Emil Kemény was a Hungarian–American chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 master, editor and publisher.

Born in Budapest, Hungary, he lived for many years in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. During the mid-1890s, Kemeny was one of the strongest players in America. He took 2nd at Skaneateles 1891, lost a match to James Moore Hanham

James Hanham

Major James Moore Hanham was an American chess master, who played in many American and international chess tournaments between 1884 and 1889. He fought on the side of the North during the American Civil War, reaching the rank of Major...

 (4–5) at New York 1891, and won at Skaneateles 1892. He also won the 1892-93 Franklin Chess Club championship tournament, and incidentally the Championship of Philadelphia, the nation’s second strongest chess metropolis, with a score of 14–4, a full point over Walter Penn Shipley. The next Franklin and city championship, that of 1893-94, however, showed Kemény crushing his opposition with a score of 23–1, a full three points ahead of Mordecai Morgan, and four and a half points ahead of Hermann G. Voigt. In 1896, he had challenged Jackson Whipps Showalter, the U.S. Champion

U.S. Chess Championship

The U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational tournament held to determine the national chess champion of the United States. Since 1936, it has been held under the auspices of the U.S. Chess Federation. Until 1999, the event consisted of a round-robin tournament of varying size...

, to a match, which Kemeny lost, with the final score of +4 –7 =4.

Between January and July 1897, he published correspondence chess games in the Philadelphia Public Ledger. In 1903 Kemeny went to Monte Carlo to report the Monte Carlo chess tournament

Monte Carlo chess tournament

The Monte Carlo chess tournament was established in 1901. There were a series of very strong tournaments held in Monte Carlo, from 1901 to 1904, and again after a long break from 1967 to 1969.-1901:...

 for the North American. He published at Philadelphia for one year a weekly entitled the American Chess Weekly.

He tied for 4-5th at Philadelphia 1898, shared 1st at Philadelphia 1899-1900, took 3rd at Philadelphia 1900-1901, and took 4th at St. Louis 1904 (the 7th American Chess Congress

American Chess Congress

The American Chess Congress was a series of chess tournaments held in the United States, a predecessor to the current U.S. Chess Championship. It had nine editions, the first played in 1857 and the last in 1923.-First American Chess Congress :...

 won by Frank James Marshall).

Kemény participated in several matches (New York City CC vs. Brooklyn CC, New York State vs. Pennsylvania, Chicago CC vs. Manhattan CC, Chicago CC vs. Brooklyn CC, Chicago CC vs. Franklin CC). He returned to his native homeland in the first decade of the 20th century, where he eventually died in the city of his birth in 1925.

His friend, Walter Penn Shipley, described him as "...tall, standing over six feet in height. Kemény was a genial companion with a keen sense of humor, well read, spoke several languages fluently and besides being an able chess player was
passionately fond of good music."