Occupations of Chess Players

Here are some occupations and professions of chess players that are or were not professional chess players all their lives. Some are very interesting. At the end of the article is a list of chess players by occupation.

Jacob Aagaard (1973- ) is a Danish-born grandmaster. In 2007, he won the 94th British Championship and became a GM. In 2012, he won the Scottish Chess Championship. In 2004, he co-founded Quality Chess publishing and is a book publisher. He has authored 29 chess books.

Manuel Aaron (1935- ) is India's first International Master (IM). He was a Deputy Chief Officer of an Indian bank. He is a journalist for The Hindu newspaper. He is the director of the Aaron Chess Academy, India's first chess academy and the founder (1982) and editor of Chess Mate magazine.

Sverre Johannes Aarseth (1934- ) is an International Master for Correspondence Chess from Norway, now living in England. He participated in the 6th World Correspondence Chess Championship (1968-1971). He is a retired research scientist at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge but is still an active researcher. An asteroid is named after him. His expertise is numerical simulations of many-body (N-body) gravitational interactions.

Anupama Abhyankar-Gokhale (1969- ) is a Women's International Master (WIM) from India. She won the Indian Women's Championship five times. She won the Asian Women's Championship twice. She works for Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited in India.

Gerald Abrahams (1907-1980) was a British chess master. In 1933, Abrahams finished 3rd place at Hastings in the British Championship, won by Mir Sultan Khan. He was an English lawyer (barrister), political theorist, and philosopher. In 1933-34, Abrahams was in Belfast as a lecturer in law at Queen's University.

Dr. Edmund Adam (1894-1958) was the last German Open correspondence champion in 1939. He spent World War II in a concentration camp. He was a medical doctor.

Faneuil (Fan) Adams, Jr. (1923-1999) was a chess patron and former president of the American Chess Foundation (ACF). He was a senior executive with the Mobil Oil Corporation and a millionaire.

Weaver Warren Adams (1901-1963) was an American chess master. He participated in the U.S. Championship in 1936 (15th-16th place), 1940, 1944, 1946 and 1948. He won the Massachusetts State Championship (and the Cabot trophy) in 1937, 1938, 1941 and 1945. He won at Ventnor City in 1945. In 1948, he won the US Open in Baltimore. He won the New England Open championship five times (1925-1929). He won the New England Championship in 1942, 1945, and 1947. He inherited a chicken farm and raised chickens.

William Grady Addison (1933-2008) was an American International Master. From 1965 to 1969 he was director of the Mechanics' Institute Chess Club in San Francisco. He worked as a cab driver, and then found employment in several banks in San Francisco.

Baskaran Adhiban (1992- ) is an Indian GM. In 2008, he was the World Under-16 champion. In 2009, he was the Indian champion. He works for Indian Oil in Chennai.

Utut Adianto-Wahyuwidayat (1965- ) was the first Indonesian Grandmaster (1986) and best chess player in Indonesia. He is the Chairman of the Indonesian Chess Association (PERCASI). In 2009, he won a seat in the Indonesian senate. He serves as the deputy speaker of the People's Representative Council.

Djakhangir Agaragimov (1986- ) is an Azerbaijani GM (2014). He studied at the Azerbaijan State University of Economics.

Simen Agdestein (1967- ) was Norway's first chess grandmaster (1985) and a former coach of Magnus Carlsen. He is a former professional foot (soccer) as a striker with the Norway national football team.   He played from 1984 through 1992. He had to give up soccer due to torn ligaments on his knee.  He currently teaches soccer and chess at the Norwegian Sports Gymnasium and works at the Valler Upper Secondary School near Oslo. He was also a ballroom dancer and a chess columnist for a Norwegian newspaper. He has a master's degree from the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo.

Colonel Hyacinth R. Agnel (1799-1871) was a chess problemist and chess author. He spent the first 20 years of his life as a mercenary. In 1845, he formed the first chess club at West Point. He was a Professor of Languages (taught French) at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for 30 years. He was also an artist and did his own engravings for his chess books.

Evgeny Agrest (1966- ) is a Soviet-born Swedish GM (1997). He has won the Swedish championship 4 times. He graduated with a degree in Economics.

Dr. James Macrae Aitken (1908-1983) was 10-time Scottish champion (1935, 1952, 1953, 1955-1958, 1960, 1961, and 1965). In 1938 he received a PhD from Edinburgh University. His dissertation was on the topic of 'The Trial of George Buchanan Before the Lisbon Inquisition.' During World War II Aitken worked in Hut 6 at Bletchley Park on solving the German Army and Air Force Enigma machines. After the war, Aitken continued to work for the Foreign Office, ending up at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British cryptography and intelligence agency in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

Yurij Ajrapetjan (1988- ) is a Ukrainian GM (2008). He studied at Tavrida National V.I. Vernadsky University in Simferopol and works at a bank.

Semyon Alapin (1856-1923) was one of the strongest chess players in the Russian Empire in the late 19th century.  He studied engineering at the St. Petersburg Engineering Institute and at Heidelberg University.  He was also a linguist, railway engineer, and grain commodities merchant who traveled to Russia to buy grain.  He was a wealthy man and chess was just a hobby for him.

Vladimir Alatortsev (1909-1987) was a Soviet GM (1983). He won the championship of Leningrad and Moscow. He played in 9 Soviet championships. He was an organizer, teacher, author, and administrator. By profession, he was a hydraulics engineer.

Adolf Albin (1848-1920) was a Romanian chess master.  His best chess result came at New York 1893, where he finished second behind Emanuel Lasker. He authored the first chess book written in Romanian. He ran the Frothier Printing House in Bucharest. Soon he became associated with Dr. Bethel Henry Baron von Stroussberg (1823-1884), working as a translator for the railroad tycoon.

Dr. Maria Albulet-Pogorevici (1932-2005) was a Romanian Woman Grandmaster (1985). She won the Romanian Women's Chess Championship 3 times. She was a pediatrician.

Aleander Alekhine (1892-1946) had a variety of occupations. In 1915 and 1916 he served in the Russian Red Cross and drove an ambulance. In 1918, he was a criminal investigator in Moscow. In 1920, he was back in Moscow intending to be a movie actor. He also served as interpreter to the Communist party and was appointed secretary to the Education Department. He studied law at the Sorbonne but failed to get his doctorate as he claimed and never practiced law.

Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander (1909-1974) was a British International Master who won the British chess championship twice. In 1932, he taught mathematics at Winchester College for boys. In 1938, he left teaching and became head of research at the John Lewis Partnership (department stores). He was one of the lead code breakers during World War II.  He was a colonial in British Intelligence and was part of the British Government Code and Cipher Code at Bletchley Park.  He was later the head of the cryptanalysis division at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British cryptography and intelligence agency, for 25 years. He was awarded the Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his contributions as a top British cryptanalyst. He also received the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG).

Aaron Alexandre (1765-1850) was a Jewish German-French-English chess player. He was one of the operators of the automaton, the Turk. He was a Bavarian-trained rabbi.  He also worked as a teacher and a mechanical inventor.  He taught German at several colleges and privately. Eventually, he became a full-time chess player and instructor. 

George Allen (1808-1876) was a chess author. He was a lawyer, rector of an Episcopal Church, and professor of ancient languages and literature from 1863 to 1877 at Delaware College and the University of Pennsylvania. He also served as a member of Congress.

Johann Baptist Allgaier (1763-1823) was a German-Austrian chess master. He was the author of the first chess book published in German, Neue theoretisch-praktische Anweisung zum Schachspiel. He acted as chess tutor to the Emperor's sons and brothers. For a while, he played hidden in the Turk chess automaton. He was an officer in the Imperial, and later the Austrian, army. He served as quartermaster accountant in a hospital of the Austrian army. Frank Ross Anderson (1928-1980) was a two-time Canadian Champion (1953 and 1955) from Toronto and International Master (1954).  He graduated from the University of Toronto, majoring in physics and mathematics. He was a computer expert and later, operated a tx consulting business.

Gerald Frank Anderson (1898-1984), born in South Africa, was a British chess problemist, International Judge of Composition (1960), and International Master of Composition (1975). He worked in the British Foreign Office as an ambassador, and served one of his diplomatic posts in Washington, DC. He was a British officer in the Royal Air force, fighter pilot, and flying ace. During World War I, he was accredited with 8 aerial victories. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC). In 1959, he was inducted into the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Adolf Anderssen (1818-1879) was a German chess master. He studied mathematics and philosophy.  He graduated from Breslau University in 1847 at the age of 29, then took a position at the Friedrichs-Gymansium (high school) as an instructor in German and mathematics in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland).  He later became Professor of Mathematics.  He was given an honorary doctorate by the town of Breslau for his accomplishment in chess.

