Canadian Chess Biographies

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Index - D

• Danilov, George
• Das, Urmila
• Davies, Alex
• Davison, A. Thomas
• Day, Angela
• Day, Lawrence
• Dease, Peter Warren
• Demers, Claire
• Demian, Valer Eugen
• Dénommée, Pierre
• de Soyres, John
• DeVriendt, Andre
• Dinca, Cornelia
• Divinsky, Nathan
• Divljan, Igor
• Dobrich, Vladimir
• Doe, Raymond
• Dougherty, Michael
• Draxl, Rudolph
• Dremen, Israel
• Drummond, Redpath
• Dubuc, Serge
• Duchesne, Noel
• Duong, Thanh Nha
• Dutton, Mark S.

George Danilov

• Top Kingston player

Urmila Das

• Woman International Master 1985

Alex Davies

• FIDE Master 2003

Rob Jamieson - Alex Davies
Melbourne Chess Club Christmas Swiss, Melbourne, Australia, 1994.12.17

Alex Davies - Dragoljub Milicevic
British Columbia Championship, Vancouver, British Columbia, Round 4, 1999

Alex Davies - John (Jack) Yoos
British Columbia Championship, Vancouver, British Columbia, Round 6, 1999

A. Thomas Davison

• Canadian Champion (1891, 1894)

Angela Day

• Woman International Master 1982
• Represented Canada at Women's Olympiads (1976, 1978)
• Represented Canada on Group B 1st place team at Women's Olympiad 1976

Lawrence Day

Photo: 1971 World Students' Team Championship, Shakmat chess magazine, Issue 18 (282) p.17, Latvia, 1971, photo by Aivars Gipslis.

• Journalist, chess columnist Toronto Star since 1976
• International Master 1972
• Canadian Champion 1991
• Canadian Open Champion (1976, 1980, 1988)
• Canadian Senior Champion 2004
• Represented Canada at World Junior Championship 1967
• Represented Canada on Bronze medal team at World Students' Team Championship 1971
• Represented Canada at Olympiads (1968, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998)
• Bronze medal, Board 3, Olympiad 1986
• 1st place, North Bay International Open 1999
• 1st place, Kalev Pugi Memorial 1985-6
• World Open Champion 1980
• U.S. Junior Open Champion 1969
• Competed in Canadian Championships in each of 5 consecutive decades of 1960s-2000s
• Contributor to The Canadian Encyclopedia, 1985
• Canadian Chess Journalist of the Year 1979
• Top rated Canadian at Year-end 1979
• Canadian Chess Hall of Fame 2001

My favourite Lawrence Day game:

Fernando Braga - Lawrence Day
Olympiad, Dubai 1986

Lawrence Day's choice for his best game and the one that won him the most money:

Lawrence Day - Leonid Bass, World Open, Philadelphia, 1980 (*)

Lawrence Day's memorable games, from his Retrospective, 1999:

Lawrence Day - Duncan Suttles
Canadian Open, Scarborough, 1964, Round 2

Lodewijk Prins - Lawrence Day
Holland - Canada, Olympiad, Lugano, 1968

Pal Benko - Lawrence Day
USA - Canada, Olympiad, Lugano, 1968

Lawrence Day - Duncan Suttles
Canadian Championship, Pointe Claire, Quebec, 1969

Dirk van Geet - Lawrence Day
Beverwijk, 1970

Lawrence Day - Boris Spassky
Toronto, 1971

Bruce Amos - Lawrence Day
Canadian Championship, Toronto, 1972

Manfred Schoeneberg - Lawrence Day
East Germany - Canada, Olympiad, Skopje, 1972

Sources: Retrospective by Lawrence Day, 1999 (game selections); Bulletin 4, 1974.05-06, Chess Federation of Canada, p.6.

Contributors: Lawrence Day (photo, game selection), Erik Malmsten (photo).

Peter Warren Dease

• Hudson's Bay Company officer (chief trader); British and Mohawk ancestry
• Arctic explorer; accompanied Franklin's Second Land Journey 1825-7; in charge of 1837-9 expedition which mapped the Arctic coast from Alaska to King William Island
• Dease Strait, between Victoria Island and the Arctic coast, named after him
• While in charge of HBC's British Columbia district (1831-5), encouraged games such as chess at his command post at Fort St. James

Source: William R. Sampson, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 1861-1870 Volume IX, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2000; In quest of the North West Passage by Leslie Neatby, 1958, p.93, 122-7.

Claire Demers

• Represented Canada at Women's Olympiad 1974

Valer Eugen Demian

Photo: Copyright 2006 Valer Eugen Demian.

• Mechanical engineer
• Correspondence International Master 2001
• Correspondence International Arbiter 2005
• ICCF Non-Title Tournaments Commissioner 2003-
• Chess columnist Correspondence Chess News 2001-3
• Canadian ICCF Olympiad team (12th: final; 13th-17th: semi-final)
• Canadian ICCF Olympiad team captain (15th, 17th)
• CCCA Membership Secretary 2004-
• Chess coach for juniors: 1999 - 2nd CYCC U10 girls; 2004 1st CYCC U10 girls; 2006 2nd CYCC U8 boys; students qualified to WYCC (2004 - 2; 2005 - 2; 2006 -2)

Valer Eugen Demian's choice for his favourite game:

Irina Krush - Valer Eugen Demian
Simultaneous exhibition by Krush, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2006.06.10

Contributor: Valer Eugen Demian

Pierre Dénommée

Photo: Copyright 2010 Pierre Dénommée.

