Robert Byrne
Overview
 
Robert Eugene Byrne is a leading American chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 player, a Grandmaster, and a chess author. He won the U.S. Championship
U.S. Chess Championship
The 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...

 in 1972, and was a World Chess Championship
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....

 Candidate in 1974. Byrne represented the United States nine times in Chess Olympiad
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.-Birth of the Olympiad:The first Olympiad was unofficial...

s 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 (a recounting of his 1952 victory over David Bronstein
David Bronstein
David Ionovich Bronstein was a Soviet chess grandmaster, who narrowly missed becoming World Chess Champion in 1951. Bronstein was described by his peers as a creative genius and master of tactics...

) on November 12, 2006.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/crosswords/chess/12chess.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Byrne worked as a university professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 for many years, before becoming a chess professional in the early 1970s.
Byrne and his younger brother Donald
Donald Byrne
Donald Byrne was one of the USA's strongest chess players during the 1950s and 1960s.Born in New York City, he won the U.S. Open Chess Championship in 1953, was awarded the International Master title by FIDE in 1962, and played for or captained five U.S. Chess Olympiad teams between 1962 and 1972...

 grew up in New York City and were among the "Collins Kids", promising young players who benefited from the instruction and encouragement of John W. Collins
John W. Collins
John William Collins or Jack Collins, was an influential American teacher of chess.Collins was born and raised in Newburgh, New York, but lived most of his life in New York City. He became a chess master in the 1930s...

.
Quotations

One of the disadvantages of having children is that they eventually get old enough to give you presents they make at school.

Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life.

Doing a thing well is often a waste of time.

Everything is in a state of flux, including the status quo.

Getting caught is the mother of invention.

In order to preserve your self-respect, it is sometimes necessary to lie and cheat.

Partying is such sweet sorrow.

There are two kinds of people, those who finish what they start and so on.

Until you walk a mile in another man's moccasins you can't imagine the smell.

 
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