Dragoslav Andric (1923-2005) was one of the top 100 chess players in the early 1950s. He was a Serbian writer, playwright, and lexicographer.

Eugene Michel Antoniadi (1870-1944) was a Greek chess master. In 1907, he tied for 1st place with Frank Marshall in Paris. He was a famous astronomer. He was famous for his maps of Mars, proving that the "canals" of Mars were optical illusions. He also made the first attempts to draw a map of Mercury. He was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He wrote over 200 articles and books on astronomy, history, and architecture.

Vladimir Antoshin (1929-1994) was a Soviet Grandmaster (1964). He has played in 5 USSR chess championships, taking 6th place in 1967. In 1960, he was USSR Correspondence Champion. In 1966, he took 1st place at the international tournament in Zinnowitz. He was a technical designer and worked for the KGB.

Jose Joaquin Araiza-Munoz (1897-1971) was Mexico's leading chess player until the arrival of Carlos Torre-Repetto. He won the Mexican championship 15 times. He was a Lt. Colonel in the Mexican Army.

Dr. Miles Ferdi Ardaman (1963- ) is a FIDE master. He won the Florida State Championship in 1986 and 1987. He was Texas champion in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1997. In 1998, 1999, and 2001, he won the South Carolina State Championship. In 2005, he won the Georgia State Championship. He is a medical doctor and psychiatrist at the School of Medicine in Greenville, SC.

Jon Loftur Arnason (1960- ) is an Icelandic grandmaster (1986). He was winner of the first World Championship for juniors under 17, in 1977 (ahead of Jay Whitehead and Kasparov). He won the Icelandic championship 3 times. He obtained a degree in Finance and Accounting from the University of Iceland, and became a successful businessman at Oz Communications, a communications company. He was its Secretary and Treasurer.

Marc Tyler Arnold (1992- ) is an American GM (2012). He won the US Junior championship in 1007 and 2012. He graduated from Indiana University and is currently a Trader at Vectra Capital in New York City.

Lev Aronin (1920-1982), a Russian International Master (1950) who played in 8 Soviet championships, was a meteorologist. He was not allowed to participate in foreign competition because of his important (and possibly secret) scientific knowledge.

Dr. Bolat Asanov (1961- ) is a GM from Kazakhstan.  In 1992, he won the championship of Kazakhstan. He has a PhD in history.

Dr. Lajos Asztalos (1889-1956) was a Hungarian-Yugoslav International Master (1950) and International Judge (1951).  He won the Hungarian championship in 1913.  From 1951 to 1956 he served as President of the Hungarian Chess Federation.  He was a professor of philosophy (PhD), languages teacher, and a journalist. 

Henry Ernest Atkins (1872-1955) was an International Master (1950) who won the British Chess Championship 9 times (out of 11 attempts), from 1905 to 1925.  He attended Cambridge University as a mathematics scholar and played board one on its college team for four years, only losing one game during that time.  He taught mathematics at Northampton College before being appointed principal at Huddersfield College Municipal Secondary School for Boys.  He was its principal for 28 years.  He was a schoolmaster who played chess only in his spare time.

George Atwood (1745-1807) was an avid chess player in the 18th century and wrote 15 chess notebooks, recording the moves of 17th century chess players such as the games of Philidor. He was an English mathematician and lecturer at Cambridge. In 1776, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. William Pitt, British Prime Minister, was one of Atwood's former students. He gave Atwood a position as a personal secretary and an office in the Treasury (Patent Searcher of the Customs). In the 1784, George Atwood created the Atwood machine for verifying experimentally the laws of acceleration of motion.

Dr. Robin Ault (1941-1994) of New Jersey was the first person to win the U.S. Junior Championship three times (1959, 1960, 1961). He earned a bachelor's degree from Columbia University and a doctorate in mathematics from Brandeis University. He became a math professor at Boston State College, a senior software engineer with MicroLogic Inc, and social justice activist with the New University Conference. He was a delegate to the Massachusetts Democratic Party convention. He was a Quaker.

Herbert Mois Avram (1913-2006) was an American chess master. He won the Virginia State Championship three straight times from 1952 to 1954. He was Maryland State Champion twice, in 1955 and 1979. He was a decorated World War II veteran. He was a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He worked for the NSA and the CIA as a government analyst. The sensitive nature of his intelligence work meant that he could never be alone with Soviet chess players in chess tournaments or at chess clubs. He left government service to follow his interests in the digital court reporting market in the early 1960s. He founded Stenocomp Corporation. He pioneered what is known as Closed Captions as seen on television. He was a member of Mensa. (source: The Washington Post, Jan 22, 2006)

Ludwig Ernst August Bachmann (1856-1937) was a German author, chess historian, and chronicler of chess (the 44-volume Schach-Juhrbuch series). He worked for the Bavarian railway in Munich as a senior official.

Boris Baczynskyj (1945-2008) was a FIDE master and former editor of Chess Life magazine who lived in Philadelphia. In 1967, he graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. He entered the Peace Corps and spent time in Thailand and Cambodia. For a while, he worked for the Associated Press in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime. (source: Chess Life Online, Jan 24, 2008 - http://www.uschess.org/content/view/8135/431, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan 27, 2008)

Clarence Bagley (1843-1932) was the first chess champion of Washington State (then, the Washington territory).  He was chess champion of Washington territory from 1862 to 1875.  He was a printer, newspaper and magazine publisher, writer, historian, and founder of the Washington State Historical Society.  In 1916, he wrote History of Seattle from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time.

Rosendo Balinas (1941-1998) was a Filipino GM (1976). He won the championship of the Philippines 7 times. He was a lawyer by profesion, as well as a journalist.

Erik B. H. Bang (1944- ) is a Grandmaster of Correspondence Chess (1979) from Denmark. He is an electronics technician.

Dr. Jill A. Barber is a Ladies Correspondence Grandmaster (2005).  She has a PhD in Bio-organic Chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 1980. She works at the University of Manchester in the pharmacy division. She is the author of 68 publications in the field of bio-organic chemistry.

Dr. Gedeon Barcza (1911-1986) was a Hungarian Grandmaster (1954).  He won the Hungarian championship eight times.  He was editor of the chess magazine Magyar Sakkelet.  He played on seven Hungarian Olympiad teams.  He had a PhD in mathematics and was a Hungarian professor of mathematics. He also taught mathematics and physics at a secondary school.

Curt von Bardeleben (1861-1924) was a German chess master.  He originally studied law but gave it up to become a professional chess player and a journalist.  He later quit competitive chess for four years to complete his law degree.  He supplemented his chess income by marrying wealthy women.  He was a member of the German nobility.

Dr. Johan Teunis Barendregt (1924-1982) was a Dutch International Master (1962). He studied psychology at the University of Amsterdam where he received his PhD. He was a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Amsterdam from 1962 to 1982.

Major Sir Richard Whieldon Barnett (1863-1930) was Irish Chess Champion from 1886 to 1889.  At Oxford, he was the president of the Oxford University Chess Club. He was an Irish barrister and member of parliament in the United Kingdom House of Commons.  At age 15, he was the Irish rifle champion. He participated in the 1908 Summer Olympics, placing 4th in the 1000-yard rifle competition.  After the First World War, he became a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) and was president of the House of Commons Chess Circle.

John Finan Barry (1873-1940) was a strong chess amateur. He played in 12 of the 13 Anglo-American (1896-1911) cable matches, missing the 1908 match because of a misdelivered invitation. He was the president of the Boston Chess Club and chess column editor at Boston Transcript for 25 years. He was a Boston lawyer. He served as Clerk of the Municipal Court in Boston for 28 years.

Alexei Barsov (1966- ) is an Uzbekistani GM (2000). He is a lawyer by profession.

Jack Straley Battell (1909-1985) was a former USCF correspondence chess director (1969-1978).  In 1946, he was the highest rated postal player in the United States and won the 1946 Correspondence Chess League of America (CCLA) championship.  He graduated from Yale. He was a photographer, English teacher, riding master, and restaurant manager.   (source: "Jack Staley Battell," uschess.org, - http://www.uschess.org/cc/absolute/battellbio.php)

Viktor Davidovich Baturinsky (1914-2002) was a former vice president of the USSR Chess Federation, former director of the Central Chess Club in Moscow and head of Anatoly Karpov's delegation in the 1978 and 1981 world championship matches against Viktor Korchnoi. He was a colonel in the KGB.

