Larry Evans (chess grandmaster)

Larry Evans
Larry Evans
Full name	Larry Melvyn Evans
Country	United States
Born	March 22, 1932; New York, New York
Died	November 15, 2010 (aged 78); Reno, Nevada
Title	Grandmaster (1957)
Peak rating	2555 (January 1977)

Last updated April 16, 2019

Larry Melvyn Evans (March 22, 1932 – November 15, 2010) was an American chess grandmaster, author, and journalist. He won or shared the U.S. Chess Championship five times and the U.S. Open Chess Championship four times. He wrote a long-running syndicated chess column and wrote or co-wrote more than twenty books on chess.

Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a chessboard, a checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. The game is played by millions of people worldwide. Chess is believed to be derived from the Indian game chaturanga some time before the 7th century. Chaturanga is also the likely ancestor of the Eastern strategy games xiangqi, janggi, and shogi. Chess reached Europe by the 9th century, due to the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The pieces assumed their current powers in Spain in the late 15th century with the introduction of "Mad Queen Chess"; the modern rules were standardized in the 19th century.

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.

A journalist is a person who collects, writes, or distributes news or other current information to the public. A journalist's work is called journalism. A journalist can work with general issues or specialize in certain issues. However, most journalists tend to specialize, and by cooperating with other journalists, produce journals that span many topics. For example, a sports journalist covers news within the world of sports, but this journalist may be a part of a newspaper that covers many different topics.

Chess career

Early years

Evans was born in Manhattan on March 22, 1932, and learned much about the game by playing for ten cents an hour on 42nd Street in New York City,^{[ citation needed ]} quickly becoming a rising star. At age 14, he tied for 4th–5th place in the Marshall Chess Club championship. The next year he won it outright, becoming the youngest Marshall champion at that time. He also finished equal second in the U.S. Junior Championship, which led to an article in the September 1947 issue of Chess Review. At 16, he played in the 1948 U.S. Chess Championship, his first, tying for eighth place at 11½–7½.^[1] Evans tied with Arthur Bisguier for first place in the U.S. Junior Chess Championship of 1949. By age 18, he had won a New York State championship as well as a gold medal in the Dubrovnik 1950 Chess Olympiad. In the latter, his 90% score (eight wins and two draws) on sixth board tied with Rabar of Yugoslavia for the best result of the entire Olympiad.^[2]

Manhattan, often referred to locally as the City, is the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City and its economic and administrative center, cultural identifier, and historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state of New York. The borough consists mostly of Manhattan Island, bounded by the Hudson, East, and Harlem rivers; several small adjacent islands; and Marble Hill, a small neighborhood now on the U.S. mainland, physically connected to the Bronx and separated from the rest of Manhattan by the Harlem River. Manhattan Island is divided into three informally bounded components, each aligned with the borough's long axis: Lower, Midtown, and Upper Manhattan.

42nd Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, known for its theaters, especially near the intersection with Broadway at Times Square in Midtown. It is also the name of the region of the theater district near that intersection. The street has held a special place in New Yorkers' imaginations since at least the turn of the 20th century, and is the site of some of New York's best known buildings, including the Headquarters of the United Nations, Chrysler Building, Grand Central Terminal, New York Public Library, Times Square and the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

U.S. champion

In 1951, Evans first won the U.S. Championship, ahead of Samuel Reshevsky, who had tied for 3rd–4th in the 1948 World Championship match-tournament.^[3] Evans won his second championship the following year by winning a title match against Herman Steiner.^[4] He won the national championship three additional times: in 1961–62, 1967–68,^[5] and 1980, the last in a tie with Walter Browne and Larry Christiansen.^[6]^[7]^[8]

Samuel Herman Reshevsky was a Polish chess prodigy and later a leading American chess grandmaster. He was never a full-time chess professional. He was a strong contender for the World Chess Championship from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s: he tied for third place in the 1948 World Chess Championship tournament, and tied for second in the 1953 Candidates Tournament. He was an eight-time winner of the US Chess Championship, tying him with Bobby Fischer for the all-time record. An outstanding match player throughout his career, Reshevsky excelled at positional play, and could be a brilliant tactician when required. He took a long time over his opening moves, and often found himself in time pressure, but this sometimes unsettled his opponent more than it did Reshevsky.

