Reuben Fine (October 11 1914 – March 26 1993) was one of the strongest
chessChess is a board game played between two players. The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from a similar, much older game of Indian origin...
players in the world from the mid 1930s through the 1940s, an International Grandmaster, psychologist and author of books on both chess and psychology. Fine won five medals (four gold) in three chess
OlympiadAn Olympiad is a period of four years, associated with the Olympic Games of Classical Greece. In the Hellenistic period, beginning with Ephorus, Olympiads were used as calendar epoch....
s. Fine won the
U.S. Open Chess ChampionshipThe U.S. Open Championship is an open national chess championship that has been held in the United States annually since 1900.-History:Through 1938, the tournaments were organized by the Western Chess Association and its successor, the American Chess Federation .The United States Chess Federation ...
all seven times he entered (1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1939, 1940, 1941). He was the author of several chess books that are still popular today, including important books on the chess endgame,
openingIn chess the word "opening" has two common meanings: a stage of a game and a sequence of moves; both of which are discussed in this article. Chess players are so familiar with these two meanings that many books and articles never state the distinction and may switch without notice from one meaning...
, and middlegame. He earned a bachelor's degree from the
City College of New YorkThe City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
in 1932. After
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he earned his
doctorateA doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries represents the highest level of formal study or research in a given field. In some countries it also refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to practice in a specific profession . The best-known example...
in
psychologyPsychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the systematic, and sometimes scientific, study of human or animal mental functions and behavior...
, and wrote many successful books in that field as well. Although he was regarded as a serious contender for the
World Chess ChampionshipThe World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Both men and women are eligible to contest this title....
, he declined his invitation to participate in the six-player 1948 match-tournament to determine the World Champion after the death of reigning champion
Alexander AlekhineAlexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
.
Teenage Master
Fine was born in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
to a poor Russian-Jewish family. He learned to play chess at age eight, and began tournament-level chess at the famous
Marshall Chess ClubThe Marshall Chess Club in New York City is one of the oldest and strongest chess clubs in the United States. It is a non-profit organization. It was a long-time rival of the Manhattan Chess Club, which was disbanded in 2002. The club was formed in 1915 by a group of players led by Frank Marshall...
in New York City, stomping grounds for many famous
grandmastersThe title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from "World Champion", Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
such as
Bobby FischerRobert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster, and the eleventh World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Later in life he renounced his US citizenship and became an Icelandic citizen.Fischer's achievements are legendary...
, later on. At this stage of his career, Fine played a great deal of
blitz chessFast chess, also known as blitz chess, lightning chess, sudden death, speed chess, bullet chess and rapid chess, is a type of chess game in which each side is given less time to make their moves than under the normal tournament time controls of 60–180 minutes per player.-Overview:The different...
, and he eventually became one of the best blitz players in the world. Even in the early 1930s, he could nearly hold his own in blitz chess against the then world chess champion
Alexander AlekhineAlexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
, although Fine admitted that the few times he played Alekhine's predecessor
José Raúl CapablancaJosé Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players of all time, and was renowned for his exceptional end game skill and speed of play...
, the latter beat him "mercilessly".
Fine's first significant master-level event was the 1930 New York Young Masters tournament, which was won by
Arthur DakeArthur Dake was an American chess master. He was born in Portland, Oregon and died in Reno, Nevada.He was born into a Polish family with Jewish roots, who immigrated to America before World War I. At age 16 he became a merchant seaman, traveling to Japan, China, and the Philippines...
. He narrowly lost a 1931 stakes match to fellow New Yorker
Arnold DenkerArnold Sheldon Denker was an American chess player, a Grandmaster, and a chess writer.He was born in New York City, and was a promising boxer in his early years....
. Fine placed second at the 1931 New York State Championship with 8/11, behind
Fred ReinfeldFred Reinfeld was a leading American chess master and a prolific writer on chess and many other subjects, whose books are still read today.- Biography :...
. Fine won the 15th
Marshall Chess ClubThe Marshall Chess Club in New York City is one of the oldest and strongest chess clubs in the United States. It is a non-profit organization. It was a long-time rival of the Manhattan Chess Club, which was disbanded in 2002. The club was formed in 1915 by a group of players led by Frank Marshall...
Championship of 1931 with 10.5/13, half a point ahead of Reinfeld. He defeated
Herman SteinerHerman Steiner was a U.S. chess player, organizer, and columnist.He won the U.S. Chess Championship in 1948 and became International Master in 1950....
by 5.5-4.5 at New York 1932; this was the first of three matches the two players would contest.
U.S. Open Champion
At seventeen, Fine won his first of seven
U.S. Open Chess ChampionshipThe U.S. Open Championship is an open national chess championship that has been held in the United States annually since 1900.-History:Through 1938, the tournaments were organized by the Western Chess Association and its successor, the American Chess Federation .The United States Chess Federation ...
s at Minneapolis 1932 with 9.5/11, half a point ahead of
Samuel ReshevskySamuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...
