Isaac Kashdan
American chess player (1905–1985)
Isaac Kashdan (November 19, 1905, in New York City – February 20, 1985, in Los Angeles) was an American chess grandmaster and chess writer. He was twice U.S. Open champion (1938, 1947). He played five times for the United States in chess Olympiads, winning a total of nine medals, and his Olympiad record is the all-time best among American players.
Kashdan was often called 'der Kleine Capablanca' (German for "The little Capablanca") in Europe because of his ability to extract victories from seemingly even positions. Alexander Alekhine named him one of the most likely players to succeed him as World Champion. Kashdan could not, however, engage seriously in a chess career for financial reasons; his peak chess years coincided with the Great Depression. He resorted to earning a living as an insurance agent and administrator in order to support his family.
Biography
Early years
Kashdan, who was Jewish, attended CCNY in the 1920s.
Olympiad performances
He played five times for U.S. team in the Chess Olympiads, with his detailed results below:
In 1928, he played at first board in 2nd Chess Olympiad in The Hague (+12 –1 =2).
In 1930, he played at first board in 3rd Chess Olympiad in Hamburg (+12 –1 =4).
“Isaac Kashdan” enters the record as american chess player (1905–1985). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Isaac, Kashdan and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q958892. VIAF identifies the subject as 91931224. The Library of Congress control number is no2008172864. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1905, 1985, 1938 and 1947.
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This entry incorporates text from “Isaac Kashdan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.