The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. Since 2014, the schedule has settled on a two-year cycle with a championship held in every even year. Magnus Carlsen has been world champion since he dethroned Viswanathan Anand in 2013. He then went on to successfully defend his title against Anand in 2014, against Sergey Karjakin in 2016 and against Fabiano Caruana in 2018.

Herman Steiner was a United States chess player, organizer, and columnist. He won the U.S. Chess Championship in 1948 and became International Master in 1950. Even more important than his playing career were his efforts promoting chess in the U.S., particularly on the West Coast. An exemplar of the Romantic School of chess, Steiner was a successor to the American chess tradition of Paul Morphy, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, and Frank Marshall.

Grandmaster

FIDE awarded Evans the titles of International Master (1952) and International Grandmaster (1957). In 1956 the U.S. State Department appointed him a "chess ambassador".

Evans performed well in many U.S. events during the 1960s and 1970s, but his trips abroad to international tournaments were infrequent and less successful. He won the U.S. Open Chess Championship in 1951, 1952, 1954 (he tied with Arturo Pomar but won the title on the tie-break) and tied with Walter Browne in 1971. He also won the first Lone Pine tournament in 1971.^[9]

The U.S. Open Championship is an open national chess championship that has been held in the United States annually since 1900.

Arturo Pomar Salamanca was a Spanish chess player. He was the first Spanish player to be awarded the title of grandmaster (GM), and was a seven-time national champion.

Walter Shawn Browne was an Australian-born American chess and poker player. Awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1970, he won the U.S. Chess Championship six times.

Olympiad successes

Evans represented the U.S. in eight Chess Olympiads over a period of twenty-six years, winning gold (1950), silver (1958), and bronze (1976) medals for his play, and participating in team gold (1976) and silver (1966) medals.^[10]^[11]^[12]

Best international results

Evans' best results on foreign soil included two wins at the Canadian Open Chess Championship, 1956 in Montreal, and 1966 in Kingston, Ontario. He tied for first–second in the 1975 Portimão, Portugal International^[13] and for second–third with World Champion Tigran Petrosian, behind Jan Hein Donner, in Venice, 1967.^[14] However, Evans' first, and what ultimately proved to be his only, chance in the World Chess Championship cycle ended with a disappointing 14th place (10/23) in the 1964 Amsterdam Interzonal.^[15]

Working with Bobby Fischer

Evans (right) helping Fischer prepare for his World Championship match Fischer and evans.jpg — Evans (*right*) helping Fischer prepare for his World Championship match

He never entered the world championship cycle again, and concentrated his efforts on assisting his fellow American Bobby Fischer in his quest for the world title. He was Fischer's second for the Candidates matches leading up to the World Chess Championship 1972 against Boris Spassky, though not for the championship match itself, after a disagreement with Fischer.

At his peak in October 1968 he was rated 2631 by the United States Chess Federation.

Chess journalism

Evans had always been interested in writing as well as playing. By the age of 18, he had already published David Bronstein's Best Games of Chess, 1944–1949 and the Vienna International Tournament, 1922. His book New Ideas in Chess was published in 1958, and was later reprinted. He wrote or co-wrote more than twenty books on chess.^[16]

He wrote the tenth edition of the important openings treatise Modern Chess Openings (1965), co-authored with editor Walter Korn. He also wrote the introductions to Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games (1969) and urged the future world champion to publish when he had initially been reluctant to do so.^[17] Some of Evans's other books are Modern Chess Brilliancies (1970), What's The Best Move (1973), and Test Your Chess I.Q. (2001).