; this tournament was known as the Western Open at the time. Fine played in his first top-class international tournament at
PasadenaPasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States; and is a satellite city of Los Angeles. Famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and the Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home of many leading scientific and cultural institutions, including the...
1932, where he shared 7-10th with 5/11; the winner was world chess champion
Alexander AlekhineAlexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
. Fine repeated as champion in the 16th Marshall Club Championship, held from Oct.-Dec. 1932, with 11.5/13, 2.5 points ahead of the runner-up. After graduating from
City College of New YorkThe City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
in 1932, at age 18, where he was a brilliant student, and where he captained CCNY to the 1931 National Collegiate team title, Fine decided to try the life of a chess professional for a few years.
Olympiad brilliance
Fine won the U.S. Team Selection tournament, New York 1933, with 8/10. This earned him the first of three national team berths for the chess Olympiads. Fine won five medals (including three team golds) representing the United States; his detailed record follows (from olimpbase.org). His totals are (+20 =19 -6), for 65.6 per cent.
- Folkestone
Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Its original site lay in a stream valley in the cliffs here; and its subsequent development was through fishing and its proximity to the Continent as a landing place and trading port...
1933: board three, 9/13 (+6 =6 -1), team gold, board silver;
- Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2009 was estimated at 1,709,781, and the Warsaw metropolitan area at approximately 2,785,000...
1935: board one, 9/17 (+5 =8 -4), team gold;
- Stockholm
' is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the Riksdag , and the official residence of the Swedish Monarch as well as the prime minister. The Monarch resides at Drottningholm Palace outside of Stockholm since 1980 and uses the Royal Palace of...
1937: board two, 11.5/15 (+9 =5 -1), team gold, board gold.
North American successes
Fine repeated as champion at the U.S./Western Open,
DetroitDetroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Wayne County. Detroit is a major port city on the Detroit River, in the Midwest region of the United States. Located north of Windsor, Ontario, Detroit is the only major U.S. city that looks south to Canada. It was founded...
1933, with 12/13, half a point ahead of Reshevsky. Fine won the 17th Marshall Club Championship, 1933-34, with 9.5/11. He defeated
Al HorowitzIsrael Albert Horowitz was a Jewish-American International Master of chess. He was clearly a grandmaster-strength player by present day standards, but he never got the title...
in a match at New York 1934 by 6-3. Fine shared 1st-2nd places at the U.S./Western Open,
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
1934, on 7.5/9, with Reshevsky. He then shared 1st-3rd places at
Mexico CityMexico City is the capital city of Mexico. It is the economic, industrial, and cultural center in the country, and the most populous city, with about 8,836,045 inhabitants in 2008...
1934, on 11/12, with
Herman SteinerHerman Steiner was a U.S. chess player, organizer, and columnist.He won the U.S. Chess Championship in 1948 and became International Master in 1950....
and
Arthur DakeArthur Dake was an American chess master. He was born in Portland, Oregon and died in Reno, Nevada.He was born into a Polish family with Jewish roots, who immigrated to America before World War I. At age 16 he became a merchant seaman, traveling to Japan, China, and the Philippines...
. At
SyracuseSyracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2000 census, the city population was 147,306, and its metropolitan area had a population of 732,117. It is the economic and educational hub of Central New...
1934, Fine shared 3rd-4th places, on 10/14, as Reshevsky won. Fine won his fourth straight U.S./Western Open at Milwaukee 1935, scoring 6.5/9 in the preliminary round, and then 8/10 in the finals. Having had outstanding successes in North America, Fine tried his first European individual international tournament at
LodzŁódź , is the third-largest city in Poland. Located in the central part of the country, it had a population of 753,192 in 2007. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is approximately south-west of Warsaw...
1935, where he shared 2nd-3rd places with 6/9 behind
Savielly TartakowerKsawery Tartakower was a leading Polish and French chess Grandmaster...
. Fine won the
HastingsThe Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the...
1935-36 with 7.5/9, a point ahead of
Salo FlohrSalomon Mikhailovich Flohr was a leading Czech and later Soviet chess grandmaster of the early 20th century. He became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s and his name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, Salo Flohr slippers and...
.
Narrow misses at U.S. Championship
Although Fine was active and very successful in U.S. open tournaments, he was never able to finish first in the
U.S. ChampionshipThe U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational tournament held to determine the national chess champion of the United States. Since 1936, it has been held under the auspices of the U.S. Chess Federation. Until 1999, the event consisted of a round-robin tournament of varying size...
, usually placing behind his great American rival,
Samuel ReshevskySamuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...