Dr. Friedrich "Fritz" Baumbach (1935- ) is a FIDE Master (1985) and German correspondence player who won the 11th World Correspondence Championship (1983-1989). In 1970, he won the East German championship. From 1993 to 2010, he was president of the German Correspondence Chess Federation. From 1995 to 1999, he was the ICCF General Secretary. He was awarded the Correspondence Grandmaster title in 1973. In 1966, he earned a PhD in chemistry and is a lawyer. He worked as a patent attorney at the Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Adolf Bayersdorfer (1842-1901) was one of the most eminent of German chess composers. He was the chess editor of the Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten (Munich Latest News) from 1888 to 1901. He studied philosophy and art history. He was a renowned art historian by profession and held the post of conservator of the royal galleries at Munich.

Herman Behr (1847-1934) was a chess patron and chess master. He was president of the New York State Chess Association and president of the Brooklyn Chess Club. He was a millionaire and owned a company that manufactured abrasives, sandpaper, and glue.

Anjelina Belakovskaia (1969- ) is a Woman Grandmaster (1993). She was born in the Ukraine and won the Women's Championship of the Soviet Union and the Ukraine. She was U.S. Women's Chess Champion in 1995, 1996, and 1999. She graduated from Odessa University of Agriculture with a Bachelor's in economics and accounting. In 2001, she earned a master's degree in Mathematics in Finance from New York University. For a while, she worked as a weather derivatives trader. In 2013, she became an honors professor in the Department of Finance at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona, adding the "Chess, Leadership and Business Strategy" course.

Jana Malypetrova Hartston Miles Bellin (1947- ) is a Woman GM (1982).  She has won the British Woman's Chess Championship 8 times. She is a medical doctor specializing in anaesthetics.  She works in intensive care at the Sandwell General Hospital in West Bromwich, England.  She is Chairman of the FIDE Medical Commission, which supervises drug testing of chess players.

Dr. Miklos Bely (1913-1970) was an International Master (1956) from Hungary.  He graduated from the Budapest University of Applied Sciences at the Faculty of Medicine of the Peter University of Budapest and then became a hospital assistant. He was a municipal physician and a public health inspector in Gyor, Hungary.

Joel Benjamin (1964- ) is an American GM (1986). He graduated from Yale University with a major in history in 1985. He won the US championship 3 times. Benjamin was hired as the official grandmaster consultant by IBM to help with the Deep Blue chess computer that defeated World Champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. Charles Michael Bent (1919-2004) was an English chess composer of chess endgame studies. He was the most prolific English endgame composer, publishing as many as 848 studies. He was educated at the Royal Naval College but had to leave the British Navy because of chronic sea-sickness. He later became a rubber planter. He was also a strong tennis player and played at Wimbledon as a junior. (source: "Mike Bent," British Endgame Study News, Mar 2005)

Dr. Volf Bergraser (1904-1986) won the French chess championship in 1957 and 1966. He played for France in 5 Chess Olympiads. He became a Correspondence Grandmaster at the age of 77 in 1981. He was a rural medical doctor.

Dr. Hans Berliner (1929-2017) was an International Master and won the 5th world correspondence chess championship in 1965. He helped develop the chess machine program called Hitech, which was one of the strongest chess machines in the world.  It was the first computer program to get a USCF Senior Master rating. In the early 1960s, he worked at IBM. He was a leading computer scientist with a PhD from Carnegie-Mellon University.  He joined the faculty afterwards and was Professor of Computer Science. He specialized in Artificial Intelligence.  In his later years, he worked to develop computer chess programs. (source: New York Times, Jan 16, 2017)

Dr. Ossip S. Bernstein (1882-1962) was born in Imperial Russia to a wealthy family of Jewish heritage.  He was awarded the Grandmaster title in 1950. He earned a doctorate in law at Heidelberg University and started out as a financial lawyer in Moscow.  In 1918 he was arrested on Odessa by the Cheka and ordered shot by a firing squad because he was a legal advisor to bankers.  At the last minute, he was recognized as the famous chess master and was spared.  In the 1920s, he became one of France's most prosperous financial lawyers, only to lose it all in the Wall Street stock market crash. 

Frank Kim Berry (1945-2016) was an American chess patron and International Arbiter. He sponsored and directed the 2007 and 2008 U.S. Championships in Oklahoma.  He was a former paratrooper with the 101st Airborne and major stockholder in a regional bank.

Vinay Bhat (born June 4, 1984) learned chess at the age of 6. He became America's youngest master in 1995 at the age of 10 years, 176 days. At age 11, he tied for 2nd at the Under-12 World Youth Championship, won by Bacrot. At age 13, he tied for 1st at the US Cadet (Under-16) championship. At the age of 15 years and 10 months, he became an International Master, at the time the youngest IM in the US. He won the California High School Championship 4 times. He earned his third GM norm at age 23. He received a B.S. in Statistics and Political Economy from the University of California Berkeley in 2006. He currently works at Shipt, where he is the Head of Data Science.

Paul Rudolf von Bilguer (1815-1840) was the author of the Handbuch des Schachspiels, the most influential chess book for over 90 years. He was a German Army Lieutenant.

Henry Bird (1829-1908) was a practicing statistics accountant, specializing in the railway business, and not a professional chess player.  One of the reports he wrote was entitled Railway Accounts: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Capital and Revenue of the Railways of the United Kingdom.  He also wrote 6 chess books.  Bird first worked as a clerk to an accountant in London.  Later, he became partner in the firm Coleman, Turquand, Youngs and Co.

Arthur Bisguier (1929-2017) was an American chess grandmaster (1957). From 1951 to 1953, Bisguier served in the U.S. Army as an enlisted soldier. In 1955, he graduated from Pace College. In 1956, he worked at IBM as a programmer. He later became a full-time professional chess player. (source: New York Times, April 5, 2017)

Peter Biyiasas (1950- ) is a Canadian GM (1978). He won the Canadian championship twice. He graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1972 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. He works as a computer programmer.

Roy Turnbull Black (1888-1962) was an American chess master. In 1914, he won the New York State chess championship. He was a New York judge by profession.

Armand Edward Blackmar (1826-1888), of Blackmar-Diemer Gambit fame, was a violinist, pianist, music teacher and the founder of a music publishing company in the South.  He was born in Vermont but moved to Louisiana.  From 1852 to 1855, he was professor of music at Centenary College in Jackson, Louisiana. He was the most successful publisher of music of the Confederacy during the Civil War.  He was best known for the patriotic songs he wrote for the South.  During the Civil War, Armand worked out of New Orleans until a Union raid, led by General Benjamin Butler, on his business forced him to cease working and arrested Blackmar.  After the Civil War, he opened up a music store in New Orleans.  Armand was also a lawyer.  Blackmar created his Blackmar Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.f3) in 1881 and had his opening analysis published in 1882 in Brentano's Chess Monthly.

Hugh Blandford (1917-1981) was an English chess endgame composer. He was co-inventor with Richard Guy and John Roycroft of the Guy-Blandford-Roycroft (GBR) code for classifying studies. He was a metallurgist by profession.

Dr. Otto Titusz Blathy (1860-1939) was a Hungarian chess player and electrical engineer. He was a well-known author of chess problems. He received his diploma of mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Vienna in 1882. He started work as a mechanical engineer in a machinery workshop at the Hungarian Railways in Ganz, Hungary.  He was the first to outline the practical application of Ohm's law of magnetism. He was the co-inventor of the modern electric transformer (a word he invented), the tension regulator, the AC watt-hour meter, the motor capacitor for the single-phase (AC) electric motor, the turbo generator, and the high-efficiency turbo generator. He had over 100 patents to his credit. Blathy was an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1927. He held honorary PhD degrees in electrical engineering from the Technical Universities of Budapest and Vienna.

Dr. Ludwig Erdmann Bledow (1795-1846) was a German chess master and the co- founder of the Berlin Pleiades.  In 1846 he founded the first German chess magazine, Schachzeitung der Berliner Schachgesellschaft. He had a PhD in mathematics and taught mathematics at the Berlin Gymnasium.

Yaacov Bleiman (1947-2004) was a Lithuanian-Israeli International Master (1971). He played for Israel in 3 Chess Olympiads. He helped design smart bombs that were bought by the Israeli Air Force for its F-16 fighter jets in 2003.

Dr. Benjamin Markovich Blumenfeld (1884-1947) was a Russian chess master. He received a doctorate for a dissertation on the nature of blunders in chess.

Mark Bluvshtein (1988- ) is a Soviet-born Canadian GM (2004). He graduated from York University in Toronto in 2010, majoring in Science and Technology Studies. He received MBA from Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto in 2016. He is working at Wave in Toronto as Manager, Financial Services.