Evans began his career in chess journalism during the 1960s, helping to found the American Chess Quarterly , which ran from 1961 to 1965. He was an editor of Chess Digest during the 1960s and 1970s. For over thirty years, until 2006, he wrote a question-and-answer column for Chess Life , the official publication of the United States Chess Federation (USCF), and has also written for Chess Life Online. His weekly chess column, Evans on Chess, has appeared in more than fifty separate newspapers throughout the United States. He also wrote a column for the World Chess Network.

Evans also commentated on some of the most important matches for Time magazine and ABC's Wide World of Sports , including the 1972 Fischer versus Spassky match, the 1993 PCA world title battle between Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short, and the Braingames world chess championship match between Vladimir Kramnik and Kasparov in 2000.

Evans also contributed a large amount of tutorial and other content to the Chessmaster computer game series, most notably an endgame quiz and annotations of classic chess games. He was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 1994.

Criticism of writings

Larry Evans was a prolific author, with many who both liked and disliked his works.

Noted chess author and trainer International Master John L. Watson made the following observations on Evans's books and columns: "huge bias"; "long histories of ignoring and distorting evidence" and "Evans' absurd arguments".^[18]

By contrast, chess author and International Master Anthony Saidy noted that Evans brought to his journalism a "taste for intriguing chess", his personal experience at "the summit of US chess", and "sharp opinions" regarding the politics of chess, which contributed to his "spicy, concise columns".^[19]

Author and USCF National Master Bruce Pandolfini described Larry Evans's New Ideas in Chess as influential and a "first-rate chess book".^[20]

Leading chess historian Edward Winter, however, has noted numerous factual errors in Evans' work as well as several examples of possible plagiarism.^[21]

On page 175 of Evans' book, Modern Chess Brilliancies, he claims Lodewijk Prins adjourned a clearly lost position against Cuban master Quesada and was lucky enough when the latter died of a heart attack the "next day". Prins noted that he had actually resigned the position, as is proven by the tournament crosstables showing it as a loss for him, and that Quesada played three more games in the tournament before dying five days after the game against Prins. While Evans acknowledged the error, he defended it with "you must admit it makes a good story."^[22]

Death

On November 15, 2010, Evans died in Reno, Nevada, from complications following gallbladder surgery.^[23]^[24]^[25]

Books

What's the Best Move? (1995). ISBN 0-671-51159-9.
The 10 Most Common Chess Mistakes (1998). ISBN 1-58042-009-5.
How Good Is Your Chess? (2004). ISBN 1-58042-126-1.
New Ideas in Chess (1958). Pitman. ISBN 0-486-28305-4 (1984 Dover edition). Revised edition in 2011, Cardoza Publishing, ISBN 978-1-58042-274-1.
Modern Chess Brilliancies (1970). Fireside Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-22420-4.
Modern Chess Openings (1965). 10th edition, revised by Larry Evans, edited by Walter Korn. Pitman Publishing.
Evans on Chess (1974). Cornerstone Library.
This Crazy World of Chess (2007). Cardoza Publishing. ISBN 1-58042-218-7.
Vienna 1922 (2011). Russell Enterprises, Inc.; Reprint edition. ISBN 1-93649-002-1.

Notable games

This section uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.

This game, against future grandmaster Abe Yanofsky, was Evans's first victory against a noted player:

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Position after 25.f3

Daniel Yanofsky vs. Evans, U.S. Open 1947; Alekhine Defence ( ECO B05)
1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 Bg4 5.h3 Bxf3 6.Qxf3 dxe5 7.dxe5 e6 8.a3 Nc6 9.Bb5 Qd7 10.c4 Nde7 11.0-0 Qd4 12.Bg5 a6 13.Bxe7 axb5 14.Bxf8 Rxf8 15.cxb5 Nxe5 16.Qe2 0-0-0 17.Nc3 Ng6 18.Rad1 Qe5 19.Qc2 Rxd1 20.Rxd1 Rd8 21.Rc1 Nf4 22.Kh1 Qh5 24.Kh2 Rd3 25.f3 (see diagram) 25...Rxf3! 26.Rd1 Nxh3! 27.gxf3 Nf2+ 28.Kg3 Qh3+ 29.Kf4 Qh2+ 30.Ke3 0–1 ^[26]

In his book Modern Chess Brilliances, Evans listed four of his own wins:

Evans vs. Berger, 1964^[27]
Evans vs. Blackstone, 1965^[28]
Evans vs. Zuckerman, 1967 U.S. Championship
Koehler vs. Evans, 1968 U.S. National Open

Related Research Articles

Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was a Soviet Armenian Grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his almost impenetrable defensive playing style, which emphasised safety above all else.

