Arthur Dake

Who was Arthur Dake?

Arthur Dake was an American chess master. He was born in Portland, Oregon and died in Reno, Nevada.

He was born into a Polish farmer family, who immigrated to America before World War I. At age 16 he became a merchant seaman, traveling to Japan, China, and the Philippines. In 1927 he returned to high school in Oregon and learned chess from a Russian immigrant living in a local YMCA. He resumed work as a sailor and landed in New York City in 1929. New York was the center of chess in the U.S. at that time, and Dake teamed with leading checkers player Kenneth Grover in a Coney Island chess and checkers stand that accepted any challenger at 25 cents a game. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 made that business unviable.

Dake's first chess tournament was the 1930 New York State Championship, in which he finished third. In 1931 he won the championship of the Marshall Chess Club. The Great Depression years saw unparalleled U.S. dominance of world chess competition.