Robert Felt (1953–2002) was a

computer programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

, USCF-rated

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 disti ...

Expert, Tennessee Junior chess champion, and champion ''

Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...

'' player. Born in Memphis,Jon Anderson, "Chicagoan ready from the word 'go'; He'll be our man in London for Scrabble Championships, ''Chicago Tribune'', September 26, 1991, Tempo section p. 1. he entered the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1971 and tested out of so many requirements that he was awarded Junior status. At the University of Chicago, he was a member of the chess team, at one point being first board on the university's second team for two Pan-American Intercollegiate national tournaments. He also competed for the university at the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

national contract bridge tournament. In 1978, he left university without a degree and joined Banker's Life and Casualty as a computer programmer. At the TDM division of

Rand McNally Rand McNally is an American technology and publishing company that provides mapping, software and hardware for consumer electronics, commercial transportation and education markets. The company is headquartered in Chicago, with a distribution c ...

he enjoyed a reputation as one of the best

CICS IBM CICS (Customer Information Control System) is a family of mixed-language application servers that provide online transaction management and connectivity for applications on IBM mainframe systems under z/OS and z/VSE. CICS family products ...

programmers in the world. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he established 911 systems for police and fire dispatchers. Much of the technology at most 911 call centers is derived from his early work. In 1990, Felt won the US

National Scrabble Championship The Scrabble Players Championship (formerly the North American SCRABBLE® Championship, and earlier the National SCRABBLE Championship) is the largest ''Scrabble'' competition in North America. The event is currently held every year, and from 2004 ...

. He achieved a peak rating of 2155, which in February 2011 would easily be the number one rating again.

References

External links

* American Scrabble players 1953 births 2002 deaths {{board-game-stub