Milko Bobotsov (1931-2000) was the first Bulgarian to be awarded the title of International Grandmaster (1961). He was Bulgarian champion in 1958. He played in 8 Bulgarian Chess Olympiads. He was a gymnastics instructor.

Piotr Bobras (1977- ) is a Polish GM (2005). He graduated from the Bia?ystok Technical University with a degree in computer science.

Samuel Boden (1826-1882) was an English professional chess master. He was the chess editor of the Field from 1858 to 1873. He started out as a railroad clerk and accountant at Nine Elms in Vauxhall, England.  He later became art dealer and critic, and amateur watercolor landscape painter.  Boden exhibited 7 watercolor paintings at the Royal Society of British Artists between 1865 and 1873.  The British Museum has 5 Boden paintings. 

Rajko Bogdanovic (1931- ) is an International Master (1963) from Bosnia. He played in 10 Yugoslav championships. His main profession was a journalist and radio reporter.

Fedir Bohatyrchuk (1892-1984) was a Russian-Soviet-Ukrainian-Canadian International Master (1954).  He played in six Russian championships.  He entered the University of Kiev later in 1912 to study medicine, and served in the Russian military, medical corps, during World War I. He was a medical doctor (radiologist) and professor of radiological anatomy.  During the Russian Civil War, 1917—1922, he was employed by a military hospital, and was a professor of anatomy at the Institute of Physical Education and Sport in Kiev. During World War II, he was head of the Ukrainian Red Cross and of the Institute of Experimental Medicine. After the war, he became a professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, and the author of many scientific studies.

Isaac Boleslavsky (1919-1977) was a Soviet GM (1950). He earned a degree in philology at Sverdlovsk University. He was a chess writer.

Dr. Victor Viorel Bologan (1971- ) is a Grandmaster from Moldavia.  He has a PhD in pedagogy from the Sport Academy, Moscow, awarded in 1996.  His dissertation was entitled, "Structure of Special Preparation of High-Level Chess Players."

Igor Bondarevsky (1913-1979) was a Soviet GM (1950). He was an economist by profession.

Eero Book (1910-1990) was a Finnish International Master (1950) and an honorary GM (1984). He won the Finnish championship 5 times. He was an engineer by profession.

George Steven Botterill (1949- ) is a British International Master (1978). He was Welsh Champion in 1973. He was British champion in 1974 and 1977. He got his master's degree in Philosophy from Oxford. He taught philosophy at the University College of Wales. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield.

Former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-1995) had a PhD in Electrical Engineering and worked as an electrical engineer and developed computer chess programs. 

Hans Bouwmeester (1929- ) is a Dutch International Master (1954) and was a mathematics teacher at Utrecht.

Olena Boytsun (1983- ) is Woman International Master from Ukraine.  She graduated summa cum laude with a master's degree in International Economics.  Her thesis was entitled, "The influence of financial liberalization on economic growth." She is a director of investments at Omidyar Networks.

Joseph M. Bradford (1950) is an American International Master (2007). In 1978, he won the US Open, held in Phoenix, Arizona. He retired from the Texas Department of Transportation.

Dr. Frank Brady (1934- ) is the biographer of Bobby Fischer and first editor of Chess Life magazine. He has a PhD in communications from New York University.

Curt Justin Brasket (1932-2014) was a FIDE Master from Minnesota. In 1952, he won the US Junior Championship. He won the Minnesota championship 16 times, a record. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with degrees in French and mathematics. He became a computer programmer for Univac/Unisys. (source: "Curt J. Brasket," Star Tribune, Jan 26, 2014)

Dr. Miklos Brody (1877-1949) was a Hungarian-Romanian chess master. In 1899, he tied for 2nd in the 2nd Kolisch Memorial in Vienna. After World War I, he went from a Hungarian citizen to a Romanian citizen as a result of the post-war border changes in 1920. He played for Romania in 3 Chess Olympiads. He was a music composer. He was the Romanian State Opera conductor for many years, until his retirement in 1936.

Dr. Vladimir Bron (1909-1985) was a Soviet chess master. He was a Grandmaster in Chess Composition (1975). He composed about 350 endgame studies and about 250 other problems. He won 31 1st prizes in chess composing tournaments. He was a leading scientist of the refractory materials industry. He developed fire-resistant materials and was an expert on silicate technology. He published 150 scientific papers in his field.

David Bronstein (1924-2006) was a Soviet GM (1950). He wrote many chess books and articles, and had a regular chess column in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia for many years. He had planned to study mathematics at Kiev Univeristy, but the spread of World War II stopped that. After the war, he studed mathematics at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute for one year. After the war, he worked on reconstruction of war-damaged buildings.

Dr. Ian S. Brooks is a Correspondence Grandmaster (2002).  He has a PhD in biochemistry and is a computational biophysicist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois.

Count Hans Moritz von Bruehl (1736-1809) was one of the strongest players of the London chess club. He gave support to Philidor. He was Minister of Saxony in Germany and Ambassador to England. He was a colonel in the French service.

Walter Browne (1949-2015) was a professional chess player and professional poker player.  He was a gambler.

Lucas Brunner (1967- ) was the first Swiss-born Grandmaster (1994). He won the Swiss Championship in 1994. He is a Senior Manager at Credit Suisse in Switzerland.

Henry Buckle (1821-1862) won the first modern chess tournament in 1849.  He was a British historian who studied 19 languages (he could speak seven languages and read twelve languages).  He was the author of the unfinished 672-page History of Civilization.  His last words were, "My book, my book.  I shall never finish my book."

Dr. Gerardo Budowski (1925-2014) was a German-Venezuelan International Master. In 1951, he won the Venezuela Chess Championship. He graduated in 1948 as an agricultural engineer from the Universidad Central in Caracas, Venezuela. He pursued a master's degree at the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA), located in Turrialba, Costa Rica. In 1962, he obtained his doctoral degree in Forestry from Yale University. He was the first Director General of IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) from 1970 to 1976. He worked for UNESCO where he was head of the Natural Resources Program. He produced over 300 scientific publications.

Dr. Karl Burger (1933-2000) was an International Master with two GM norms.  He graduated from Columbia University. He was a medical doctor.

Amos Burn (1848-1925) was never a professional chess player.  Burn played in his first international chess tournament at the late age of 37. He started out as a clerk to a corn merchant, then became a cotton broker and sugar merchant in Liverpool, England. 

Dr. Stephan Busemann (1957- ) is a Correspondence GM (1995) from Germany.  He is President of the German correspondence chess Federation. He has a PhD (1990) in computer science from the University of the Saarland. He is the Associate Head of the DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence) Language Technology Lab, where is the principal researcher.

Algimantas Butnorius (1946-2017) was a Lithuanian GM (2007). He won the Lithuanian championship 10 times. In 2007, he won the world seniors championship. He studied journalism at Vilnius University, graduating in 1973. In 1975—1989, he hosted a chess program on LRT televizija.

William M. Byland (1917-1997) founded the Pennsylvania State Chess Federation (PSCF) in 1939 and was the president of the PSCF. He was a vice-president of the US Chess Federation. From 1941 to 1945, he was champion of Pittsburgh. He worked for a life insurance company in Pittsburgh.

Dr. Donald Byrne (1930-1976) was an American International Master (1962). He was an associate professor of English at Pennsylvania State University for 15 years. 

Robert Eugene Byrne (1928-2013) was an American grandmaster. In 1953, Robert Byrne became a professor of philosophy at Indiana University. He was a chess columnist for the New York Times from 1972 to 2004.

Godfrey Lowell Cabot (1861-1962) was an American millionaire industrialist (carbon black) and chess patron from Boston. He went to M.I.T. and graduated from Harvard with a degree in chemistry. He became a leading industrialist and philanthropist. For many years he was President of the Boston Chess Club and of the Massachusetts State Federation. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Harvard at the age of 90.

Dr. Ricardo Calvo Minguez (1943-2002) was a Spanish International Master (1973) and a multilingual chess historian. He was a medical doctor and a journalist. (source: "IM Dr Ricardo Calvo," ChessBase News, Sep 26, 2002 - https://en.chessbase.com/post/im-dr-ricardo-calvo-1943-2002)

Esteban Canal (1896-1981), born in Peru, was awarded the International Master title in 1951 and the honorary International Grandmaster title in 1977 at the age of 81. He studied medicine in Germany. He was a roving reporter able to speak 7 languages.

Jose Raoul Capablanca y Graupera (1888-1942) had the title of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary General from the Government of Cuba to the World at Large. He was later demoted to the post of Commercial Attaché.

Dr. Vincenzio Castaldi (1916-1970) was an International Master ) from Italy and 7-time Italian champion.  He was a dentist.

