pin down an identifiable “American” style of chess.

Let’s hope the World Cup finale comes close to matching the drama of the finale of the World Open.

Early reports say the District of Columbia’s tourism sector had a banner Fourth of July to mark the nation’s 250th birthday, and the world’s chess players certainly did their part.

It’s always nice to see chess have a moment in the larger culture, especially a moment not tied to the latest cheating scandal or geopolitical standoff.

It’s been a bull market for laurel leaves this summer, as the country crowned a quartet of new U.S. champions in recent days.

In American chess this summer, the road to renown runs through Rockville, Maryland.

St. Louis is proving quite the accommodating host this summer. Just days after staging the senior and junior U.S. open and women’s championships, the St. Louis Chess Club is again multitasking as the site for the Sinquefield Cup and Cairns Cup, annually among the stronger open and female invitational tournaments in the country.

Every generation, it seems, puts forward a chess star whose talent outpaces his ambition, whose grasp stops far short of his reach.

With our national 250th birthday party coming to a close, now seems a good time to check in on how the American chess community marked the country’s first 100 years way back in 1876.