Malcolm Sim

[Wayne Komer]

The Chess Federation of Canada has a photo of Malcolm Sim on its site and gives the further information that his dates are 1881-1956, that he was a chess columnist for the Toronto Telegram 1922-1956, Toronto Champion 1915, 1924, Canadian Correspondence Champion 1918 and an International Arbiter 1951.

I was reading through The British Chess Magazine for 1916 today and came across the following in the February issue:

Mr. Malcolm Sim, formerly of Wood Green, London, but now of Toronto, is editing a new chess column in the weekly Canadian Courier. In 1915 Mr. Sim won the championship of the Toronto Chess Club. On the occasion of this victory one of the local papers published his portrait and wrote:-

Like the majority of strong players, the champion learned the principles of the game at an early age, receiving his first lessons in London in his 14th year. He came to Canada permanently in 1906. Prior to that time he had confined his attention to problem-solving and composition and correspondence games.

..Mr. Sim has been a member of the Toronto Chess Club for six years, and has represented his club in most of their matches with almost unvarying success. In 1913 he won the club handicap tourney and the Sanders Shield. In November of last year Mr. Sim, in simultaneous play, drew with F. J. Marshall, the American champion. Mr. Sim’s tastes are for the serious and literary side of the game, and as a result he has been for five years conducting a chess column in the Toronto Globe. He has also been a valuable assistance to Mr. Alain C. White, of New York, in his monumental classification and collection of all known chess problems. Mr. Sim’s success is a popular one, and he has the heartiest congratulations of the local chess players.

[Dan Scoones]

Re: Malcolm Sim

The game Sim - Morrison, Toronto 1918 is well worth playing over, and may be found on the chessgames.com website.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Malcolm Sim

Obituary of Malcolm Sim by Montgomery Major

Chess Life, February 20, 1957

MALCOLM SIM

In the last days of December Canada lost one of its outstanding pioneers in the promotion and publicizing of chess when Malcolm Sim passed away at the age of 76. Much of the history of Canadian Chess since 1900 is interlaced with the life of Sim, who also was present and active in some notable moments for chess in the U.S.A.

Sim was born in Hampstead, London on November 6, 1881. At the age of 14 he learned the rudiments of chess from a youth of German descent, Walter Degerden, who later became noted as an expert in legerdemain. Entered in the architectural profession, Sim's health broke down at 19 and in his idle hours of convalescence he began to take a serious interest in chess. In 1902 an unsuccessful attempt to solve a beautiful mutate two-mover by W. A. Shinkman (8-6p1-sQ2p2-K7-5B2-S1k5-1R2P3-1rr1b3-Key: 1. B-R6) started a lasting interest in problems. Sim composed over 400 problems, some of them very beautiful, and had a theme (the Sim theme) named after him.

In 1903 he came to Ontario to visit relatives on a farm but soon returned to London where he played in a postal tournament, placing second, and composed problems for the Illustrated London News and Daily News. In 1906 his father accepted a position in Montreal and the whole family sailed for Canada; in the following year they settled in Toronto, which is hereafter identified with Sim's career in chess.

In his first visit to a chess club (the Toronto C. C. then in the Yonge Street Arcade) he saw Jacques Mieses give a simultaneous. In 1910 he participated in the Toronto Championship for the first time, not placing high but defeating J. S. Morrison, then considered Toronto's rising young player. In 1914 he won the Toronto C. C. Handicap Tournament; in 1915 the Toronto City Championship. In the following ten years he participated in the local league and intercity matches, losing only one game in the period. In 1922 he placed fourth in the Canadian Championship at Montreal, although he took sick during the tournament. In 1918 he won the Canadian Postal Championship.

But it was not as a player, but as a publicist and promoter of chess that Malcolm Sim will long be remembered. In 1910 he started on his real chess career by editing a chess column for the Toronto Globe; in 1915 he shifted the chess column to the Canadian Courier, a weekly which folded up in 1920. He then edited a column in the Toronto World for a short time until it was terminated by purchase of the paper. In 1922 he became chess editor of the Toronto Evening Telegram - a post which was only terminated by his death in December, 1956 and from which he exerted a great and healthy influence upon the trend of chess in Canada. The column grew to two full columns, until it was curtailed in 1937 by 50% due to the economic pressures of the day.

Beginning with the 1924 Canadian Championship at Hamilton, Sim served as tournament director for many Canadian Championships. He also served as director for the 1934 U. S. Open Championship in Chicago, which was notable as being the first valid "open" tournament, as contrasted to previous events largely filled by invitations. In 1953 at Milwaukee he again was director of the U. S. Open and acted in collaboration with Hermann Helms at most of the U. S. Championship tournaments which Mr. Helms directed in New York. From 1942 to 1956 (with only one exception) he served annually as director of the New York State Championship. His ability as a director and as a promoter of chess was early recognized by FIDE, which nominated him as an International Judge, the only Canadian so distinguished.

Canadian Chess will miss his presence and the New York State Championship will never quite seem the same. We have turned one more page in the history of Canadian Chess, to which we cannot again turn back, although we will always remember that it was a brilliant page, sparkling with achievements. To Chess Editor W. Frank Fillery recently Sim wrote that he hoped to go to a rand of "beautiful two-movers"- may we hope that his wish was fulfilled, and that in days to come his friends will be privileged to join him there. For with his passing an era in Canadian Chess also passed into memory.

[Erik Malmsten]

Re: Malcolm Sim

The Chess Federation of Canada has a photo of Malcolm Sim on its site and gives the further information that his dates are 1881-1956, that he was a chess columnist for the Toronto Telegram 1922-1956, Toronto Champion 1915, 1924, Canadian Correspondence Champion 1918 and an International Arbiter 1951.

I was reading through The British Chess Magazine for 1916 today and came across the following in the February issue:

Mr. Malcolm Sim, formerly of Wood Green, London, but now of Toronto, is editing a new chess column in the weekly Canadian Courier. In 1915 Mr. Sim won the championship of the Toronto Chess Club. On the occasion of this victory one of the local papers published his portrait and wrote:-

Like the majority of strong players, the champion learned the principles of the game at an early age, receiving his first lessons in London in his 14th year. He came to Canada permanently in 1906. Prior to that time he had confined his attention to problem-solving and composition and correspondence games.

..Mr. Sim has been a member of the Toronto Chess Club for six years, and has represented his club in most of their matches with almost unvarying success. In 1913 he won the club handicap tourney and the Sanders Shield. In November of last year Mr. Sim, in simultaneous play, drew with F. J. Marshall, the American champion. Mr. Sim’s tastes are for the serious and literary side of the game, and as a result he has been for five years conducting a chess column in the Toronto Globe. He has also been a valuable assistance to Mr. Alain C. White, of New York, in his monumental classification and collection of all known chess problems. Mr. Sim’s success is a popular one, and he has the heartiest congratulations of the local chess players.

I have made digital copies of most of his Telegram and Courier columns, but it's still a long term project to collect all of them. Copying directly from microfilm to digital on the library's new machines produces very good quality, much better than when I had to scan photocopies of the Hamilton Spectator columns.

I'm still interested in paying a little to someone to make a Canadian database of games from historical newspaper columns, would love to have a government make work for youth project to pay for it.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Malcolm Sim

I have been working on a database of games from chess columns in the Montreal "Gazette" - most issues are now available online (free of charge).