History Of The Toms River Chess Club

 

As some of you may know the TRCC was founded in 1964 and is celebrating its 45th year. There is a lot of history behind the TRCC that many of us may not know. Steve Doyle was kind enough to provide us with some very interesting information about the TRCC.

The club sponsored many events and met at the Town Hall for much of it's history. In 1978 we moved to Riverwood Park Rec building as Town Hall was torn down and replaced by current structure. We stayed in Riverwood Park until the late 1990's when we moved back.

During the years the clubs peak membership level was over 250 members. Some famous players that went on to big things in chess include--Carol Jarecki who become a TD an directs World Champ events now. Frank Camaratta started The House of Staunton Chess Sets. Harold Bogner who is active at ICC as an owner.  Steve Doyle became President of US Chess Federation and Vice President of FIDE, Robert Lincoln is international chess puzzle composer, Pete Tamburro writes the weekly Star Ledger column with Doyle. 

At the peak the cub championship in 1983 had 140 USCF rated players! The club was active in the South Jersey Chess League for many years and won the title several times.

Famous Grandmasters came to Toms River Chess Club over the years Arthur Bisguier, Bill Lombardy, Lev Alburt, Roman Dzindhashvilli, Edmar mednis, Larry Evans, Reuben Fine, Edward Lasker!!, Sam Reshevsky, Larry Christiansen, leonid Shamkovich, Anatoly Lein, Yasser Seriwan, George Koltanowski, Walter Browne, pal benko, Andy Soltis and many more.

World Champions too!, Botvinnik, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Bronstein, Karpov, Korchnoi

You gotta Love that!!

45 years of great history!!

The two cabinets the club has were both donated one by Toms River Chemical (Ciba) and the second by Bradlees. 

The club hosted three big events each year the Club Championship (Past Champs include Pete Tamburro, Craig Kielminski, George Krauss, Bob Lincoln, David Koval, Leo McLaughlin, Larry Wagner, Larry Epstein, Bob Coughlin and others.

The second event was the Ocean County Championship and lastly the Fall Open. Each was a 5 round swiss usually.

The favorite event for me was the holiday party which usually had Santa Claus playing chess and the press came for a photo or two!