Arthur Dake (Darkowski) (8 April 1910 – 28 April 2000) was an American chess master. He was born in Portland, Oregon and died in Reno, Nevada. He was born into a Polish farmer family (Edward Winter has quoted a mistaken statement with Dake's name on a list of chess players with Jewish roots), who immigrated to America before World War I. At age 16 he became a merchant seaman, traveling to Japan, China, and the Philippines. In 1927 he returned to high school in Oregon and learned chess from a Russian immigrant living in a local YMCA. He resumed work as a sailor and landed in New York City in 1929. New York was the center of chess in the U.S. at that time, and Dake teamed with leading checkers player Kenneth Grover in a Coney Island chess and checkers stand that accepted any challenger at 25