. When in 1936
Frank MarshallFrank James Marshall , was the U.S. Chess Champion from 1909-1936, and was one of the world's strongest chess players in the early part of the 20th century.-Chess career:...
voluntarily gave up the American Championship title he had held since 1909, the result was the first modern
U.S. ChampionshipThe U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational tournament held to determine the national chess champion of the United States. Since 1936, it has been held under the auspices of the U.S. Chess Federation. Until 1999, the event consisted of a round-robin tournament of varying size...
tournament. Fine scored 10.5/15 in the U.S. Championship,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
1936, a tied 3rd-4th place, as Reshevsky won. In the U.S. Championship, New York 1938, Fine placed 2nd with 12.5/16, with Reshevsky repeating as champion. In the U.S. Championship, New York 1940, Fine again scored 12.5/16 for 2nd, as Reshevsky won for the third straight time. Then in the 1944 U.S. Championship at New York, Fine scored 14.5/17 for 2nd, though losing to Denker, as the latter won. Fine tallied 50/64 in his four U.S. title attempts, for 78.1 per cent, but was never champion.
International triumphs
However, Fine's international tournament record in the 1930s was superior to Reshevsky's. By the end of 1937, Fine had won a string of strong European international tournaments, and was one of the most successful players in the world. Fine won at
Oslois the capital and largest city in Norway. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the town was largely destroyed by a fire in 1624. The Danish–Norwegian king Christian IV rebuilt the city as Christiania . Oslo, then an alternative name, became official again in 1925...
1936 with 6.5/7, half a point ahead of Flohr. Fine captured
ZandvoortZandvoort is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland.Zandvoort is one of the major beach resorts of the Netherlands; it has a long sandy beach, bordered by coastal dunes...
1936 with 8.5/11, ahead of World Champion
Max EuweMachgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978...
,
Savielly TartakowerKsawery Tartakower was a leading Polish and French chess Grandmaster...
, and
Paul KeresPaul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster.Keres narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match on five occasions. He won the 1938 AVRO tournament, which led to negotiations for a World Championship match against Alexander Alekhine, but the match never took place due to World War II...
. Fine shared 3rd-5th places at the elite
NottinghamNottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire, England and is one of only eight members of the English Core Cities Group....
1936 event with 9.5/14, half a point behind winners
José Raúl CapablancaJosé Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players of all time, and was renowned for his exceptional end game skill and speed of play...
and
Mikhail BotvinnikMikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was a Soviet International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while playing top-class competitive chess...
. Fine shared 1st-2nd places at
AmsterdamAmsterdam is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands, located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country...
1936 on 5/7 with Euwe, half a point ahead of Alekhine. Fine placed 2nd at
HastingsThe Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the...
1936-37 with 7.5/9, as Alekhine won. The year 1937 would be Fine's most successful. He won at
LeningradLeningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:Places:* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
1937 with 4/5, ahead of
Grigory LevenfishGrigory Yakovlevich Levenfish was a leading Jewish Russian chess grandmaster of the 1920s and 1930s. He was twice Soviet champion , and drew a 1937 match against future world champion Mikhail Botvinnik...
, who would come joint first in that year's Soviet Championship. Fine won at
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
1937 with 5/7. Those two victories make Fine one of a very few foreigners to win on Russian soil. Fine shared 1st-2nd places at
MargateMargate is a seaside resort town within the Thanet district of East Kent, England. It lies east-northeast of Maidstone, along the North Foreland of the coastline of the United Kingdom....
1937 with
Paul KeresPaul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster.Keres narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match on five occasions. He won the 1938 AVRO tournament, which led to negotiations for a World Championship match against Alexander Alekhine, but the match never took place due to World War II...
on 7.5/9, 1.5 points ahead of Alekhine. Fine shared 1st-3rd places at
Ostend||-||-||}Ostend is a Belgian city and municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerke, Stene and Zandvoorde, and the city of Ostend proper – the largest on the Belgian coast....
1937 with
Paul KeresPaul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster.Keres narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match on five occasions. He won the 1938 AVRO tournament, which led to negotiations for a World Championship match against Alexander Alekhine, but the match never took place due to World War II...
and Henry Grob on 6/9. At
Stockholm' is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the Riksdag , and the official residence of the Swedish Monarch as well as the prime minister. The Monarch resides at Drottningholm Palace outside of Stockholm since 1980 and uses the Royal Palace of...
1937, Fine won with 8/9, 1.5 points ahead of
Gideon StahlbergGideon Ståhlberg was a Swedish chess grandmaster. He came to fame when he won matches against star players Rudolf Spielmann and Aron Nimzowitsch in 1933 and 1934 respectively. Ståhlberg won the Swedish Chess Championship of 1927 and became Nordic champion in 1929...
. Fine then defeated Stahlberg by 5-3 in a match held at Goteborg 1937. Fine placed 2nd at the elite
SemmeringFor the town of the same name, see Semmering, Austria.Semmering is a mountain pass in the Eastern Northern Limestone Alps connecting Lower Austria and Styria, between which it forms a natural border.-Location:...
/
BadenBaden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine River in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....
