Leon Stolzenberg (18 October 1895–25 October 1974) was one America’s leading chess players in the 1920s. He won the US Open Championship in 1926 and 1928.
Later he gave up over-the-board chess and became a postal player winning the Golden Knights Championship several times.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Stolzenberg
I played him in the 1961 Golden Knights. I was 16 years old and not very good then, a Class B player trying to promote to Class A.
I just found the postcards to the game and I decided to post the game here for its possible historical interest even though the game is not very good. Stolzenberg went on to win the 1961 Golden Knights, winning all 18 of his games. The main reason I am posting it here is I can only find one game by Stolzenberg in the databases. That was a loss in 1924 to Carlos Torre.
chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1144012
My game with Stolzenberg started on July 4, 1961 and ended on January 10, 1962
[Event “Golden Knights”]
[Site “Chess Review Postal Chess”]
[Date “1961.07.04”]
[Round “Preliminaries”]
[White “Stolzenberg, Leon”]
[Black “Sloan, Sam”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “A28”]
[PlyCount “65”]
[Warning “HCS”]
1.Nf3 Nc6 2.d3 e5 3.c4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Bc5 5.e4 d6 6.Be2 Ng4
7.O-O Nd4 8.Nxd4 Nxf2 9.Rxf2 Bxd4 10.Qe1 Qh4 11.Nd5 Bxf2+
12.Qxf2 Qxf2+ 13.Kxf2 O-O 14.Nxc7 Rb8 15.Nb5 Rd8 16.Nxa7 h6
17.Nxc8 Rdxc8 18.a4 Ra8 19.b4 Kh7 20.Be3 Rcb8 21.d4 f6
22.d5 b6 23.c5 dxc5 24.bxc5 bxc5 25.Bxc5 g6 26.d6 f5
27.d7 Kg8 28.Bc4+ Kg7 29.Bd5 Rb2+ 30.Kf1 Rd8 31.Bc6 fxe4
32.Be7 Rf8+ 33.Bxf8+ 1-0
Stolzenberg and many other leading postal players opened with 1. Nf3. The reason is it is a perfectly good move yet it gets the opponent out of the book. There is very little book on 1. Nf3.
One error by Stolzenberg marred the game. He was White and his first postcard said 1. Nf3, if any, 2. d3.
I replied 1. Nf3 Nc6 2. d3 e5
He apparently wrote down 1. Nf3 d6 2. d3 e5. Then, when I sent him 5. … d6 he replied that I had already played that move.
Apparently he must have also written 4. … Bf5 when I had actually sent him 4. … Bc5
He was 66 years old and showing his age. This mix-up did not stop him from winning the tournament however.
It is hard to tell how his writing down the wrong moves affected his play. However, his move 5. e4 was a blunder. All I had to do was play 5. … Ng4 and I would have won a pawn with a winning advantage.
I still had a good game. I made a stupid bishop and knight vs. rook and pawn sacrifice, a sacrifice that is almost always bad.
The game was even and possibly drawish until I gave him two pawns for nothing on move 13. Probably the reason I did not play 13. … Kd8 is I feared 14. Bg5+ f6 15. Nxf6 gxf6 15. Bxf6 winning an exchange and two pawns. However, that does not work because of 15 … h6 16. Bh4 g5 17. Bg3 Rf8 winning a knight.
So, I could have drawn Stolzenberg or possibly even beaten him thereby stopping his march to the Golden Knights Championship with a score of 18-0.
On move 23 I suddenly realized that I was playing against a famous old-time player. (I had not known who my opponent was up until that point.) He wrote back, “Yes. I have been playing this game for years.”
I should have resigned a lot sooner than I actually did.
Sam Sloan