Biography

Albert Pinkus was an American chess master and author who made a series of expeditions to the jungles of Guyana and Venezuela. Born in New York, Albert Sidney Pinkus won several major chess tournaments in the 1920s, before setting off on his adventures in South America in 1932. He intended to collect both zoological and botanical specimens. His most important botanical collections took place between 1938 and early 1939, when he made a trip from Georgetown, British Guiana (Guyana) to the vicinity of Mount Roraima, during which he assembled 290 numbers of herbarium specimens in several sets. His route took him up the Mazaruni River to the Kurupung River, overland to the Kamarung River from whence he followed the Pakaraima Mountains on the Venezuelan side. Reaching Arabupu at the base of Roraima, he spent three months in the region, including ten days at the summit. His collections bolstered scanty holdings of endemic species obtained by previous explorers. His field notebooks are at NYBG. Calling off a further expedition due to the outbreak of war, Pinkus returned to New York in 1939 and resumed his chess career while working as a stockbroker. He went on to win the New York State Chess Championship in 1947 among other competitions.