1937 tournament with 8/14, behind
Paul KeresPaul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster.Keres narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match on five occasions. He won the 1938 AVRO tournament, which led to negotiations for a World Championship match against Alexander Alekhine, but the match never took place due to World War II...
. At Kemeri 1937, Fine had a rare relatively weak result, with just 9/17 for 8th place, as the title was shared by Reshevsky, Flohr, and
Vladimirs PetrovsVladimirs Petrovs or Vladimir Petrov was a Latvian chess master.He was born in Riga, Latvia. Though he learned the game of chess relatively late, at age thirteen, Petrovs made rapid progress. By 1926, at age 19, he won the Riga Championship and finish third in the national championship...
. Fine shared 4-5th places at Hastings 1937-38 with 6/9 as Reshevsky won.
AVRO showdown
In 1938, Fine tied for first place with
Paul KeresPaul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster.Keres narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match on five occasions. He won the 1938 AVRO tournament, which led to negotiations for a World Championship match against Alexander Alekhine, but the match never took place due to World War II...
in the prestigious
AVRO tournamentThe AVRO tournament was a chess tournament held in the Netherlands in 1938, sponsored by the Dutch broadcasting company AVRO. The event was a double round-robin tournament...
in the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
, on 8.5/14, with Keres placed first on tiebreak. This was one of the most famous tournaments of the 20th century, and some believe to this day that it is the strongest tournament ever staged. It was organized with the hope that the winner of AVRO, a double
round-robin tournamentA round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a type of tournament "in which each contestant meets every other contestant in turn". In a single round-robin schedule, each participant plays every other participant once. If each participant plays all others twice, this is frequently called a...
, would be the next challenger to world champion
Alexander AlekhineAlexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
. Fine finished ahead of future champion
Mikhail BotvinnikMikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was a Soviet International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while playing top-class competitive chess...
, current champion Alekhine, former world champions
Max EuweMachgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978...
and Capablanca, and Grandmasters Samuel Reshevsky and
Salo FlohrSalomon Mikhailovich Flohr was a leading Czech and later Soviet chess grandmaster of the early 20th century. He became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s and his name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, Salo Flohr slippers and...
. Fine won both of his games against Alekhine.
Wartime years
As
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
interrupted any prospects for a world championship match, Fine turned to chess writing. In 1941 he wrote
Basic Chess EndingsBasic Chess Endings is a book on chess endgames which was written by Reuben Fine and originally published in 1941. It is considered the first systematic book in English on the endgame phase of the game of chess. It is the best-known endgame book in English and is a classic piece of chess endgame...
, a compendium of endgame analysis which, more than 60 years later, is still considered one of the best works on this subject. His
The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, though badly dated, is still useful for grasping the underlying ideas of many standard
chess openingIn chess the word "opening" has two common meanings: a stage of a game and a sequence of moves; both of which are discussed in this article. Chess players are so familiar with these two meanings that many books and articles never state the distinction and may switch without notice from one meaning...
s. During World War II, Fine worked for the U.S. Navy, performing the task of calculating the probability of German
U-boatsA submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability...
surfacing at certain points in the water. Fine also worked as a translator.
Fine was unable to compete in Europe during the war, since it was cut off by the German naval blockade. However, Fine did play a few serious American events during World War II, and continued his successes, but there was little prize money even for winning. He won the U.S. Open at New York 1939 with 10.5/11, half a point ahead of Reshevsky. In the 23rd Marshall Club Championship of 1939, Fine won with 14/16. He won the 1940 U.S. Open at Dallas with a perfect 8/8 in the finals, three points ahead of
Herman SteinerHerman Steiner was a U.S. chess player, organizer, and columnist.He won the U.S. Chess Championship in 1948 and became International Master in 1950....
. Fine won the New York State Championship, Hamilton 1941, with 8/10, a point ahead of Reshevsky, Denker, and
Isaac KashdanIsaac Kashdan was an American chess grandmaster and chess writer. Kashdan was one of the world's best players in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was twice U.S. Open champion...
. Fine won the 1941 Marshall Club Championship with 14/15, ahead of
Frank MarshallFrank James Marshall , was the U.S. Chess Champion from 1909-1936, and was one of the world's strongest chess players in the early part of the 20th century.-Chess career:...
. Fine won the 1941 U.S. Open at St. Louis, with 4/5 in the preliminaries, and 8/9 in the finals.
Fine won the 1942
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
D.C. Chess Divan title with a perfect 7/7. He defeated
Herman SteinerHerman Steiner was a U.S. chess player, organizer, and columnist.He won the U.S. Chess Championship in 1948 and became International Master in 1950....
in match play for the second time by 3.5-0.5 at Washington 1944. Fine won the U.S. Speed Championships of both 1944 (10/11) and 1945 (10/11). In the Pan-American Championship, Hollywood 1945, Fine placed 2nd with 9/12 behind Reshevsky. He played in the
1945 USA vs USSR Radio team matchThe USA vs. USSR radio chess match 1945 was a chess match between the US and the USSR that was conducted over the radio from September 1 to September 4, 1945. The ten leading masters of the United States played the ten leading masters of the Soviet Union for chess supremecy. The match was played...
