Charles Jaffe - Controversies

Controversies

Also in 1913, Jaffe took sixth at Havana, with 5.5/14, as Marshall won. In this tournament, Capablanca charged that Jaffe had intentionally lost his second cycle game to Marshall, allowing Marshall to win the tournament ahead of Capablanca, who was playing in his hometown. In the game in question, in a fairly even middlegame position, Jaffe made a gross blunder which lost a queen for a rook, and then promptly resigned. While the mistake was certainly shocking for a player of Jaffe's standard, other top players throughout chess history have occasionally made similar blunders in tournament play. For example, Capablanca himself at New York 1931 blundered in the opening, and lost a piece to Herman Steiner because of a terrible eighth move. Capablanca apparently then arranged with the Havana organizers, who also organized events in New York, to have Jaffe barred from tournaments in which Capablanca was playing. And indeed, so far as information can be confirmed, Jaffe did not ever play again in a tournament where Capablanca also participated. Such exclusion damaged Jaffe's career prospects significantly, and seems self-serving on Capablanca's part, since he had lost to Jaffe in a tournament game in New York shortly before the Havana tournament.

Jaffe became involved in a 1916 court battle involving the non-inclusion for publication of some of his chess analysis of the King's Gambit, Rice Gambit, but he lost the case, despite being supported by witnesses who included U.S. champion Frank Marshall. This was apparently the first American case where chess matters made it to the courts. While seemingly frivolous, this case should be viewed from the perspective of Jaffe making much of his living from writing articles on chess for Jewish periodicals, so his professional reputation was at stake.