AFebruary 23 1970
The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Indiana, Monday, February 23, 1970
City Resident Holds High Spot Among World's Chess Players
By Thomas R. Keating
Robert Byrne of Indianapolis played 20 games of chess last week at New York City, winning 17 and playing to a draw in the other three.
While this showing seems no more than should be expected of Indiana's only International Grand Chess Master, it might be pointed out that Byrne played all 20 games at the same time against skilled members of the prestigious Manhattan Chess Club.
The games were part of “simultaneous exhibitions” that the 41-year-old Byrne puts on occasionally around the world.
BYRNE, WHO lives with his wife, Florence, and their 8-year-old son, Benjamin, at 3369 Meadows Court, is a full-time, professional chess player.
He is one of only seven International Grand Chess Masters in the United States today and is currently No. 5 in the national rankings.
Byrne's ability at the chess board has taken him around the world several times. He has been a member of the United States team in the World Chess Olympiad five times. He also is one of the few men to ever beat Bobby Fisher, the New Yorker who is ranked No. 1 in the world.
Byrne started his chess career at the Brooklyn Children's Museum at the age of 8. Soon after learning the game, he and his 6-year-old brother, Donald, were regularly beating the woman who taught them.
DONALD, a professor of English at Pennsylvania State University currently is No. 10 in the national rankings.
“Chess was a big thing in the New York high schools in the 1940s,” Byrne said. “There were 250 members in my high school chess club and the competition between schools was very keen.”
During his senior year Byrne won the individual high school chess city championship and about the same time began playing at the Manhattan Chess Club.
“The best players in the country were playing there at the time,” Byrne said, and the games would attract huge crowds. That was where I got used to playing before an audience and under pressure.
“MOST PEOPLE don't realize that competition chess is a very tense and exhausting game. I suppose putting in golf would be the closest parallel. You are under great pressure not to make the slightest mistake and there is no physical release for the tension.
“Even in golf, you can take a healthy cut at the ball and release some of the tension.”
World competition chess has a time limit of 2½ hours per game. Forty moves must be made by each player in that period. If a game is still dead locked at the end of 80 moves, the positions of the chessmen are recorded and the player who has the next move must write out this move and seal it in an envelope to be opened the next day.
“The reason for this,” Byrne explained, “is that if the move were not put down on paper, the player would have all night to consider his move.”
ALL SUBSEQUENT sessions have a time limit of four hours, with 16 moves per player required each hour.
Most top chess tourneys around the world have 16 players in the lineup. As an International Grand Master, Byrne gets more invitations to play in tourneys than he can accept. He will leave Thursday to play in a three-week tourney in Switzerland.
First prize for a major tourney will range anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000. Prize money usually is awarded through the first eight places.
On top of this, a player of Byrne's caliber is paid a fee for appearing, the amount depending on his ranking, and all travel and living expenses are picked up by the tourney sponsor. Byrne's fee usually is around $300. His top single prize was $1,500.
TO AUGMENT his tourney income, Byrne lectures on the game for several magazines. “Just as in other games or sports, chess is becoming more complex all the time,” Byrne said. “For example, some matches are now being filmed for scouting purposes. It can prove invaluable to see how a player reacts to various situations on the board and which ones he finds most difficult.”
Byrne said that while U.S. chess players are among the best in the world, they run into difficulty when playing in some Communist countries.
Communist countries subsidize their chess players just like they do their athletes, Byrne said. “The Russians have sought out and promoted their chess masters for a long time. Whenever they colonize, such as in Cuba, their chess masters are among the first people they send in.
“I WOULD RANK Russia first in the world today in chess, with either the U.S. or Yugoslavia second. But, we Americans have great difficulty in ever getting our best team together for world competition, because the Chess Olympiad lasts for five weeks and many of the players can't be gone that long.”
The World Chess Olympiad is held every two years. Since 1952, Byrne has played in the Olympiad in Finland, Bulgaria, East Germany, Switzerland and Cuba.
“The Cuban world tournament in 1966 is one I'll never forget. The Cuban press treatment of the United States Team was unbelievable. When Russia clinched first place; the Cuban papers carried the story in big headlines and when Yugoslavia finished third the same thing happened. But, there was never a mention that the U.S. finished second.”
BYRNE, A YALE University graduate, is working on a doctorate in philosophy at Indiana University. When he gets it, he plans to greatly curtail his tournament chess.
Before he does, however, he has one more goal. “I've never won the U.S. championship. I've been runnerup four times to Bobby Fischer. That's one I really want to win.”
