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After being ill for several years, Serge Lacroix passed away in June. He would have been about 80.
His chess career began in Quebec City in the mid 1950's as a junior. He opened a chess club there in the late 1960's on the Cote d'Abraham. I stayed there a couple of times - sleeping on the floor - during his weekend tournaments. He organized monthly tournaments for several years, as well as being involved in the Quebec Carnival tournaments (he won in 1972 and 1981).
He moved to Montreal in the mid 1970's - running chess clubs in various locations. First one was at 1111 de Maisonneuve E, which got slated for demolition. He then moved to 1365 Ste Catherine E - calling his club "Le Specialiste des Echecs". He sold the club in the early 80's, but the club and name remained there until about 2002. His next location was in the old LaSalle hotel on Drummond St. It was known then as the "Merlion" (today it's a "Best Western"). It was open seven days a week with regular tournaments. He was competing with Roman Pelts who also had a club running regular events. Both clubs folded a couple of years later. He then opened a club on the second floor of a building on Mont-Royal, near Papineau - it lasted about a year. He then dedicated his time to tournament play.
Since the FQE started keeping records (around 1972), Serge played over 3700 FQE-rated games (and probably hundreds more before then). He gave me a big pile of old scoresheets, and I added as many as I could to CanBase (there are over 1200) - but many had unreadable or missing player/tournament/date info that they could not be kept for posterity.. .
His last tournament was in 2014, and his health was in a decline then.
RIP. .
His chess career began in Quebec City in the mid 1950's as a junior. He opened a chess club there in the late 1960's on the Cote d'Abraham. I stayed there a couple of times - sleeping on the floor - during his weekend tournaments. He organized monthly tournaments for several years, as well as being involved in the Quebec Carnival tournaments (he won in 1972 and 1981).
He moved to Montreal in the mid 1970's - running chess clubs in various locations. First one was at 1111 de Maisonneuve E, which got slated for demolition. He then moved to 1365 Ste Catherine E - calling his club "Le Specialiste des Echecs". He sold the club in the early 80's, but the club and name remained there until about 2002. His next location was in the old LaSalle hotel on Drummond St. It was known then as the "Merlion" (today it's a "Best Western"). It was open seven days a week with regular tournaments. He was competing with Roman Pelts who also had a club running regular events. Both clubs folded a couple of years later. He then opened a club on the second floor of a building on Mont-Royal, near Papineau - it lasted about a year. He then dedicated his time to tournament play.
Since the FQE started keeping records (around 1972), Serge played over 3700 FQE-rated games (and probably hundreds more before then). He gave me a big pile of old scoresheets, and I added as many as I could to CanBase (there are over 1200) - but many had unreadable or missing player/tournament/date info that they could not be kept for posterity.. .
His last tournament was in 2014, and his health was in a decline then.
RIP. .
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