|
John Curdo
John Anthony Curdo (November 14, 1931 – September 30, 2022) was an American chess player from Auburn, Massachusetts, best known for winning the Massachusetts state championship 17 times between 1948 and 1985, as well as the US Senior Championship. Though Curdo never attained the rank of Grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster or International Master, he was known for over 50 years as one of the strongest players in New England, with victories over Grandmasters Pal Benko, Robert Byrne (chess player), Robert Byrne, and Arthur Bisguier, among many others. At his peak, his United States Chess Federation rating exceeded 2500. As of August 2009, Curdo had won 830 tournaments over the course of his career, a number believed to be a List of world records in chess#Most tournament victories, world record by a wide margin. By December 2011, he had attained 865 tournament wins, while in 2018 he had extended the number to 1000 tournament victories. His opening repertoire remained relatively consis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
FIDE Titles
FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and norms (performance benchmarks in competitions including other titled players). Once awarded, titles are held for life except in cases of fraud or cheating. Open titles may be earned by all players, while women's titles are restricted to female players. Many strong female players hold both open and women's titles. FIDE also awards titles for arbiters, organizers and trainers. Titles for correspondence chess, chess problem composition and chess problem solving are no longer administered by FIDE. A chess title, usually in an abbreviated form, may be used as an honorific. For example, Magnus Carlsen may be styled as "GM Magnus Carlsen". History The term "master" for a strong chess player was initially used informally. From the late 19t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games, such as xiangqi (Chinese chess) and shogi (Japanese chess). The recorded history of chess goes back at least to the emergence of a similar game, chaturanga, in seventh-century India. The rules of chess as we know them today emerged in Europe at the end of the 15th century, with standardization and universal acceptance by the end of the 19th century. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide. Chess is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no use of dice or cards. It is played on a chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auburn, Massachusetts
Auburn is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 16,889 at the 2020 census. History The Auburn area was first settled in 1714 as of today outer parts of Worcester, Sutton, Leicester and Oxford, Massachusetts, and the town was officially incorporated on April 10, 1778, as the town of Ward, in honor of American Revolution General Artemas Ward. The town changed its name to Auburn in 1837, after the Post Office complained that the name was too similar to the nearby town of Ware. Before incorporation, most of Auburn was known as the South Parish of Worcester; other portions fell within the town limits of Leicester and Millbury. Today, Auburn is bordered by Worcester to the north, Leicester to the west, Millbury to the east, and Oxford to the south. Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket from Pakachoag Hill, on his aunt Effe Ward's farm, in Auburn on March 16, 1926. Goddard is commemorated in Goddard Memorial Park, located ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grandmaster (chess)
Grandmaster (GM) is a title awarded to chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain. Once achieved, the title is held for life, though exceptionally it has been revoked for cheating. The title of Grandmaster, along with the lesser FIDE titles of International Master (IM) and FIDE Master (FM), is open to all players regardless of gender. The great majority of grandmasters are men, but 40 women have been awarded the GM title as of 2022, out of a total of about 2000 grandmasters. Since about the year 2000, most of the top 10 women have held the GM title. There is also a Woman Grandmaster title with lower requirements awarded only to women. There are also Grandmaster titles for composers and solvers of chess problems, awarded by the World Federation for Chess Composition (see List of grandmasters for chess composition). The International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) awards the tit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Master
FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and norms (performance benchmarks in competitions including other titled players). Once awarded, titles are held for life except in cases of fraud or cheating. Open titles may be earned by all players, while women's titles are restricted to female players. Many strong female players hold both open and women's titles. FIDE also awards titles for arbiters, organizers and trainers. Titles for correspondence chess, chess problem composition and chess problem solving are no longer administered by FIDE. A chess title, usually in an abbreviated form, may be used as an honorific. For example, Magnus Carlsen may be styled as "GM Magnus Carlsen". History The term "master" for a strong chess player was initially used informally. From the late 19th c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pal Benko
Pál C. Benkő ( hu, Benkő Pál; July 15, 1928 – August 26, 2019) was a Hungarian Americans, Hungarian-American chess player, author, and Chess composer, composer of Endgame study, endgame studies and chess problems. Early life Benko was born on July 15, 1928 in Amiens, France, where his Hungarian parents were on vacation. He was raised in Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946), Hungary. Benko learned to play chess aged eight from his father, but did not compete in tournaments until age 17, due to World War II. During the war, he dug ditches for the Hungarian army before being captured by the Soviet army, which forced him to be a laborer. He eventually escaped to his home, only to find that his brother and father had been sent to Russia as laborers, and his mother died as the war neared its conclusion. Benko made rapid progress once he began tournament play, and became Hungarian Chess Championship, Hungarian champion by age 20. He was awarded the title of International Master i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Byrne (chess Player)
