Robert Michael Snyder (born May 4, 1954 [1] ) is an American chess teacher, author, and convicted pedophile.
His first book, Sicilian 2 b3 (Snyder Sicilian) was published in 1983, in which 14 of the 75 analyzed games are from his own tournament experience. [2]
Snyder is best known for authoring the Chess For Juniors children's book series. He has published multiple books and games, including Chess for Everyone and Unbeatable Chess Lessons. [3] He founded the Chess for Juniors club, claiming it was the largest of its kind in the country, and that he trained 36 national chess champions, and holds a world record for having introduced chess to more than 170,000 students. [4] He is considered to be a national and world-renowned master chess player with wins both in the US and international tournaments. [5] [6] [7] Several of his students have excelled under his tutelage, with results including contention for world and US national chess titles. [8]
Snyder has an Elo rating of 2306 with the United States Chess Federation, but has not played in tournaments since 1990. [9]
Snyder has been arrested and convicted for multiple sexual assaults involving children dating back to 1983. [10] He was featured on America's Most Wanted after fleeing Colorado while still on supervised probation in 2008. [11] He was found in Belize, and on March 30, 2010, after pleading guilty, was given an open (up to life) sentence. [12]
Judit Polgár is a Hungarian chess grandmaster, widely regarded as the strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the youngest to have done so, breaking the record previously held by former world champion Bobby Fischer. She was the youngest player ever to break into the FIDE top 100 players rating list, ranking No. 55 in the January 1989 rating list, at the age of 12.
Jørgen Bent Larsen was a Danish chess grandmaster and author. Known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play, he was the second strongest non-Soviet player, behind Bobby Fischer, for much of the 1960s and 1970s. He is considered to be the strongest player born in Denmark and the strongest from Scandinavia until the emergence of Magnus Carlsen.
Joel Lawrence Benjamin is an American chess player who holds the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM). In 1998, he was voted "Grandmaster of the Year" by the U.S. Chess Federation.
Rustam Kasimdzhanov is an Uzbek chess grandmaster and former FIDE World Champion (2004-05). He was Asian champion in 1998.
Vasyl Mykhaylovych Ivanchuk, also transliterated as Vassily Ivanchuk, is a Ukrainian chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1988. A leading player since 1988, Ivanchuk has been ranked at No. 2 on the FIDE world rankings three times.
Claude Frizzell BloodgoodIII was a controversial American chess player. As a young man, he got into trouble with the law and was arrested several times. He was sentenced to death in 1970 after having been convicted of murdering his mother, although this sentence was later commuted to life in prison. While in prison, he remained a very active chess player, playing a large number of correspondence games and rated games with other inmates. Over time, he achieved a very high ranking in the United States Chess Federation (USCF) by playing in a closed pool, which allowed rating manipulation. He died in prison in 2001.
Ian Rogers is an Australian chess player, trainer and writer. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1985.
Lubomir (Lubosh) Kavalek was a Czech-American chess player. He was awarded both the International Master and International Grandmaster titles by FIDE in 1965. He won two Czechoslovak and three U.S. championships, and was ranked as the world's No. 10 player in 1974. He was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 2001. Kavalek was also a chess coach, organizer, teacher, commentator, author and award-winning columnist.
Lev Abramovich Polugaevsky was a Soviet chess player. He was awarded the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE in 1962 and was a frequent contender for the World Championship, although he never achieved that title. He was one of the strongest players in the world from the early 1960s until the late 1980s, as well as a distinguished author and opening theorist whose contributions in this field remain important to the present day.
Peter Heine Nielsen is a Danish chess trainer and player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1994. He has won a record nine consecutive World Chess Championship titles as a coach, working with Viswanathan Anand in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2012; then with Magnus Carlsen in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2021.
Evgeny Ellinovich Sveshnikov was a Russian chess player and writer who is credited with development of the Sveshnikov Variation of the Sicilian Defence. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1977.
Aleksander Wojtkiewicz was a Polish chess grandmaster. He was born in Latvia. In his early teens he was already a strong player; a student of ex-world champion Mikhail Tal whom he assisted in the 1979 Interzonal tournament in Riga. He won the Latvian Chess Championship in 1981. His promising chess career was interrupted when he refused to join the Soviet Army. For several years he went undercover but in 1986 he was sentenced to two years in prison. After one year he received an amnesty after the meeting of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Following his release he moved from Riga to Warsaw where he won two Polish Chess Championships. He played for Poland in the Chess Olympiads of 1990 and 1992.
Wang Yue is a Chinese chess player. In 2004, he became China's 18th grandmaster at the age of 17. He is China's first player ever to break into the top 10 of the FIDE world rankings and was the highest-ever rated Chinese player, with a peak rating of 2756, until August 2015, when this record was broken by Ding Liren.
Kevin Spraggett is a chess grandmaster. He was the fourth Canadian to earn the grandmaster title, after Abe Yanofsky, Duncan Suttles and Peter Biyiasas. Spraggett is the only Canadian ever to have qualified for the world championship Candidates Tournament, having done so in 1985 and 1988. He has won a total of eight Canadian Open Chess Championships, seven Closed Canadian Chess Championships, and has represented Canada eight times in Olympiad play. Spraggett has also written for Canadian chess publications and published a chess blog.
Lawrence Alexander Day is a Canadian chess player, author, and journalist who holds the FIDE title of International Master. He represented Canada at 13 Chess Olympiads.
Vugar Gasim oghlu Hashimov, known internationally as Vugar Gashimov, was an Azerbaijani chess grandmaster. He was a noted player of blitz chess. At his peak ranking, he was No. 6 in the world, achieved in November 2009.
Gawain Christopher Bernard Jones is an English chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2007. He won the British Chess Championship in 2012 and 2017. He competed in the FIDE World Cup in 2013, 2017 and 2019.
In chess, there is a consensus among players and theorists that the player who makes the first move (White) has an inherent advantage, albeit not one large enough to win under perfect play. This view has been the consensus since at least 1889, when the first World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, addressed the issue, although chess has not yet been solved.
Mikhail Golubev is a Ukrainian chess Grandmaster (1996), journalist and author.
Simon Kim Williams is an English chess grandmaster and author who is best known under the pseudonym and Chess Server Nickname "GingerGM".