Mikhail Nekhemyevich Tal was a Soviet chess Grandmaster and the eighth World Chess Champion.

Daniel Yanofsky Canadian chess grandmaster

Daniel Abraham Yanofsky, was Canada's first chess grandmaster, an eight-time Canadian Chess Champion, a chess writer, chess arbiter, and lawyer.

Robert Eugene Byrne was an American chess grandmaster and chess author. 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 on November 12, 2006. Byrne worked as a university professor for many years, before becoming a chess professional in the early 1970s.

Eric Schiller was an American chess player, trainer, arbiter and one of the most prolific authors of books on chess in the 20th century.

Svetozar Gligorić was a Serbian and Yugoslav chess grandmaster. He won the championship of Yugoslavia a record twelve times, and is considered the best player ever from Serbia. In 1958 he was declared the best athlete of Yugoslavia.

Arthur Bernard Bisguier was an American chess grandmaster, chess promoter, and writer.

Pal Benko is a Hungarian–American chess grandmaster, author, and composer of endgame studies and chess problems.

Larry M. Christiansen is an American chess player. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1977. Christiansen was the U.S. champion in 1980, 1983, and 2002. He competed in the FIDE World Championship in 1998 and 2002, and in the FIDE World Cup in 2013.

Robert James Fischer was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. Many consider him to be the greatest chess player of all time.

Milan Matulović was a chess grandmaster who was the second or third strongest Yugoslav player for much of the 1960s and 1970s behind Svetozar Gligorić and possibly Borislav Ivkov. He was primarily active before 1977, but remained an occasional tournament competitor until 2006.

Touch-move rule chess rule that, if a player deliberately touches a piece on her/his turn, then s/he must move (if own) or capture (if opponent’s) that piece if legal; if a player wishes to adjust a piece, s/he must announce “j’adoube” or similar

The touch-move rule in chess specifies that, if a player deliberately touches a piece on the board when it is their turn to move, then they must move or capture that piece if it is legal to do so. If it is the player's piece that was touched, it must be moved if they have a legal move. If the opponent's piece was touched, it must be captured if it can be captured with a legal move. This is a rule of chess that is enforced in all games played in formal over-the-board competitions. The player claiming a touch-move violation must do so before making a move.

Bill Robertie is a backgammon, chess, and poker player and author. He is one of three backgammon players to have won the World Backgammon Championship twice. Robertie also won the Pro-Am in the Bahamas in the year 1993 and the Istanbul World Cup in 1994. In chess, Robertie won the 1970 U.S. Speed Chess tournament.

Charles Jaffé (Jaffe) was a Belarusian-American chess master. Jaffe was also a chess writer.

Albert Charles Simonson was an American chess master. He was one of the strongest American players of the 1930s, and was part of the American team which won the gold medals at the 1933 Chess Olympiad. Simonson was certainly at least of International Master strength, based on his limited playing career.

George Nelson Treysman was an American chess Master.

The first-move advantage in chess is the inherent advantage of the player (White) who makes the first move in chess. Chess players and theorists generally agree that White begins the game with some advantage. Since 1851, compiled statistics support this view; White consistently wins slightly more often than Black, usually scoring between 52 and 56 percent. White's winning percentage is about the same for tournament games between humans and games between computers; however, White's advantage is less significant in blitz games and games between novices.

Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi was a Soviet and Swiss chess grandmaster and writer. He is considered one of the strongest players never to have become World Chess Champion.