Robert Eugene Byrne (April 20, 1928 – April 12, 2013) was an American chess player and chess author who held the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM). He won the 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. 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. He and his younger brother Donald grew up in New York City and were among the "Collins Kids", promising young players who benefited from the instruction and encouragement of John W. Collins. Both ultimately became college professors and among the leading ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Bisguier
Arthur Bernard Bisguier (October 8, 1929April 5, 2017), paternal surname Bisgeier, was an American chess player, chess promoter, and writer who held the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM). Bisguier won two U.S. Junior Championships (1948, 1949), three U.S. Open Chess Championship titles (1950, 1956, 1959), and the 1954 United States Chess Championship title. He played for the United States in five chess Olympiads. He also played in two Interzonal tournaments (1955, 1962). On March 18, 2005, the United States Chess Federation (USCF) proclaimed him "Dean of American Chess." Early years Bisguier was born in a Jewish family in New York City and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. He was taught chess at the age of 4 by his father Jesse (born Jechiel Max Bisgeier), a mathematician. In 1944, aged 15, he was third at the Bronx Empire Chess Club. In 1946, aged 17, he came fifth in the U.S. Open at Pittsburgh, followed by seventh place in 1948. Later that year, he took the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of World Records In Chess
The world records in chess listed here are achieved in organized tournament, match, or simultaneous exhibition play. Game length records Longest game The longest tournament chess game (in terms of moves) ever to be played was Nikolić–Arsović, Belgrade 1989, which lasted for 269 moves and took 20 hours and 15 minutes to complete a drawn game. At the time this game was played, FIDE had modified the fifty-move rule to allow 100 moves to be played without a piece being captured in a rook and bishop versus rook endgame, the situation in Nikolić versus Arsović. FIDE has since rescinded that modification to the rule. The longest decisive tournament game is Danin– Azarov, Turnov 2016, which Danin won in 239 moves. In the 9th round of THT Extraliga (highest Czech team league), Danin needed to win his game to make the match end in a 4:4 draw. Although he managed to do so, his team (TŽ Třinec) was relegated from the highest league in the end. The second-longest decisive tourn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dutch Defense
The Dutch Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves: :1. d4 f5 Black's 1...f5 stakes a claim to the e4-square and envisions an attack in the middlegame on White's ; however, it also weakens Black's kingside to an extent (especially the e8–h5 diagonal). Like its 1.e4 counterpart, the Sicilian Defence, the Dutch is an aggressive and unbalancing opening, resulting in the lowest percentage of draws among the most common replies to 1.d4. Historically, White has tried many methods to exploit the kingside weaknesses, such as the Staunton Gambit (2.e4) and Korchnoi Attack (2.h3 and 3.g4). The Dutch has never been a main line against 1.d4 and is rarely seen today in high-level competition, although a number of top players, including Alexander Alekhine, Bent Larsen, Paul Morphy, Miguel Najdorf, and Hikaru Nakamura have used it with success. Its most notable use may have been in 1951, when both world champion Mikhail Botvinnik and his challenger, David Bronstein, played ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Four Knights Game
The Four Knights Game is a chess opening that begins with the moves: :1. e4 e5 :2. Nf3 Nc6 :3. Nc3 Nf6 This is the most common sequence, but the knights may in any order to reach the same position. The opening is fairly popular with beginners who strictly adhere to the opening principle: "Develop knights before bishops." It was one of the workhorses in the family of the Open Game, at even the highest levels, until World War I. Thereafter it fell by the wayside, along with a number of other Open Games. In this period ambitious players explored the Ruy Lopez, believing it a better attempt by White to exploit the advantage of the first move. In the 1990s, this opening saw a renaissance, and is now seen in the praxis of players from beginner to grandmaster. The Four Knights usually leads to quiet , though there are some variations. The ''Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings'' has three codes for the Four Knights Game: * C49: 4.Bb5 Bb4 (Symmetrical Variation) * C48: 4.Bb5 without ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1931 Births
Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia. * January 25 – Mohandas Gandhi is again released from imprisonment in India. * January 27 – Pierre Laval forms a government in France. February * February 4 – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gives a speech calling for rapid industrialization, arguing that only strong industrialized countries will win wars, while "weak" nations are "beaten". Stalin states: "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us." The first five-year plan in the Soviet Union is intensified, for the industrialization and collectivization of agriculture. * February 10 †... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> FIDE Titles")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Pal Benko")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Robert Byrne (chess Player)")
