Albéric O'Kelly de Galway

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Albéric O'Kelly de Galway
ICCF Grandmaster (1962)
ICCF World Champion1959–62
FIDE rating2460 (January 1977)
ICCF rating2529 (July 1992)

Albéric Joseph Rodolphe Marie Robert Ghislain O'Kelly de Galway (17 May 1911 – 3 October 1980) was a Belgian chess Grandmaster (1956), an International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster (1962), and the third ICCF World Champion in correspondence chess (1959–1962). He was also a chess writer.

Chess career

O'Kelly won the

International Master (IM) in 1950, the first year the title was awarded. He placed first at Dortmund 1951. O'Kelly finished first at the round-robin Utrecht 1961 with 6½/9, followed by Karl Robatsch second with 6 points and Arthur Bisguier and Aleksandar Matanović tied for third and fourth with 5½.[1] He took part in The Gijón International Chess Tournaments (1949 and 1956), achieving respectively 2nd and 4th places.[2]

In 1958, he was awarded the Belgian decoration of the Golden Palm of the Order of the Crown, for his chess successes and the distinction he had brought to the nation.[3]

O'Kelly was made an

Korchnoi
match.

He spoke French, Dutch, German, English, Spanish, and Russian fluently, and also some Italian. He published many books and articles, often in languages other than French. As a youth, he took lessons from the legendary Akiba Rubinstein.

Ancestry

O'Kelly was descended from John O'Kelly, an Irish-born British army officer who was granted a nobility title in 1720 in what was then the

Austrian Low Countries.[4]
Consequently, he was often styled as 'Count O'Kelly de Galway', for example on the front cover of his 1965 book about Petrosian.

Legacy

This section uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.

The O'Kelly Variation in the Sicilian Defence: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 a6[5] is named after him.

Books

  • O'Kelly de Galway, Albéric; Littlewood, John (1965), Tigran Petrosian: World Champion,
    ISBN 978-0-0801-1012-7
  • O'Kelly de Galway, Albéric (1969), The Sicilian Flank Game (Najdorf Variation),
    ISBN 978-0-7134-0351-0
  • O'Kelly de Galway, Albéric (1976), Assess Your Chess Fast: From Expert to Master,
    ISBN 978-0-7134-1055-6
  • O'Kelly de Galway, Albéric (1978), Improve Your Chess Fast,
    ISBN 0-7134-1053-1

Notable games

References

Notes

  1. Horowitz, I. A. (February 1962), "The World of Chess: Another for O'Kelly", Chess Review
    , vol. 30, no. 2, p. 35
  2. ISBN 978-1-4766-7659-3
    .
  3. ISBN 0709146973
    .
  4. ISBN 978-3-7357-2310-9
    .
  5. ^ Wall, Bill. "Opening Names". Bill Wall's Chess Page. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2009.

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Albéric O'Kelly de Galway.
Preceded by
World Correspondence Chess Champion

1959–1962 		Succeeded by
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