, scoring 0.5/2 on board three against
Isaac BoleslavskyIsaac Yefremovich Boleslavsky was a Ukrainian-Jewish chess Grandmaster.-Early career:In 1933, Boleslavsky became schoolboy champion of Dnipropetrovsk....
. Then Fine travelled to Europe one last time to compete, in the 1946 Moscow team match against the USSR, scoring 0.5/2 on board three against
Paul KeresPaul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster.Keres narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match on five occasions. He won the 1938 AVRO tournament, which led to negotiations for a World Championship match against Alexander Alekhine, but the match never took place due to World War II...
.
After the war
As the war ended in late 1945, Fine was working on his doctorate in psychology. Once he completed this, he again played some competitive chess. He won at New York 1948 with 8/9, ahead of
Miguel NajdorfMiguel Najdorf was a Polish-born Argentine chess grandmaster of Jewish origin, famous for his Najdorf Variation....
,
Max EuweMachgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978...
, and
Herman PilnikHerman Pilnik was an Argentine chess Grandmaster.-Career:...
. Fine drew a match by 4-4 against Najdorf at New York 1949. He participated in the 1950 radio match USA vs Yugoslavia, drawing his game. Fine was named an
International GrandmasterThe title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from "World Champion", Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
in 1950, on the inaugural list from the FIDE, the World Chess Federation. His last significant tournament was the
Maurice WertheimMaurice Wertheim was an American investment banker, chess player, chess patron, environmentalist, and philanthropist. He financed much of the activity in American chess during the 1940s....
Memorial at New York 1951, where he scored 7/11 for 4th, as Reshevsky won.
1948 World Championship
After Alekhine died in 1946, FIDE (the World Chess Organization) organized a
World Chess ChampionshipThe 1948 World Chess Championship was a tournament played to determine a new World Chess Champion following the death of the previous champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946. The tournament marked the passing of control of the championship title to FIDE, the International Chess Federation which had...
tournament to determine the new champion. As co-winner in the AVRO tournament, Fine was invited to participate, but he declined, for reasons that are the subject of speculation. Fine had played a third match against
Herman SteinerHerman Steiner was a U.S. chess player, organizer, and columnist.He won the U.S. Chess Championship in 1948 and became International Master in 1950....
at
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
1947, winning 5-1; this match was training for his potential world championship appearance.
Publicly, Fine stated that he could not interrupt work on his doctoral dissertation in
psychologyPsychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the systematic, and sometimes scientific, study of human or animal mental functions and behavior...
. Negotiations over the tournament had been protracted, and for a long time it was unclear whether this World Championship event would in fact take place. Fine wrote that he didn't want to spend many months preparing and then see the tournament cancelled. However, it has also been suggested that Fine declined to play because he suspected there would be collaboration among the three Soviet participants to ensure that one of them won the championship. In the August 2004 issue of
Chess LifeChess Life is a monthly chess magazine published in the United States. The official publication of the United States Chess Federation , it reaches more than a quarter of a million readers every month. A subscription to Chess Life is one of the benefits of Full Adult, Youth, or Life membership in...
, for example, GM
Larry EvansFor the football player of the same name, see Larry Evans .Larry Melvyn Evans is an American chess grandmaster and journalist. He won or shared the U.S. Chess Championship five times and the U.S...
gave his recollection that "Fine told me he didn't want to waste three months of his life watching Russians throw games to each other." Fine's 1951 written statement on the matter in his book "The World's Greatest Chess Games" was:
"Unfortunately for the Western masters the Soviet political organization was stronger than that of the West. The U.S. Chess Federation was a meaningless paper organization, generally antagonistic to the needs of its masters. The Dutch Chess Federation did not choose to act. The FIDE was impotent. The result was a rescheduling of the tournament for the following year, with the vital difference that now half was to be played in Holland, half in the U.S.S.R. Dissatisfied with this arrangement and the general tenor of the event, I withdrew."
Edward Winter discusses the evidence further in a 2007
ChessbaseChessBase GmbH is a German company that markets chess software, maintains a chess news site, and operates a server for online chess, that encourages good behaviour on the server. Set up in 1998, it maintains and sells massive databases, containing most historic games, that permit analysis that had...
column.
Lifetime scores against top players
Fine had a relatively short career in top-level chess, but scored very impressively against top players. He faced five World Champions:
Emanuel LaskerEmanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
(+1 =0 -0);
Jose Raul CapablancaJosé Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players of all time, and was renowned for his exceptional end game skill and speed of play...
(+0 =5 -0);
Alexander AlekhineAlexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
(+3 =4 -2);
Max EuweMachgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978...