Alfonso Ceron (1535-1600?) was a Spanish chess master from Granada. He was one of the strongest Spanish chess players of the 16th century. He was skilled at blindfold chess. He was a Catholic priest.

Henry Chadwick (1824-1908) was a chess player and chess author. He is considered the "father of baseball."  He was a music teacher, sportswriter, baseball statistician, and historian. He compiled the first baseball rulebook, created the box score, and kept statistics on batting average and earned run average for each baseball player.  In 1860 he edited The Beadle Baseball Player, the first baseball guide on public sale. In 1880, he wrote De Witt's American Chess Manual. 

Pascal Charbonneau is a Canadian GM. He has won the Canadian championship twice. He studied Mathematics and Finance at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is a financial analyst at Alpine Associates.

Vitaly Chekhover (1908-1965) was an International Master (1950) and a famous endgame composer.  He was a professional pianist from Leningrad.

Claude Herries Chepmell (1864-1930) was an English chess player. He was on the Cambridge University chess team and was president of the Cambridge University Chess Club in 1886. In 1894, he took 1st place in the St. George's Chess Club championship and won the Loewenthal Cup. He was an artillery officer of the royal regiment, serving in India and Mauritius for several years. During World War I, he was an army Major serving as gunnery instructor.

Adriano Chicco (1907-1990) was an Italian chess historian and problem composer. He was the author of over 500 problems. For 16 years, he was the Problems editor of the L'Italia Scacchistica. He was a state lawyer by profession.

John Cochrane (1798-1878) was a Scottish chess master. In 1815 he was a second lieutenant on the HMS Bellerophon, which transported Napoleon to his last exile on the island of Helena. He was a lawyer who spent half his life in India.

Ofer Comay (1957- ) is an Israeli chess problemist. He won the World Chess Solving Championship in 1980, 1985, and 1999. He is an International Solving Grandmaster (1986). He is a popular science writer by profession. He has a master's degree in mathematics from Tel Aviv University. He founded a software company, CharacTell, which specializes in document image understanding. He is their Vice-President of Research and Development.

Kim Steven Commons (1951-2015) was an International Master (1976) who had won the California championship once and the American Open twice.  He was a member of the victorious USA team at the Haifa Chess Olympiad in 1976. He had a bachelor's degree in physics from UCLA. He gave up chess to become a real estate agent.

Arthur Cootes (1907-2002), born in New York, was an Irish chess master. He was president of the Ulster Chess Union from 1974 to 1977. He graduated from Cambridge University with a bachelor's and master's degree. His main career was in forestry.

Nicolaas Cortlever (1915-1995) was a Dutch chess master who owned a gemstone and marble business in Amsterdam.

Robert R. "Bob" Coveyou (1915-1996) won the first Tennessee Chess Championship in 1947. He also won the Tennessee Open and the Oak Ridge Championship in 1947. He won the Tennessee Championship 8 times. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics. He graduated from the University of Tennessee with a master's degree in Mathematics. He was a research mathematician at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He taught mathematics at Knoxville College for several years. From 1968 to 1971, he worked at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria.

Fred Cramer (1912-1989) was the former USCF Membership chairman and USCF President (1960-1963). He graduated with an MBA from Harvard. He was a lighting engineer and contractor. When he died, he bequeathed $250,000 to the American Chess Foundation. (source: New York Times, Apr 21, 1989)

Jon Crumiller is a USCF National Master. He has played against Carlsen. He is one of the top chess collectors in the world. He is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Princeton Consultnats, Inc.

Edmund Czapski (1917-1971) won the Detroit Championship in 1937, 1938, and 1939. He won the 1949 and 1950 New Mexico State Championship. He was a B-47 navigator in the Strategic Air Command (SAC). He flew the last mission of World War II, acting as navigator on the plane which escorted the Japanese generals on the way to sign the surrender. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force.

Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont (1728-1810) was a French chess player who defeated Philidor in one of Philidor's blindfold exhibitions. He was a French diplomat for King Loius XV, lawyer, swordsman, lady-in-waiting, and a transvestite.

Arthur Dake (1910-2000) was a strong master who played for the USA in three chess Olympiads.  He became a bridge toll collector, then a highway auto controller, and finally an automobile inspector for the state of Oregon after serving in the merchant marines when he was 16.

Dr. George Dean is founder of Chess Collections International and owner of the largest collection of chess sets in the world.  He is a medical doctor from Detroit.

Domenico Ercole Del Rio (1718-1802) was an early chess author. He was an Italian lawyer by profession.

Arnold Denker (1914-2005) was US chess champion in 1945 and 1946.  He graduated from New York University.  He was a promising boxer in his early years.  Denker was a Golden Gloves boxing quarterfinalist in New York and won three Golden Gloves bouts by knockouts in the welterweight division.  He later became a boxing manager.  He was also a promising young baseball player who later got a job at a meat-packing company (1937).  He later became the owner and was doing $38 million a year in sales when he retired in 1974.  He retired as a millionaire and moved to Florida. 

Jesus Diez del Corral (1933-2010) was a Spanish Grandmaster (1974). He won the Spanish Chess Championship in 1955 and 1965. He was a notary public by profession.

Nathan Divinksy (1925-2012) was a Canadian chess master and played in several Canadian chess Olympiads.  He served as assistant dean of science at the University of British Columbia.  His former wife (1972-1983), Kim Campbell, was the 19th Prime Minister of Canada.  Divinsky received a B.S. from the University of Manitoba.  Divinksy received an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and became a mathematics teacher at the University of Manitoba.  He then moved to Vancouver, BC where he served as mathematics professor and assistant dean of science at the University of British Columbia.  He was an alderman on the Vancouver, BC city council and was Chair of the Vancouver School Board.

Maxim Dlugy (1966- ) was awarded the GM title in 1986. In 1992, he was the 3rd highest rated player in the USA, behind Kamsky and Kaidanov. In the 1990s he worked for Bankers Trust on Wall Street as a securities trader. Eventually, he became a principal of the Russian Growth Fund. In 2002, he was the investment manager to Russian Growth Fund (based in the Virgin Islands), which invested in a magnesium plant in Solikamsk (Russia's second biggest magnesium plant; the USA buys 60% of its production). From June 2003 to August 2003 he was the plant's chairman of the board.

Edward Steven Doyle (1959- ) was President of the United States Chess Federation from 1984 to 1987, the youngest person ever to be elected to that position. He holds an MBA and worked at Prudential and Aetna. He serves as Head of PayFlex (Aetna Consumer Financial Services).

Julius du Mont (1881-1956) was a French-born English chess player. For some years, du Mont was chess columnist of The Field and of the Manchester Guardian. Between 1940 and 1949 he was general editor of British Chess Magazine. During World War I, he wrote the operating manual on the Lewis automatic machine gun. He was a pianist and piano teacher by profession. He studied music at the Frankfurt Conservatoire and at Heidelberg and became a concert pianist.

Dr. Leroy W. Dubeck (1939- ) is a chess master and was United States Chess Federation Secretary from 1966 to 1969, and President from 1969 to 1972. He has a Ph.D. in Physics from Rutgers University. He is a retired Professor of Physics from Temple University. He is a science fiction writer. He has written 6 college textbooks on physics.

Bobby George Dudley (1928-2017) was the owner and editor of Chess Enterprises and published over 500 chess books. He was a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and was a professor of Business Administration at Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh.

Vincent Lanius Eaton (1915-1962), born in Venezuela, was one of America's greatest chess composers. From 1939 to 1941 he was the Problem Editor of Chess Review. He published over a thousand chess problems. He was an International Judge for Chess Composition. He graduated, cum laude, from Harvard at the age of 18. He worked as a scholar in the manuscript division at the Library of Congress and became director of the publications department.

Edmund Broadley Edmondson, Jr. (1920-1982) was a former president (1963-1966) and executive director (1966-1977) of the U.S. Chess Federation. He retired from the U.S. Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel, serving as an aircraft navigator on tanker and bombers.

Noam Elkies (1966- ) is a chess master and mathematician.  He won the world chess solving championship in 1996 and 2001.  In 2001, he was awarded the title of Grandmaster for Chess Solving. He was the youngest professor ever tenured at Harvard (age 26).  In 1981 and 1982 he placed first in the USA Math Olympiad.  He had a perfect score in 1981.  At age 18, he graduated from Columbia University as class valedictorian, majoring in mathematics and music.  He earned his PhD from Harvard in mathematics at age 20.   At the age of 26, he became the youngest professor to receive tenure at Harvard. He is a professor in the Department of Mathematics at Harvard University. In 2017, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Arpad Elo (1902-1992) was an American master who devised the Elo rating system.  He was president (1935-1937) of the American Chess Federation before it merged and came part of the U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) in 1939. He was a professor of physics and astronomy at Marquette University in Milwaukee for 30 years (1935 to 1965). He was a lecturer in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin from 1969 to the late 1970s.

