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I have the score of a Vancouver 1959 game, at G/30', between my late father Donald Dixon (1932-2014) and a young Duncan Suttles (age 13). Duncan won beautifully as Black! Would there be interest in my posting this game here?
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Of course, Frank, I am interested. And if you are a chess history buff as I am, it would be a Canadian history treasure!Comment
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I didnt know your father was a CFC tournament player. I thought you and he had some sparring sessions but I think I missed further details of your father being an avid tournament competitor. Would love to find out more.Comment
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So, Hans, Donald Dixon vs Duncan Suttles, Vancouver 1973, was NOT a tournament game! It was a casual game, at G/30'. I will explain a bit more: Dad was in his final year of engineering studies at UBC, set to graduate spring 1959, and one of his final-year project advisors was Professor Elod Macskasy! He had also had had some math lectures with him. The two had played a handful of casual chess games; the professor kept a set and clock in his office! Of course, Professor Macskasy won all those games! He had won the 1958 Canadian Open in Winnipeg, and was in the midst of a string of B.C. Championship titles!! But Dad DID draw his simul game with Professor Macskasy, Vancouver 1958; this was a fundraiser for the Canadian Olympiad team for Munich 1958. I have that game, and it is certainly OK! Professor Macskasy was also coaching young Duncan Suttles in chess at this time. As Dad told me the story circa 1973, when he showed me the game with 13-year-old Duncan, It was Prof. Macskasy who brought the two together, and suggested a game! Duncan's father Professor Wayne Suttles (1918-2005) was a UBC faculty member, a world-renowned scholar in cultural anthropology, with extensive work on the west-coast Salish Indigenous peoples. So Duncan was around the UBC campus quite a bit as a youth, and he would later earn a mathematics degree there, while on his way to IM and GM titles.
Dad learned chess at age 7, had played with some moderate success in the Vancouver high school chess scene in the late 1940s, and he had had some success in a couple of events held by the Royal Canadian Air Force during the years he served, in the early 1950s, prior to enrolling at UBC in fall 1954. And he played recreationally at UBC. But none of that chess was CFC-rated. He wanted to get involved, but figured it would take significant time to do so, and he didn't want to take it on unless he could have success. He was very interested in choral singing, played on the freshman rugby and diving teams at UBC, and was a single-figure handicap golfer. And he was married by 1956; Mom was working full-time in radio at CKNW, they had me in 1958, and Dad was also working five graveyard shifts a week on the green line at a plywood factory, getting four hours sleep per night, five days a week, while studying engineering full-time, with top marks!! Don't know how he did it; I got absolutely no sympathy from him when I complained about the challenge of my own studies!!
During his professional career as an engineer, he coached me in chess from age 7, with near-weekly training and games, through high school. He played chess recreationally with work colleagues, some of whom were pretty strong. He built up a significant chess library, which was mine to enjoy and train with. And he relied on Professor Macskasy for professional help from time to time, particularly with the major project for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., to create a new valve system for the CANDU nuclear reactor, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, allowing the CANDU to be commercialized successfully!! Dad headed the project team which solved the problematic leakages of heavy water and steam (clarifying further would take us too far off the chess topic here!). Professor Macskasy was one of a couple dozen scientists and engineers whose knowledge and advice were tapped! Something like a dozen patents were secured with that work, all of which are owned by AECL, of course!
After Dad retired in the early 1990s, he again wanted to take up tournament chess, but by this time, his health was becoming a major concern, eventually succumbing to Parkinson's Disease in 2014.
I am now analyzing this game, having not seen it since 1973, when I transferred the score into my copy of 'The Modern Defence', by IMs Keene and Botterill. I had forgotten about it! No points for guessing that the game was in the Modern Defence!Comment
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Thats quite a life your father had Frank! Thanks for sharing. Professor Macskasy, Professor Wayne Suttles, Duncan Suttles, - Donald Dixon - wow!, who knew? - but now we all now. Fascinating!Comment
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Yes, Hans, no doubt about it, my father Donald Dixon lived an extraordinarily interesting life! There are a few non-chess chapters even more interesting!!
Before I post the game score of Donald Dixon vs Duncan Suttles, Vancouver 1959, on the next post, I want to share a story of exceptional kindness from Professor Macskasy, towards my father and his young family.
This was winter 1959, and Dad was getting ready to graduate from UBC Engineering. He had a permanent job lined up, with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., to start in mid-summer as a junior engineer, in Chalk River, Ontario, three time zones away. But he had a big heap of calculation to do for his final-year project, and this was going to take significant time and effort, in a world of slide rules and very limited computer availability. He actually applied for deadline extension for that project. UBC Engineering faculty leadership wouldn't approve. Essentially it was next to impossible for Dad to finish, while keeping his family going, with his five graveyard shifts per week at the plywood factory, his ongoing studies, Mom full-time working, and me just past my first birthday. Professor Macskasy, probably not flush with cash himself, after leaving Hungary following the revolution there in late 1956, knew Dad's situation; he had had all us over to his home for dinner several times. He offered Dad an interest-free loan of several thousand dollars, to get him through the next few months. No demands for repayment: "Don, pay me back when you can!" Dad was able to go down to one shift per week at the factory, finish his year and project, graduate with excellent standing, buy a car, and get us all moved across Canada, to start our new lives. And Dad did pay it back within a couple of years!!
So, that is a great example of the wonderful people that we all meet through chess!! There was one condition on the loan, however, and this reveals Professor Macskasy's playful side: he had drawn up a contract for the transaction, all serious, and then when he and Dad met to go over it, and arrange the money, he tore it all up, with the condition that Dad play a training game with Duncan Suttles, his chess student!! Dad laughed on that, and got the chance to play Duncan!!Comment
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Frankly, I'm astonished Frank. Good to read.Comment
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