Career
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. The next Franklin and city championship, that of 1893-1894, 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.
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 for the North American. He published at Philadelphia for one year a weekly entitled the American Chess Weekly.
Kemény participated in several matches (New York City Central Committee vs Brooklyn Central Committee, New York State vs Pennsylvania, Chicago Central Committee vs Manhattan Central Committee, Chicago Central Committee vs Brooklyn Central Committee, Chicago Central Committee vs Franklin Central Committee). 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.
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".