(+2 =3 -2); and
Mikhail BotvinnikMikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was a Soviet International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while playing top-class competitive chess...
(+1 =2 -0). His main American rivals were
Samuel ReshevskySamuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...
(+3 =12 -4);
Herman SteinerHerman Steiner was a U.S. chess player, organizer, and columnist.He won the U.S. Chess Championship in 1948 and became International Master in 1950....
(+21 =8 -4);
Isaac KashdanIsaac Kashdan was an American chess grandmaster and chess writer. Kashdan was one of the world's best players in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was twice U.S. Open champion...
(+6 =6 -1);
Albert SimonsonAlbert 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 Folkestone chess Olympiad...
(+6 =1 -1);
Al HorowitzIsrael Albert Horowitz was a Jewish-American International Master of chess. He was clearly a grandmaster-strength player by present day standards, but he never got the title...
(+10 =7 -2);
Arnold DenkerArnold Sheldon Denker was an American chess player, a Grandmaster, and a chess writer.He was born in New York City, and was a promising boxer in his early years....
(+7 =7 -6);
Fred ReinfeldFred Reinfeld was a leading American chess master and a prolific writer on chess and many other subjects, whose books are still read today.- Biography :...
(+10 =7 -5); and
Arthur DakeArthur Dake was an American chess master. He was born in Portland, Oregon and died in Reno, Nevada.He was born into a Polish family with Jewish roots, who immigrated to America before World War I. At age 16 he became a merchant seaman, traveling to Japan, China, and the Philippines...
(a shocking +7 =5 -7, but three losses as a sixteen year old against Dake in his twenties). Internationally, Fine faced the best of his time, and usually more than held his own, with three exceptions. He struggled against
Paul KeresPaul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster.Keres narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match on five occasions. He won the 1938 AVRO tournament, which led to negotiations for a World Championship match against Alexander Alekhine, but the match never took place due to World War II...
(+1 =8 -3);
Milan VidmarMilan Vidmar was a Slovene electrical engineer, chess player, chess theorist, philosopher, and writer. He was a specialist in power transformers and transmission of electric current.- Biography :...
(+0 =2 -1); and
Isaac BoleslavskyIsaac Yefremovich Boleslavsky was a Ukrainian-Jewish chess Grandmaster.-Early career:In 1933, Boleslavsky became schoolboy champion of Dnipropetrovsk....
(+0 =1 -1). But he handled everyone else:
Miguel NajdorfMiguel Najdorf was a Polish-born Argentine chess grandmaster of Jewish origin, famous for his Najdorf Variation....
(+3 =5 -3);
Savielly TartakowerKsawery Tartakower was a leading Polish and French chess Grandmaster...
(+2 =4 -1);
Salo FlohrSalomon Mikhailovich Flohr was a leading Czech and later Soviet chess grandmaster of the early 20th century. He became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s and his name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, Salo Flohr slippers and...
(+2 =7 -0);
Grigory LevenfishGrigory Yakovlevich Levenfish was a leading Jewish Russian chess grandmaster of the 1920s and 1930s. He was twice Soviet champion , and drew a 1937 match against future world champion Mikhail Botvinnik...
(+1 =0 -0);
George Alan ThomasSir George Alan Thomas, Bart. was a British chess, badminton and tennis player. He was twice British Chess Champion and a seven-time All-England Badminton champion. He also played in the semi-finals of the men's tennis doubles at Wimbledon in 1911.Thomas never married, so the hereditary Thomas...
(+2 =3 -0);
Erich EliskasesErich Gottlieb Eliskases was a chess Grandmaster of the 1930s and 1940s, who represented Austria, Germany and Argentina in international competition....
(+1 =2 -0);
Viacheslav RagozinViacheslav Vasilyevich Ragozin was a Soviet chess Grandmaster, an International Arbiter of chess, and a World Correspondence Chess Champion. He was also a chess writer and editor.- Biography :...
(+1 =1 -0);
Vladimirs PetrovsVladimirs Petrovs or Vladimir Petrov was a Latvian chess master.He was born in Riga, Latvia. Though he learned the game of chess relatively late, at age thirteen, Petrovs made rapid progress. By 1926, at age 19, he won the Riga Championship and finish third in the national championship...
(+2 =1 -1); Efim Bogolyubov (+1 =1 -0);
Jan Foltys Jan Foltys , was a Czech chess International Master.-Biography:...
(+2 =0 -0);
Salo LandauSalo Landau was a Dutch chess player, who died in a Nazi concentration camp.-Early life:...
(+4 -0 =1);
George KoltanowskiGeorge Koltanowski was a Belgian-born American chess player, promoter, and writer. He was informally known as "Kolty". Koltanowski set the world's blindfold record on September 20, 1937, in Edinburgh, by playing 34 chess games simultaneously while blindfolded, making headline news around the world...