Esther Danilovna Epstein (1954- ) is a Woman International Master (WIM) and won the U.S. Women's chess championship in 1991 and 1997.  She is a systems manager for the Bio-Molecular Engineering Research Center (BMERC) at Boston University. 

Dr. Thomas Ernst (1960- ) is a GM (1991) from Sweden.  In 2002, he earned a PhD in mathematics from Uppsala University. He does research in algebraic combinatorics with applications to mathematical physics.

Frederick Esling (1860-1955) was the first Australian chess champion in 1886. He was a railway and civil engineer by profession. He was engineer-in-charge in the Way and Works branch of the Victorian Railways department. He designed the Flinders Street Viaduct.

Dr. Jan F. Esser (1877-1946) was a Dutch chess master. In 1913, he won the Dutch championship. He was a plastic surgeon by profession. He coined the term "stent" to describe his use of a dental impression. The term was later extended to mean a device to expand constricted tubes of body tissue.

Yakov Borisovich Estrin (1923-1987) was a Soviet Correspondence GM (1966) and an International Master (1975). He won the 7th Correspondence Chess World Championship (1972-1975). He was a paratrooper, lawyer, and chess professional.

Former world champion Max Euwe (1901-1981) had a PhD in mathematics from Amsterdam University in 1926 and was a math professor.  From 1930 to 1940 he was a schoolmaster at a girls' school in Amsterdam.

William Davies Evans (1790-1872), of Evans Gambit fame, started out as a sailor for the British Royal Navy at the age of 14.  He then became a ship captain in Wales on postal packet ships, taking mail across the Irish Sea.  He was a sailor for nearly 40 years.  He invented the tri-colored lighting now used on all naval vessels designed to prevent collisions at night.  Around 1825, during shore leave in London, he introduced the Evans Gambit. 

William Fairhurst (1903-1982) was a recognized authority in the field of civil and structural engineering and the bridge designer.  He started designing bridges at the age of 20.  In 1945, he wrote Arch Design Simplified, a textbook on arch bridges.  He was the senior partner in his own engineering consultancy.  In 1959, he designed the Tay Road Bridge, connecting Fife with Dundee, which was built in 1966.  At the time, it was the longest river crossing in Europe, measuring 1.4 miles.  He incorporated several chess motifs in the bridge design (the walkway is a chess board pattern, with a knight's move repeated in five different colors of stone).  He was President of the Scottish Branch of the Institution of Structural Engineers.  He also built prefabricated houses.  In 1961, he was awarded the Order of Chivalry by the British Empire for his services to engineering.  He still had time to win the Glasgow championship 18 times, the West Scotland championship 16 times, the Scottish championship a record 11 times, and the British championship in 1937.  He was awarded the International Master title in 1951.  He was also the president of the Scottish Chess Association for 13 years.

Robert "Bob" Ferguson (1965- ) won the Washington State Chess Championship in 1984 and 1987. He is the Attorney General of Washington State.

Mirosav Filip (1928-2009) was a Czech grandmaster (1955). He won the championship of Czechoslovakia in 1950, 1952, and 1954. He was a lawyer with a doctor in jurisprudence.

Reuben Fine (1914-1993) was one of the top chess players in the USA and the world.  He was also a leading psychologist.  During World War II he was employed by the Navy to calculate where enemy submarines might surface based on positional probability.  He was also a translator who could speak French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Yiddish, and German.   He later did research on Japanese Kamikaze attacks.  He gave up chess to become a psychoanalyst (PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Southern California).  In 1956 the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis published his work, The Psychology of the Chess Player.  The book is a Freudian account of the game of chess.

Alexander Fishbein (1968- ) is an American Grandmaster (1992). In 1985, he won the first Arnold Denker Tournament of High School champions. He works in the financial sector trading and investing in mortgage-backed securities.

Daniel Willard Fiske (1831-1904) was a chess player. He edited a chess column in the New York Saturday Press and played in the first American Chess Congress in 1857. He was an American librarian and scholar. He was a General Secretary to the American Geographical Society and edited the Syracuse Daily Journal. He was named university librarian and professor at Cornell University. He was an authority on the Northern European languages, and Icelandic language and culture in particular.

Dr. Edward William Formanek (1942- ) is an International Master (1977).  He was the first International Master to lose to a computer when he lost to Hitech in the 1988 Pennsylvania Chess Championship. He has won the Pennsylvania State Championship 5 times. He received a PhD in mathematics from Rice University in 1970.  His dissertation was on Matrix Techniques in Polycyclic Groups.  He is a professor emeritus of mathematics at Pennsylvania State University.

Lanneau L. Foster (1908-1967) won the South Carolina Championship 3 times (1956, 1960, and 1962). He founded the Foster School of Dance and the Carolina Ballet Company.

Bernard Freedman (1894-1983) was a Belgian-Canadian chess player. He was President of the Chess Federation of Canada from 1949 to 1951, and in 1955. He was a diamond merchant by profession.

Victor Frias (1956-2005) was an American International Master (1982) from New York, born in Chile. He studied architecture at the University of Chile. He supported himself by driving a taxi in Manhattan. (source: "IM Victor Frias," uschess.org - http://www.uschess.org/obituaries/frias.php)

Martin From (1828-1895) of From's Gambit fame, tried to pursue a career as a poet, with the help of Hans Christian Andersen.   He failed at that and volunteered as a soldier in the Danish army during the Prussian-Danish war.  He was later employed by the Danish Statistical Bureau in Copenhagen.  He later worked in the central office for prison management, and then became an inspector in a prison for women.  He achieved chess fame by analyzing the gambit 1.f4 e5 in the early 1860s.

Andrija Fuderer (1931-2011) was a Yugoslav International Master (1952) and an Honorary Grandmaster (1990).  He turned to chemical research, earned a PhD in chemistry from the University of Zagreb, and retired from serious chess play. He was a chemical engineer in Antwerp. He became a famous inventor and patented a compression process for refrigeration. He was also a virtuoso pianist.

Dr. Joseph Ganem (1959- ) is a correspondence chess master and editor of The Chess Correspondence. He earned a PhD in mathematics from Washington University in Saint Louis. He is currently a professor at Loyola University in Maryland where he teaches physics and mathematical methods for physics.

Oscar Gelbfuhs (1852-1877) was a Moravian-Austrian chess master. He invented and proposed an auxiliary scoring method for tie-breaking (Sonnenborn—Berger). He was a lawyer.

Florin Gheorghiu (1944- ) was the first Romanian Grandmaster (1965). He was world junior champion in 1963. He was won the Romanian championship 9 times (the first at age 16). He won the US Open three times in a row (1979 to 1981). He is a lecturer in languages at Bucharest University and speaks 10 languages.

Dr. Mark Ginsburg (1959- ) is an International Master (1982) from the USA. His undergraduate degree was from Princeton (Biology) and did graduate work at NYU, culminating in a PhD in Information Systems. He is the author of two programming textbooks and numerous peer-reviewed articles on groupware, digital libraries, and e-business strategy.

Igor Glek (1961- ), born in Moscow, is a German Grandmaster (1990). In 1990, he won the World Open. He has an engineering/economics degree from the University of Moscow and worked as an economist. He served 2 years in the Soviet Army.

Carl Theodor Goering (1841-1879), of Goering Gambit fame, was the son of a rich landowner.  He became a German professor and philosopher in Leipzig, where he taught Empiricism and Positivism.

Harry Golombek (1911-1995) was a British International Master (1950) and honorary grandmaster (1985).  He won the British chess championship 3 times. He became a chess journalist, writing for the London Times for 44 years.  In 1966, he was the first person to receive the OBE (Officer of the British Empire) for "services to chess." He studied philology at King's College in London but did not get a degree.  During World War II, he worked at Bletchley Park, the British wartime codebreaking center.  He helped decipher German Naval Enigma codes.  (source: "Obituary: Harry Golombek," Independent, Jan 10, 1995)

Dr. Juan Carlos Gonzalez de Vega (1917-1990) was chess champion of Cuba in 1942, 1943, 1951, 1952, and 1955. In 1946, he won the U.S. Speed Championship, held at the close of the US chess championship. He was a medical officer in the Cuban Navy.

