Robert Byrne (chess player)

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For other people named Robert Byrne, see Robert Byrne (disambiguation).

Robert Byrne
Ossining, New York, U.S.
TitleGrandmaster (1964)
Peak rating2605 (July 1973)

Robert Eugene Byrne (April 20, 1928 – April 12, 2013) was an American

U.S. Championship in 1972, and was a World Chess Championship Candidate in 1974. Byrne represented the United States nine times in Chess Olympiads from 1952 to 1976 and won seven medals. He was the chess columnist from 1972 to 2006 for The New York Times, which ran his final column (a recounting of his 1952 victory over David Bronstein) on November 12, 2006.[2]
Byrne worked as a university professor for many years, before becoming a chess professional in the early 1970s.

Early years

Byrne was born in Brooklyn, the son of Elizabeth Eleanor (Cattalier) and Robert Byrne.

Larry Evans, Arthur Bisguier
, and George Kramer.

Robert Byrne's first Master event was

Weaver Adams. He tied 1st–2nd in the Premier Reserves section at the U.S. Open Chess Championship, Pittsburgh in 1946. College studies limited his opportunities for the next several years; he represented the U.S. in a 1950 radio match against Yugoslavia. In the 1951 Maurice Wertheim Memorial, New York, Robert Byrne scored 6/11 for a tied 6–7th place; this was a Grandmaster round-robin with 6 of the world's top 36 players, and it was won by Samuel Reshevsky
.

Byrne became an

1952 Chess Olympiad at Helsinki (bronze medal on third board). In that same year he graduated from Yale University. He went on to become a professor of philosophy at Indiana University, and his academic career left him little time for chess. He did represent the U.S. in team matches against the Soviet Union at New York in 1954 (losing 1½–2½ to Alexander Kotov), and Moscow 1955 (losing ½–3½ to Paul Keres
).

Grandmaster

Robert Byrne

Byrne placed shared 4–7th at the 1957

U.S. Chess Championship until age 30 in 1958–59, placing tied 9–10th with 4/11; the winner was Bobby Fischer. But Byrne improved dramatically the next year in the same event to place 2nd with 8/11, ahead of Reshevsky and Pal Benko
, as Fischer won again.

In 1960, Byrne increased his serious play, winning the

Larry Evans
. He placed 6th in the U.S. Championship 1962–63 with 6/11, as Fischer won again. In the U.S. Championship 1963–64 he again placed 6th with 5½/11, as Fischer defeated Byrne brilliantly in 21 moves and won the tournament with a perfect score. Of his game against Fischer, Byrne wrote: "The culminating combination is of such depth that, even at the very moment at which I resigned, both grandmasters who were commenting on the play for the spectators in a separate room believed I had a won game!"

In 1964, Byrne's third-place finish at the

Interzonal tournament, Sousse
1967, but scored just 7½/22, far short of advancing.

U.S. Champion, Candidate

By the late 1960s, he was playing chess semi-professionally. He won the 1972 U.S. Championship; after tying with

world chess championship process). Byrne lost his first-round Candidates' match to former world champion Boris Spassky by 1½–4½ at San Juan, Puerto Rico
, in 1974.

As a 1974 Candidate, Byrne was seeded directly to the 1976

Biel
Interzonal, where he performed very strongly, but missed a playoff berth by only half a point, sharing 5–6th places with 11½/19, behind Larsen (first with 12½), Tal, Portisch and Petrosian (2–4 with 12).

At the Olympiads

Byrne played nine times for the United States, with a total of (+51−12=53), for 66.8 per cent, and won seven individual and team medals.[1] His detailed results follow.[4]

Later career and legacy

This section uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.

When he became the columnist for the Times in 1972, he became less active as a player. He did, nevertheless, win tournaments at Torremolinos (1976–77), Harare (1983), and Lagos (1993). He has also been a frequent contributor to Chess Life magazine, the publication of the United States Chess Federation. He has chaired USCF's committee on masters' affairs and been one of its vice presidents. Byrne was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 1994.

Throughout his career, Byrne improved his results level by level in major competitions, at the U.S. Open, the U.S. Championship, the Olympiad, and the Interzonal. He made original contributions in several opening systems. He was the first to play 6.Be3 against the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3); this system has been named for him and has been very popular since the mid-1980s. He developed the Byrne Variation of the King's Indian Defense against the Saemisch Variation, with a quick queenside expansion by Black. He used the Dutch Defense with success when that opening was rarely seen at the top level. His opening repertoire was wide with both colors, and featured both Open and Closed games, which made him a challenge to prepare for. Byrne played competitively until age 74 in 2002, with an average of a couple of significant events per year even past age 60. He retired from writing his chess column at age 78.

Death

Byrne died in 2013 at his home in Ossining, New York, from Parkinson's disease.[5]

Notable games

Books

  • Beginning Chess (1972)
  • Both Sides of the Chessboard (1974) (with Iivo Nei)
  • New York Times Book of Great Chess Victories & Defeats (1990) (collection of Times columns)
    ISBN 0-8129-1884-3

References

  1. ^ a b "Robert Byrne, 1928–2013". United States Chess Federation. April 13, 2013. Retrieved April 13, 2013.
  2. ^ Byrne, Robert (November 12, 2006). "A Farewell, After 34 Years, and a Memorable 1952 Game". The New York Times. Retrieved April 13, 2013.
  3. ISBN 9780671219413
    .
  4. ^ "Men's Chess Olympiads :: Robert Byrne". OlimpBase.org. Retrieved April 13, 2013.
  5. ^ Weber, Bruce (April 13, 2013). "Robert Byrne, Chess Grandmaster, Dies at 84". The New York Times. Retrieved April 13, 2013.

Further reading

  • "A Life in American Chess", by Frank Niro, Chess Life, July 2013, pp. 19–25.

External links

Achievements
Preceded by
United States Chess Champion

1972 		Succeeded by
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