• International Arbiter 2002

Here are Pierre Dénommée's choices for his most memorable games:

Pierre Dénommée - Paul Nataf

Alexandre Lesiège - Pierre Dénommée
Simultaneous exhibition by GM Lesiège, 2000.03.17

John de Soyres

• Rector
• Leading player, organizer in Saint John, New Brunswick

Source: 'Last of the Nineteenth Century Champions of Saint John' by Larry Fyffe, En Passant 144, 1997.06, p.30-2

Andre DeVriendt

• Correspondence Senior International Master 2002

Cornelia Dinca

• Awarded Woman FIDE Master title 2010
• Canadian Girls Under 16 Champion 2004
• Canadian Girls Under 14 Champion 2003

Nathan Divinsky

Photo: copyright 2008 by Nathan Divinsky.

• Mathematics Professor Emeritus 1991, University of British Columbia; runner-up Master Teacher Awards
• PhD. Mathematics 1950 at age 24; wrote two mathematics books: Rings and Radicals 1965, Linear Algebra 1975; produced math puzzles Discovery TV
• Vancouver School Board member 1974-80; chairman 1978-80
• Vancouver City Council alderman 1981-2
• part-owner, popular restaurant 'Bridges' established 1979 on Vancouver's Granville Island; editor, The Good Food Guide to Vancouver
• Married 1972-83 to Kim Campbell, who became Canada's 19th Prime Minister 1993
• CFC President 1954
• FIDE Representative 1987-94
• Editor, Canadian Chess Chat 1959-74 (except for 2 sabbaticals)
• Radio, television commentator on chess
• Author of Around the Chess World in 80 Years 1959, Warriors of the Mind (with Keene) 1989, The Chess Encyclopedia 1990, Life Maps of the Great Chess Masters 1994; provided game annotations for Jewish Chess Masters on Stamps by Felix Berkovich 2000
• Represented Canada at Olympiads (1954, 1966)
• Bridge Life Master 1972; Canadian Bridge League's Contract Bridge Champion 1987
• Plays piano; enjoys and has sung in opera, operetta, musicals
• Canadian Chess Hall of Fame 2001

Owen Hindle - Nathan Divinsky
Olympiad, Havana, Cuba, Finals Round 5, 1966

Here is Nathan Divinsky's choice for his best game:

Fedor Bohatirchuk - Nathan Divinsky
Canadian Championship, Vancouver, British Columbia, Round 3, 1951

Sources: Warriors of the Mind by Nathan Divinsky and Raymond Keene, 1989; Kim Campbell: The Making of a Politician, by Robert Fife, 1993, HarperCollins, p.33-55; Mensa Canada Society.

Contributor (photo, biography, game selection): Nathan Divinsky.

Igor Divljan

• FIDE Master 2003

Vladimir (Walter) Dobrich

Photo: Copyright 2004 Vladimir Dobrich.

• Founder, editor, publisher Chess Canada magazine 1970-5
• First Canadian full-time professional chess organizer 1969
• Organized first Canadian Junior Championship 1970; Canadian Championship 1972

Contributor (photo): Vladimir Dobrich.

Raymond Doe

• Played Canadian Championship 1953
• Won Golden Knights Postal Tournament 1957

Michael Dougherty

Photo: 2009 Labour Day Open, Toronto. Copyright 2009 by the photographer David Cohen.

• FIDE Master 2002
• 1st place, Kitchener Masters 2001 with 8/9 (+7 =2)

Rudolph Draxl

• Played Canadian Championship 1955

Israel Dremen

• Manitoba champion three times

Redpath Drummond

Photo: 1935 Canadian Championship, Canadian Chess Championship Tournament 1935, 1935.

• Played Canadian Championship (1934, 1935, 1936, 1938, 1947, 1949)
• 1st place Canadian Correspondence Championship 1934
• Ontario Correspondence Champion 1932

Serge Dubuc

• Correspondence International Master 2003

Noel Duchesne

• Played Canadian Championship 1937

Thanh Nha Duong

• International Master 1999

Thanh Nha Duong - Jacob Murey
Quebec Open, Quebec 1987

Mark S. Dutton

Photo: copyright 2010 Mark S. Dutton.

• International Arbiter 2004
• Canada's most prolific tournament organizer and director since 1972, having directed more than 300 tournaments
• Served on Executive and Board of Directors of Toronto Chess Club, Greater Toronto Chess League, Ontario Chess Association; and more than 12 years as Governor of Chess Federation of Canada
• President, club manager Scarborough Chess Club, 1993-8
• Candidate Master; 1st place 1993 Macedonian Labour Day Open, Intermediate Section, with 5.5/6, $600 prize; active member of CFC, FQE, USCF 1972-95, playing many World Open, U.S. Open, National Opens all over North America
• Founded Dutton Chess, with his wife and partner, Christine Dutton in 1998; assisted by son Warren Dutton, National Master and 3 time Canadian Junior Championship participant
• Founder, manager Dutton Chess Club, Toronto, 1999.08-2002.12
• Chief Arbiter, Toronto Closed and Reserves Championships, 2000-2
• Organized, Chief Arbiter, 1st Toronto Summer International, 2000.08
• Organized, directed 30th Ontario High School Championship, Toronto, 2000.05
• Organized, directed 1st Ontario Women's Championship, Toronto, 2002.08
• Chief Arbiter, Canadian Closed & Zonal Championships, Toronto (77th: 2004.08, 78th: 2006.08)
• Chief Arbiter, 38th Canadian Junior and 15th Canadian Youth Championships, Victoria 2009.07
• Chief Arbiter, Grand Pacific Open, Victoria, British Columbia (2nd: 2008.03, 3rd: 2009.04, 4th: 2010.04)

Here is Mark Dutton's choice for his best game:

Boris Spassky - Mark Dutton
GM Spassky Simultaneous Exhibition, Pickering, Ontario, 1995

Contributor (photo, biography, game selection): Mark S. Dutton.