Gisela Kahn Gresser (1906-2000) was a Women's International Master (1950). She was the winner of the U.S. Women's Championship 9 times (1944, 1948, 1955, 1957, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, and 1969). She studied classics at Radcliffe. She won a prestigious Charles Elliott Norton fellowship, which she used to continue her studies at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece. She was an expert in hieroglyphics. In 1937, she won a fellowship at Harvard for Greek archeological research. She was an accomplished painter and musician, as well as a classical scholar. (source: "Gisela Kahn Gresser," Chess Life, Mar 2001, p. 40)

Richard Clewin Griffith (1872-1955) was British chess champion in 1912. He and John Herbert White wrote the first edition of the world-famous Modern Chess Openings (MCO). From 1920 to 1937, he was editor of the British Chess Magazine. He was a metallurgist for an assaying company.

Vincent Grimm (1800-1872), born in Vienna, was a Hungarian chess master. In 1839, he founded and was president of the Pesth (later Budapest) Chess Club. He was an artist, an art dealer, a pianist, a linguist (fluent in 5 languages), a billiards master, a gifted drawer, consequently a lithographer and a cartographer.

Henri Grob (1904-1974), was a Swiss International Master (1950). He won the Swiss championship twice. He was a newspaper columnist, artist, and portrait painter.  He painted portraits of several grandmasters.

Anna Gulko is an International Master. She was US women's champion in 1987 and 1988. She eared a BS degree in computer science at Moscow University. She earned an MBA in finace from the Stern School of Buesiness at New York University. In 1989, she was a software engineer at Crosfield Lightspeed Co. In 1990, she joined Banker's Trust as an assistant vice president. In 1996, she joined GPC Investments LLC as a software developer, quantitative analyst, and trader. In 1998, she joined Invesco. She is a research analyst with the Global Quantitative Equity team at Invesco.

Isidor Arthur Gunsberg (1854-1930) narrowly lost the 1891 world chess championship to William Steinitz.  He was an early operator of Mephisto and was paid well.  Later, he listed his occupation as tobacconist and professional chess player.  He had a dealership arrangement with cigar makers and supplied cigars to chess clubs and chess rooms.  Gunsberg himself did not smoke.  In 1891, he listed his occupation as chess player and journalist.  In 1901, he listed his occupation as author and journalist.

Ilya Mark Gurevich (1972- ) was U.S. National Elementary Champion (1983), World Under-14 Champion (1985), U.S. Junior Champion (1990), and World Junior Champion (1990). He received a B.S. degree in finance from New York University. He quit competitive chess in 1994 and is a stock exchange options trader. He is an independent retirement planner at Northeastretirementplanning.com.

Antanas Gustaitis (1898-1941) won the second unofficial Lithuanian Chess Championship in 1922. He later became a Brigadier General in the Lithuanian Armed Forces and modernized the Lithuanian Air Force.

Anna Hahn Is a Woman International Master. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in finance and computer science and worked at Goldman Sachs as a programmer before becoming a senior trader at D.E Shaw & Co.

Dr. Milton Loeb Hanauer (1908-1988) was a chess master and Vice President of the Marshall Chess Club where he had been a member for over 60 years. He had a law degree but never practiced law because of the anti-Jewish prejudice in the legal firms in the 1930s. He had a PhD in French Literature and taught French in Harlem. He later became a public high school principal.

James Moore Hanham (1840-1923) was an American chess master. In 1891, he won the New York State Chess Association championship. During the Civil War, he fought on the side of the North during the Civil War and was promoted to major in the U.S. Army. He saw action at Fort Pickens and Baton Rouge.

Hermann von Hanneken (1810-1886) was a German chess master. He was also a Prussian general who served in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-1871.

Dr. Lars Bo Hansen (1968- ) is a Danish GM (1990) living in Orlando, Florida. He won the Danish championship 5 times. He won the Florida State Championship twice. He has a PhD in Strategic Sport Management. He is a full time Business Professor.

Dr. Timothy David Harding (1948- ) is a Senior International Master of Correspondence Chess (2002). He published a correspondence chess magazine Chess Mail from 1996 to 2006 and authored "The Kibitzer," a ChessCafe.com column from 1996 until 2015. He earned a PhD in history from Trinity College, Dublin, in 2009.  His dissertation was on correspondence chess in Britain and Ireland, 1824-1914.

James Harkins, Jr. (1929-2017) was a chess master from Cleveland, Ohio. He won the Ohio Championship 3 times (1964, 1968, and 1973), and tied for 1st in 1954, but lost on tiebreak. He graduated from Case Western Reserve Law School and The Hague Netherlands Academy of International Law. He was a lawyer in Cleveland by profession. (source: "James Harkins," uschessorg, - https://new.uschess.org/news/james-harkins-1929-2017/)

Max Harmonist (1864-1907) was a leading German chess master.  He was also a professional ballet dancer and belonged to the Corps de Ballet of the Royal Opera in Berlin.

Walter Harris (1942- ) of Harlem became the first African-American chess master, at the age of 18, in 1959. He won the Junior Championship of the Marshall Chess Club. He later gave up chess and became a physicist. He studied physics at Hunter College in New York City. Harris served with the U.S. Air Force during the early to mid-1960s and was stationed at Mather Air Force Base in California. In the late 1990s he relocated to Virginia where he worked as scientist at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

William Roland Hartston (1947- ) is a British International Master (1973). He won or tied in the British championship in 1973, 1974, 1975, and 1980. He studied mathematics and was a PhD student at Cambridge but did not complete his PhD on number theory due to too much time playing chess. He is a journalist who writes the Beachcomber column in the Daily Express.

Miroslav Havel (1881-1958) was a leading Czech chess composer. He was the chess editor in several Czechoslovakian newspapers and magazines. In 1956, he was awarded the International Judge for Chess Composition. He published over 1,400 chess compositions. He was an administrator in the Czech railroad system.

Miron James Hazeltine (1824-1907) was a newspaper chess columnist (New York Clipper) for more than 50 years (from 1856 to 1907) without missing a single issue until shortly before his death. He was a principal of Clinton Institute, a classical private school, justice of the peace, and notary public for the state of New Hampshire. He was also a classics scholar and made translations of the poems of 6th century B.C. Greek lyric poet, Anacreon.

Dr. Eliot Sanford Hearst (1932-2018) was a former New York State Chess Champion (1950).  He earned a PhD in psychology from Columbia University in 1956. For a while, he was an officer assigned to Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He spent 6 years at the National Institute of Mental Health. He spent a year at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. He was a professor of psychology at Indiana University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Arizona. (source: Chess Life, May 2018)

Ronald Watson Henley (1956- ) is an American Grandmaster (1982) from Houston, Texas. He had been a member of the American Stock Exchange from 1985 to 2001 and was a financial funding trader. He was a founding partner and Head Trader of a statistical arbitrage family of hedge funds, He is President of RWH Advisors and acts as a special consultant to ultra-high net worth individuals and family offices. He is an international registered financial consultant.

Dr. Moritz Henneberger (1878-1959) was a Swiss chess master. He won the Swiss championship 5 times. He was a mathematics teacher.

Matthew Herman is a senior master. At age 15, he graduated from the State University at Abany. At age 17, he has a master's degree in mathematics brom Brown Univeristy. At age 18, he took a job at Goldman Sachs. He is a hedge fund manager. 
Dr. Roza Herman (1902-1995) was a Polish Woman International Master (1950). She won the Polish women's championship twice. She was a medical doctor.

William Henry Hicks (1817-1899) was an English-Canadian chess master. In 1874, he won the Canadian championship. He was an educator and school principal by profession. In 1856, he helped found one of Montreal's first teachers' association.

Albert Beauregard Hodges (1861-1944) was a former U.S. chess champion (1894).  After accomplishing his life's goal of becoming the U.S. chess champion, he announced he was retiring from chess and never defended his title.  He was one of the operators inside the chess-playing automaton, Ajeeb. From 1893 to 1913 he was secretary of the Sailors Snug Harbor. He was an accountant for several firms.

Anton Hoesslinger (1875-1959) was born in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, he introduced the first modern grading system. In 1948, he published his grading list (the Ingo system) based on collected tournament results in the periodical Bayerische Schacht. He worked as a postal supervisor.

Dr. Walter Holowach (1909-2008) was a Canadian chess master. From 1946 to 1950, he won the Alberta championship without losing a game. From 1929 to 1935, he studied violin in Austria at the Vienna Conservatory of Music. During this time, he played first violin with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He graduated from the Vienna Conservatory with a Doctorate in violin/viola. During World War II, he was a censor/code breaker in the German Air Force Section, Prisoner of War Camps. He was a violinist by profession and taught music at Alberta College. He founded the Empire Opera Company in Edmonton, Canada. He later became manager of a cleaners company in downtown Edmonton. (source: The Edmonton Journal, Apr 18, 2008)

David Vincent Hooper (1915-1998) was a British chess player and writer. He was British correspondence chess champion in 1944 and London champion in 1948. He was an architect by profession.

