Daniel Abraham (Abe) Yanofsky was a Canadian chess player, chess arbiter, writer, lawyer, and politician. An eight-time Canadian chess champion, Yanofsky was Canada's first grandmaster and the first grandmaster of the British Commonwealth.

Herman Steiner was an American chess player, organizer, and columnist. He won the U.S. Chess Championship in 1948 and became International Master in 1950. Even more important than his playing career were his efforts promoting chess in the U.S., particularly on the West Coast. An exemplar of the Romantic School of chess, Steiner was a successor to the American chess tradition of Paul Morphy, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, and Frank Marshall.