Israel Albert Horowitz - Chess Career

Chess Career

Horowitz was the chess columnist for the New York Times, writing three columns a week for ten years. He was the owner and editor of Chess Review magazine from 1933 until it was bought out and taken over by the United States Chess Federation in 1969 and merged into Chess Life. Chess Review magazine was founded in 1933 as a partnership between Horowitz and Isaac Kashdan. However, Kashdan dropped out after just a few issues and Horowitz became sole owner. Before that, Horowitz had been a securities trader on Wall Street. He had been partners with other chess masters, Maurice Shapiro, Mickey Pauley, Albert Pinkus and Maurice Wertheim. Horowitz dropped out and devoted himself to chess, while the others stayed on Wall Street.

Horowitz was a leading player in the U.S. during the 1930s and 1940s. He was U.S. Open Champion in 1936, 1938, and 1943. In 1941, he lost a match (+0 =13 −3) with Samuel Reshevsky for the U.S. Chess Championship. He played on the U.S. Team in four Chess Olympiads, in 1931, 1935, 1937, and 1950; the first three of which were won by the U.S. In a famous USA vs. USSR radio chess match 1945, Horowitz scored one of the only two wins for the USA by defeating Grandmaster Salo Flohr. He split his "mini-match" of two games against Flohr and in the 1946 edition of same event split his mini-match against Isaac Boleslavsky.