Hindemburg Melão Jr. is a Brazilian philosopher, investor, epistemologist, theologian, author and retired chess player.

References

↑ William Lombardy and David Daniels, U.S. Championship Chess, David McKay, 1975, pp. 33–36. ISBN 0-679-13042-X.
↑ Árpád Főldeák, Chess Olympiads 1927–1968, Dover Publications, 1979, pp. 181, 183. ISBN 0-486-23733-8.
↑ William Lombardy and David Daniels, U.S. Championship Chess, David McKay, 1975, pp. 37–39. ISBN 0-679-13042-X.
↑ William Lombardy and David Daniels, U.S. Championship Chess, David McKay, 1975, p. 40. ISBN 0-679-13042-X.
↑ Strawberry Open
↑ William Lombardy and David Daniels, U.S. Championship Chess, David McKay, 1975, pp. 54–56, 69–71. ISBN 0-679-13042-X.
↑ Chess Informant, Volume 30, Šahovski Informator, 1981, p. 290.
↑ Larry Christiansen, 1980 U.S. Championship, Chess Enterprises, Inc., 1980, pp. 6, 108. ISBN 0-931462-09-6.
↑ John Grefe and Dennis Waterman, The Best of Lone Pine: The Louis D. Statham Chess Tournaments 1971–1980, R.H.M. Press, 1981, pp. 38, 42. ISBN 0-89058-049-9 ISBN 4-87187-816-3.
↑ Árpád Főldeák, Chess Olympiads 1927–1968, Dover Publications, 1979, pp. 181–83, 198–202, 264–69, 311–15, 358–64, 383–89. ISBN 0-486-23733-8.
↑ R.D. Keene and D.N.L. Levy, Siegen Chess Olympiad, CHESS Ltd., 1970, p. 214.
↑ R.D. Keene and D.N.L. Levy, Haifa Chess Olympiad 1976, The Chess Player, 1977, pp. 63–78. ISBN 0-906042-02-X, ISBN 978-0-906042-02-1
↑ Chess Informant , Šahovski Informator, Volume 20, 1976, p. 263.
↑ Chess Informant , Šahovski Informator, Volume 4, 1968, p. 282.
↑ B.M. Kazic, International Championship Chess: A Complete Record of FIDE Events, 1974, pp. 167–68. ISBN 0-273-07078-9.
↑ Larry Evans, This Crazy World of Chess, Cardoza Publishing, 2007, back cover. ISBN 1-58042-218-7.
↑ Larry Evans, This Crazy World of Chess, Cardoza Publishing, 2007, pp. 20, 29. ISBN 1-58042-218-7.
↑ Watson, John. Chess and Politics (Kingpin, Spring 1999, pp. 33–38)
↑ Saidy, Anthony. Book review by IM Anthony Saidy This Crazy World of Chess . Susanpolgar blogspot. February 2008.
↑ Pandolfini, Bruce. ChessCafe
↑ Edward Winter, "The Facts About Larry Evans" (2001). Retrieved on 2009-01-18.
↑ "The Facts About Larry Evans" (2001).
↑ USCF: Eulogy
↑ Chessbase: Eulogy
↑ McLain, Dylan Loeb (November 17, 2010), "Larry Evans, Chess Champ, Dies at 78", The New York Times
↑ "Yanofsky vs. Evans, U.S. Open 1947". Chessgames.com .
↑ "Evans vs. Berger, 1964". Chessgames.com .
↑ "Evans vs. Blackstone, 1965". Chessgames.com .