(+2 =1 -0);
Igor BondarevskyIgor Zakharovich Bondarevsky was a Soviet Russian chess Grandmaster in both over-the-board and correspondence chess, an International Arbiter, trainer, and chess author...
(+1 =0 -0);
Geza MaroczyGéza Maróczy was a leading Hungarian chess Grandmaster, one of the best players in the world in his time. He was also a practising engineer.-Early career:...
(+1 =0 -0);
William WinterWilliam Winter was a British chess player. He won the British Open Chess Championship in 1934 and the British Chess Championship in 1935 and 1936. An acolyte of Siegbert Tarrasch, his sound, strategic play enabled him to defeat a number of the world's top players, including David Bronstein, Aron...
(+4 =0 -0); Ernst Gruenfeld (+1 =0 -0);
Gideon StahlbergGideon Ståhlberg was a Swedish chess grandmaster. He came to fame when he won matches against star players Rudolf Spielmann and Aron Nimzowitsch in 1933 and 1934 respectively. Ståhlberg won the Swedish Chess Championship of 1927 and became Nordic champion in 1929...
(+4 =5 -2);
Andor LilienthalAndor Arnoldovich Lilienthal is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster. In his long career, he played against ten male and female world champions, beating Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, and Vera Menchik. He celebrated his 98th...
(+1 =0 -0);
Laszlo SzaboLászló Szabó was a prominent Hungarian Grandmaster of chess.Born in Budapest, he burst onto the international chess scene in 1935, at the unusually young age of 18...
(+0 =1 -0);
Vladas MikenasVladas Mikėnas was a Lithuanian International Master of chess, an Honorary Grandmaster, and a journalist.- Early life :...
(+1 =1 -0); Rudolph Spielmann (+0 =1 -0); and
Conel Hugh O'Donel AlexanderConel Hugh O'Donel Alexander, CMG, CBE was an Irish-born British cryptanalyst, chess player, and chess writer. He worked on the German Enigma machine at Bletchley Park during World War II, and was later the head of the cryptanalysis division at GCHQ for over 20 years...
(+1 =3 -0). Finally, against the new generation of American masters which emerged in the late 1940s, Fine proved he could still perform well:
Arthur BisguierArthur Bernard Bisguier is an American chess International Grandmaster, chess promoter, and writer. Bisguier won two U.S. Junior Championships , three U.S. Open Chess Championship titles , and the 1954 United States Chess Championship title. He played for the United States in five chess Olympiads...
(+1 =1 -0);
Larry EvansFor the football player of the same name, see Larry Evans .Larry Melvyn Evans is an American chess grandmaster and journalist. He won or shared the U.S. Chess Championship five times and the U.S...
(+0 =2 -0); George Kramer (+1 =1 -0); and
Robert ByrneRobert Eugene Byrne is a leading American chess player, a Grandmaster, and a 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...
(+0 =1 -0).
Top ten for eight years
Although FIDE, the World Chess Federation, did not formally introduce chess ratings for international play until 1970, it is nevertheless possible to retrospectively rate players' performances from before that time. The site
chessmetricsChessmetrics is a system for rating chess players devised by Jeff Sonas. It is intended as an improvement over the Elo rating system.-Implementation:...
.com, which specializes in historical ratings throughout chess history, ranks Fine in the world's top ten players for more than eight years, from March 1936 until October 1942, and then again from January 1949 until December 1950. Between those two periods, he was less active as a player, so his ranking dropped. Fine was #1 in the world from October 1940 until March 1941, was in the top three from December 1938 until June 1942, and reached his peak rating of 2762 in July 1941. However, chessmetrics.com is missing several of Fine's major events from its database.
Notable games
- Reuben Fine vs Mikhail Botvinnik, Amsterdam AVRO 1938, French Defence, Winawer/Advance Variation (C17), 1-0 In the final position, "Black does not have a single move, and Rf3 is threatened. A combination of a splendid strategic idea with tactical subtleties." (Botvinnik)
- Reuben Fine vs Salomon Flohr, Amsterdam AVRO 1938, French Defence, Winawer/Advance Variation (C17), 1-0 Deep tactics in an unusual variant of French Defense.
- Reuben Fine vs Herman Steiner, Pan-American champ, Hollywood 1945. Queen's Gambit Accepted, Classical (D29), 1-0 Fine sees further than his opponent in a sharp tactical position.
Psychologist
After receiving his
doctorateA doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries represents the highest level of formal study or research in a given field. In some countries it also refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to practice in a specific profession . The best-known example...
in psychology from the
University of Southern CaliforniaThe University of Southern California is a private, nonsectarian, research university located in the University Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, USA...
, Fine abandoned professional chess to concentrate on his new profession. Fine continued playing chess casually throughout his life (including several friendly games played in 1963 against
Bobby FischerRobert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster, and the eleventh World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Later in life he renounced his US citizenship and became an Icelandic citizen.Fischer's achievements are legendary...
