in future World Chess Champion Jose Raul Capablanca, from Cuba (who won the event), American champion Frank Marshall, and former world title match finalist Dawid Janowski of France, along with the very strong Charles Jaffe and Oscar Chajes. Whitaker was outclassed by those five more experienced players, but held his own with everyone else, to finish with 5.5/13, tied 8-9th. This caliber of result clearly shows he was a strong Master by this time. Whitaker challenged Marshall in early 1914 to a match for the U.S. title, held by Marshall, but the two could not agree on financial terms. Whitaker competed frequently and successfully in the Western Open during his college years and afterwards; organized by the Western Chess Association, this was often the nation's strongest-field annually-staged tournament in that era. This tournament later became known as the U.S. Open Chess Championship. During this era, it was an elite round-robin format event. His major results from this period: 16th Western Open, Excelsior, Minnesota 1915–8.5/10, second place, winner Jackson Showalter; 17th Western Open, Chicago 1916–13.5/19, tied 4-5th, winner Edward Lasker. By 1918, he was one of the strongest players in the country, defeating former U.S. champion Showalter in a match, by a score of +4 -1 =3. This was actually the second match between the two: Showalter had dominated their contest in 1916 by +6 -1 =0. In 1920, Whitaker represented Washington, D.C. against Chicago in what is believed to have been the first American shortwave radio long-distance chess match. He faced the very experienced master Edward Lasker. A pre-arranged time limit of three hours for the game found it still unfinished after 25 moves, with Whitaker having a slight advantage, and Capablanca adjudicated the position as a win for Whitaker. Peak performance In 1921, at Atlantic City, he placed clear second, and top American, in the Eighth American Chess Congress. This series of nine tournaments, staged at irregular intervals between 1857 and 1923, was the forerunner to the modern United States Chess Championship tournament series. Whitaker finished with 8/11, only half a point behind winner Janowski, and ahead of Marshall, both of whom he defeated head-to-head. This was arguably his peak lifetime performance. Whitaker was then scheduled to play a match against Marshall for the U.S. Chess Championship, but did not show up. He had been arrested and criminally charged in November 1921 (see below), and this was the likely