RIP Robert Byrne, 1928-2013 - Chess and Board Game Strategy

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RIP Robert Byrne, 1928-2013

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04-13-2013 , 10:12 AM

TexAg06

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Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 2,475

Robert Byrne passed away yesterday (4/12) at the age of 84. The USCF has a brief write-up here.

Until browsing online just now, I didn't realize he was such a strong player. Chessmetrics has him as #11 in the world in the 1973/74 time frame. As the USCF article shows, he beat Fischer in 1965. His best tournament performance was Leningrad 1973 where he finished 3rd, scoring 12.5/17 (2793 performance rating, see results here) and finishing just behind Korchnoi and Karpov who tied for first. He finished ahead of names like Larsen, Hubner, Tal, Taimanov, and Gligoric. Pretty impressive.

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04-13-2013 , 08:29 PM

IMM

centurion

Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 106

RIP. I enjoyed his chess columns in NY Times.

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04-14-2013 , 05:17 PM

leofric

grinder

Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 470

I think Byrne suffered from being around when Fischer was in his prime. Certainly was a top class player

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04-14-2013 , 09:47 PM

TexAg06

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Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 2,475

Here is a good article from Chessbase with some cool old pictures.

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04-16-2013 , 09:54 AM

TexAg06

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Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 2,475

Kavalek wrote a really good article for Chessbase on Byrne. I'm linking this because the game/combination at the end of the article is really beautiful and definitely worth looking at.

Link here

This attack and ensuing sacrifices remind me of Tal. Byrne couldn't have calculated the whole thing and probably had to rely heavily on intuition and knowing White's initiative and black's exposed king would eventually tell the tale.

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