, one of which is included in Fischer's
My 60 Memorable GamesMy 60 Memorable Games is a chess book by Bobby Fischer, first published in 1969. It is a collection of his games dating from the 1957 New Jersey Open to the 1967 Sousse Interzonal. Unlike many players' anthologies, which are often titled My Best Games and include only victories, My 60 Memorable...
). In 1956 he wrote an article, "Psychoanalytic Observations on Chess and Chess Masters," for a psychological journal. Later, Fine turned the article into a book,
The Psychology of the Chess Player, in which he provided insights steeped in
FreudianSigmund Freud , Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology...
theory. (Fine is not the first person to examine the mind as it relates to chess—
Alfred BinetAlfred Binet , French psychologist and inventor of the first usable intelligence test, the basis of today's IQ test. His principal goal was to identify students who needed special help in coping with the school curriculum...
, the inventor of the
IQ testAn intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests designed to assess intelligence. The term "IQ", from the German Intelligenz-Quotient, was coined by the German psychologist William Stern in 1912 as a proposed method of scoring early modern...
, had studied the mental functionality of good chess players, and found that they often had enhanced mental traits, such as a good memory.) He went on to publish
A History of Psychoanalysis (1979) and a number of other books on psychology. As did many psychoanalysts of his day, Fine believed that
homosexualityHomosexuality is the romantic or sexual attraction or behavior among members of the same sex, situationally or as an enduring disposition. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is considered to lie within the heterosexual-homosexual continuum of human sexuality, and refers to an individual’s...
could be "cured" (through conversion therapy), and his opinions on the subject were cited in legal battles over homosexuality, including the legislative battle over
same-sex marriageSame-sex marriage is a term used to describe a legally or socially recognized marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Other terms used to describe this type of recognition include gay marriage or gender-neutral marriage.Same-sex marriage is a civil rights,...
in
HawaiiHawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states, and is the only state made up entirely of islands. It is located on an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of Australia. The state was admitted to the Union on August...
. Fine served as a visiting professor at CCNY, the University of Amsterdam, the
Lowell-Places:In the United States:* Lowell, Massachusetts**Lowell National Historical Park* Lowell, Arkansas* Lowell, Florida* Lowell, Indiana* Lowell, Bartholomew County, Indiana* Lowell, Maine* Lowell, Michigan* Lowell, North Carolina* Lowell, Ohio...
Institute of Technology, and the
University of FlorenceThe University of Florence is one of the largest and oldest universities in Italy. It consists of 12 facultiesand has currently about 60,000 students enrolled.-History:...
. Fine founded the Creative Living Center in New York City.
On chess
- Basic Chess Endings
Basic Chess Endings is a book on chess endgames which was written by Reuben Fine and originally published in 1941. It is considered the first systematic book in English on the endgame phase of the game of chess. It is the best-known endgame book in English and is a classic piece of chess endgame...
, by Reuben Fine, 1941, McKay. Revised in 2003 by Pal BenkoPal Benko is a chess grandmaster, author, and composer of endgame studies and chess problems.- Early life :...
. ISBN 0-8129-3493-8.
- The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, by Reuben Fine, 1943. Revised in 1989. McKay, ISBN 0-8129-1756-1.
- Practical Chess Openings, by Reuben Fine.
- The Middlegame in Chess, by Reuben Fine. ISBN 0-8129-3484-9.
- Modern Chess Openings, sixth Edition, by Reuben Fine.
- Chess the Easy Way, by Reuben Fine, 1942. 1986 Paperback re-issue. ISBN 0-6716-2427-X
- Chess Marches On, by Reuben Fine, 1946.
- Dr. Lasker's Chess Career, by Reuben Fine and Fred Reinfeld, 1935.
- Lessons From My Games, by Reuben Fine, 1958.
- The Psychology of the Chess Player, by Reuben Fine, 1967.
- Bobby Fischer's Conquest of the World's Chess Championship: The Psychology and Tactics of the Title Match, by Reuben Fine, 1973. ISBN 0923891471
- The World's Great Chess Games, by Reuben Fine; Dover; 1983. ISBN 0-486-24512-8.
On psychology
- Freud: a Critical Re-evaluation of his Theories, by Reuben Fine (1962).
- The Healing of the Mind, by Reuben Fine (1971).
- The Development of Freud's Thought, by Reuben Fine (1973).
- Psychoanalytic Psychology, by Reuben Fine (1975).
- The History of Psychoanalysis, by Reuben Fine (1979).
- The Psychoanalytic Vision, by Reuben Fine (1981).
- The Logic of Psychology, by Reuben Fine (1985).
- The Meaning of Love in Human Experience, by Reuben Fine (1985).
- Narcissism, the Self, and Society, by Reuben Fine (1986).
- The Forgotten Man: Understanding the Male Psyche, by Reuben Fine (1987).