He played five times for U.S. team in the Chess Olympiads, with his detailed results below: [2] In Stockholm 1937, he scored 14/16, the best individual record of all the players.
Among players who have played in the open section of four or more Olympiads, Kashdan's winning percentage is the fourth best in history, behind only World Champions Mikhail Tal, Anatoly Karpov, and Tigran Petrosian.
[8] Kashdan was U.S. Open Champion in 1938 (jointly with Al Horowitz) at Boston,[9] and in 1947 at Corpus Christi.
[3] In a Master event organized by the Manhattan Chess Club in 1948, Kashdan scored 5.5/7 to place 2nd behind George Kramer.
[20] In the U.S. Open Chess Championship, Fort Worth 1951, Kashdan scored 8/11, with Larry Evans winning.
[3] Kashdan's final competitive event was the 1955 match in Moscow against the USSR, where he scored 1.5/4 against Mark Taimanov.
[18] He appeared on February 9, 1956, TV edition of Groucho Marx's show You Bet Your Life, where the host referred to him throughout as "Mr. Ashcan", and challenged him to a match for $500 (but only if allowed to cheat).
Kashdan was the longtime editor of the Los Angeles Times chess column, from 1955 until 1982, when he suffered a disabling stroke.
Kashdan also helped to organize the series of Lone Pine tournaments in the 1970s, which were sponsored by Louis Statham.
Denker and Parr write that Kashdan was a powerful tactician, but that his real strength was in the endgame, and that he was very strong with the two bishops.
[23] However, Grandmaster Denker also pointed out that "the slightest touch of rigidity" occasionally crept into Kashdan's play, as he sometimes resorted to artificial maneuvers to obtain the two bishops.
[23] Lack of top-class practice after the mid-1930s, due to economic imperatives, led to Kashdan's gradual slide from the elite.
[26][27] Under his nickname, he maintains an archive of "phone trips"; recordings documenting travels around the United States, during the 1960s and early 1970s, with the purpose of exploring local telephone switching networks.