External links

Larry Evans player profile and games at Chessgames.com
Larry Evans download 419 of his games in PGN format
http://www.worldchessnetwork.com/English/chessNews/evans/bio.php
The Facts About Larry Evans critical article by Edward Winter
Not Quicker Than the Mind's Eye response to Winter article by Larry Parr
Grandmaster Larry Evans On Bobby Fischer Chessville.com, July 30, 2004
OlimpBase
Interview with GM Larry Evans
The United States Chess Federation eulogy

Preceded by Herman Steiner	United States Chess Champion 1951–54	Succeeded by Arthur Bisguier
Preceded by Bobby Fischer	United States Chess Champion 1961	Succeeded by Bobby Fischer
Preceded by Bobby Fischer	United States Chess Champion 1968	Succeeded by Samuel Reshevsky
Preceded by Lubomir Kavalek	United States Chess Champion 1980 (with Walter Browne and Larry Christiansen)	Succeeded by Walter Browne and Yasser Seirawan

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] William Lombardy and David Daniels, U.S. Championship Chess, David McKay, 1975, pp. 33–36. ISBN 0-679-13042-X.

[2] Árpád Főldeák, Chess Olympiads 1927–1968, Dover Publications, 1979, pp. 181, 183. ISBN 0-486-23733-8.

[3] William Lombardy and David Daniels, U.S. Championship Chess, David McKay, 1975, pp. 37–39. ISBN 0-679-13042-X.

[4] William Lombardy and David Daniels, U.S. Championship Chess, David McKay, 1975, p. 40. ISBN 0-679-13042-X.

[5] Strawberry Open

[6] William Lombardy and David Daniels, U.S. Championship Chess, David McKay, 1975, pp. 54–56, 69–71. ISBN 0-679-13042-X.

[7] Chess Informant, Volume 30, Šahovski Informator, 1981, p. 290.

[8] Larry Christiansen, 1980 U.S. Championship, Chess Enterprises, Inc., 1980, pp. 6, 108. ISBN 0-931462-09-6.

[9] John Grefe and Dennis Waterman, The Best of Lone Pine: The Louis D. Statham Chess Tournaments 1971–1980, R.H.M. Press, 1981, pp. 38, 42. ISBN 0-89058-049-9 ISBN 4-87187-816-3.

[10] Árpád Főldeák, Chess Olympiads 1927–1968, Dover Publications, 1979, pp. 181–83, 198–202, 264–69, 311–15, 358–64, 383–89. ISBN 0-486-23733-8.

[11] R.D. Keene and D.N.L. Levy, Siegen Chess Olympiad, CHESS Ltd., 1970, p. 214.

[12] R.D. Keene and D.N.L. Levy, Haifa Chess Olympiad 1976, The Chess Player, 1977, pp. 63–78. ISBN 0-906042-02-X, ISBN 978-0-906042-02-1

[13] Chess Informant , Šahovski Informator, Volume 20, 1976, p. 263.

[14] Chess Informant , Šahovski Informator, Volume 4, 1968, p. 282.

[15] B.M. Kazic, International Championship Chess: A Complete Record of FIDE Events, 1974, pp. 167–68. ISBN 0-273-07078-9.

[16] Larry Evans, This Crazy World of Chess, Cardoza Publishing, 2007, back cover. ISBN 1-58042-218-7.

[17] Larry Evans, This Crazy World of Chess, Cardoza Publishing, 2007, pp. 20, 29. ISBN 1-58042-218-7.

[18] Watson, John. Chess and Politics (Kingpin, Spring 1999, pp. 33–38)

[19] Saidy, Anthony. Book review by IM Anthony Saidy This Crazy World of Chess . Susanpolgar blogspot. February 2008.

[20] Pandolfini, Bruce. ChessCafe

[Edward_Winter_column-21] Edward Winter, "The Facts About Larry Evans" (2001). Retrieved on 2009-01-18.

[Prins_commentary_in_CN_1385-22] "The Facts About Larry Evans" (2001).

[23] USCF: Eulogy

[24] Chessbase: Eulogy

[mclain-25] McLain, Dylan Loeb (November 17, 2010), "Larry Evans, Chess Champ, Dies at 78", The New York Times

[26] "Yanofsky vs. Evans, U.S. Open 1947". Chessgames.com .

[27] "Evans vs. Berger, 1964". Chessgames.com .

[28] "Evans vs. Blackstone, 1965". Chessgames.com .