Vlastimil Hort (1944- ) is a Czech-born German grandmaster (1965) and former world championship candidate who immigrated to Germany in 1985. He won the Czech championship 5 times. He worked for a general-interest magazine as a translator.

Bernhard Horwitz (1807-1885) was a German-born English chess master and study composer. He was a painter specializing in miniatures. He studied art at the Academy of Berlin.

Dr. Henry Aspinwall Howe (1815-1900) was a Canadian chess master. In 1877 and 1883, he won the Canadian championship. From 1873 to 1874, he was vice president of the Canadian Chess Association. He had a Doctor of Law and was principal of McGill High School.

Robert Huebner (1948- ) is a German Grandmaster (1971) and was one of the top 10 players in the world. He earned a PhD in classical philology in 1973. He is a papyrologist by profession. He is an expert on the deciphering of ancient papyri. He is fluent in over a dozen languages.

Dr. Harriet Hunt (1978- ) is an English International Master (2000) and Woman Grandmaster (1999). She has won the British Ladies' Championship 4 times. She has a PhD in archaeology from Cambridge. She is a researcher in archaeogenetics at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge.

Dr. M. Lee Hyder (1936-2003) won the South Carolina chess championship 7 times. He was president of the South Carolina Chess Association from 1967 to 1968. He was president of the Southern Chess Association from 1969 to 1970. He earned a PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. He was employed by du Pont as a Research Supervisor and worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. (source: usches.org - http://www.uschess.org/obituaries/hyder.php)

Georgy Alexeevich Ilivitsky (1921-1989) was a Russian International Master (1955). He won the Russian Federation (RSFSR) Chess Championship twice, in 1948 and 1949. He was a design engineer by profession.

Karol Irzykowski (1873-1944) was a Polish chess master, author, film theoretician, and critic. He studied Germanistics and, for a while, was a teacher. He worked as a parliamentary and court stenographer. He was a member of the Polish Academy of Literature. He provided a theatre column on Polish radio and in the Rocznik Literacki.

Bozidar Ivanovic (1946- ) is a Montenegro Grandmaster (1977). He won the Yugoslav Championship 4 times. In 1983, he tied for 1st in the Canadian Open. He is past chairman of the Montenegro Chess Association. He was a politician. He served as state Minister of Sport and Tourism for Montenegro.

Pyotr Izmailov (1906-1937) was a Russian master. In 1928, he was the first champion of the Russian Republic. He became an engineer-geophysicist and led major geological expeditions.

Edward Schuyler Jackson (1897-1987) played chess for over 70 years. He played in his first chess tournament in 1913. He won the U.S. Amateur championship in 1942 and 1944. He was a Wall Street broker.

Carl Friedrich Andreyevich Jaenisch (1813-1872) was a Finnish and Russian chess player. In the 1840s, he was among the top players in the world. He was first educated in Moscow, and then attended the Institute of the Corps of Railroad Engineers in St Petersburg, Russia.  He then taught classical mechanics and mathematics and was associate professor of mechanics.  He later joined the army, becoming a Major of the Army Corps of Engineers.  He left the army in 1840 and tried to support himself fully through chess, but that failed.  He then took employment in the Ministry of Finance. 

Vlastimil Jansa (1942- ) is a Czech Grandmaster (1974) and was Czech champion in 1964, 1974, and 1984. He majored in sports sciences from the Charles University in Prague. He was a captain in the Czechoslovakian army.

Nicolai Jasnogrodsky (1859-1914) was a Russian-born American chess master. In 1896, he won the New York State Championship. He worked for the New York Life insurance company and Mutual Life Insurance Company as an insurance company executive.

Alonzo Wheeler Jerome (1834-1902) was an American chess player. The variation 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7 is known as the Jerome Gambit. He was drafted into the Union army during the Civil War, where he served as quartermaster. After the Civil War, he moved to Paxton, Illinois and became manager of a hemp and flax company. Jerome became a printer and patented a method to form letters for a printing machine. He later moved to Springfield, Illinois and worked as a guide in the state capitol building. In September 1899, he wrote a 23-page souvenir booklet for those he escorted through the state capitol building.

Hans Johner (1889-1975) was Swiss champion 12 times.  He was awarded the title of International Master in 1950. He wrote a chess column in a Zurich newspaper for 57 years. He was an accomplished musician, playing the viola and violin.  He was a violin teacher and was director of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich.  He played with the orchestra for 45 years. 

Paul F. Johner (1887-1938) was a Swiss chess master and older brother of Hans Johner. He won the Swiss championship 6 times. He was a noted musician (violinist).

Dr. Stephen L. Jones (1942- ) is a FIDE master and a correspondence Senior International Master. He is a Los Angeles attorney. He had been a professor of mathematics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He has a Ph.D. in mathematics and a law degree.

Maximilian "Max" Judkiewich Judd (1851-1906) was a chess player. In 1881, he lost a chess match with George Mackenzie for the US chess championship, held in St. Louis. In 1887 Judd defeated Albert Hodges in a non-title match, held in St, Louis. In 1890, Judd defeated US chess champion Showalter in a match in St. Louis but did not claim the title. In 1903 he won the Western Chess Congress (US Open) in Chicago. He was a prominent wholesale cloak dealer and manufacturer. He was appointed by President Cleveland as the U.S. Consul General to Austria.

Miervaldis Jursevskis (1921-2014) was a Latvian-Canadian chess master. He won the British Columbia championship 6 times. He studied architecture and was a commercial artist by profession. He contributed many drawings to various chess magazines and has illustrated several chess books.

Dr. Gabriele Just, nee Ortlepp (1936- ), is a German woman chess master. She won the East German women's championship 3 times. In 1996, she won the German Open Senior Women's Chess Championship. She obtained a doctorate in 1965 at the Medical Faculty of the University of Leipzig. She is a physician in Leipzig by profession.

Paula Kalmar-Wolf, nee Klein, (1880-1931) was Austria's first female chess master. She was the challenger to the women's world chess championship 3 times. She was a dressmaker by profession.

Dr. Charles Kalme (1939-2002) was U.S. Junior Champion in 1954 and 1955. In 1957 he was the U.S. Intercollegiate Chess Champion. He was awarded the International Master title. He later gave up chess and got a Ph.D. in Mathematics from New York University in 1967. He was associate editor of Mathematical Reviews. He was a professor of mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley.

Sergey Mihailovich Kaminer (1908-1938) was a Soviet chess study composer. He was a chemical engineer in Moscow by profession.

Julio Kaplan (1950- ), born in Argentina, is a Puerto Rican International Master (1967). In 1967, he won the Puerto Rican Chess Championship and the World Junior Championship. He played for Puerto Rico in 4 Chess Olympiads. He is a software developer founder of Heuristic Software. He works for Autodesk, Inc, a software company. In the late 1970s, he worked at Atari on computer chess. In the 1980s, he programmed dedicated chess computers for SciSys and Saitek. In the early 1990s, he collaborated on the chess program Socrates.

Nikola Karaklajic (1926-2008) was a Serbian International Master (1955), chess trainer and journalist. He was Yugoslav champion in 1955. He was a disc jockey for Radio Belgrade from 1957 to 1982. He was the first editor of Dzuboks (Jukebox) magazine.

Mona May Karff, nee Ratner, (1914-1998) played in 18 U.S. Women's championships, winning 7 times, from 1938 to 1974. She also won four straight US Open titles, winning the women's championship. She spoke 8 languages fluently and became a millionaire as a stock investor. She collected art. (source: New York Times, Jan 18, 1998)

Anastasiya Karlovich (1982- ) is a Woman GM (2003) from Ukraine. She is a journalist.

Isaac Kashdan (1905-1985) was a Grandmaster (1954) from the USA. In 1928, at The Hague Chess Olympiad, he made the highest 1st board score with 12 wins, 2 draws, and 1 loss. He founded Chess Review in 1933. He won the US Open twice. He edited a chess column in the Los Angeles Times from 1955 to 1982. He worked as an insurance agent for Prudential Insurance.

Genrikh Kasparyan (1910-1995) was an International Master (1950) and an International Grandmaster for Chess Compositions (1972). He was considered the world's leading expert at endgame studies. He was a railway engineer by profession.

Larry Kaufman (1947- ) is a Grandmaster (2008). He was the winner of the American Open in 1966. He has won state championships in Virginia, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Southern California. He graduated from M.I.T. with a degree in Economics and became a successful stockbroker and trader. He helped write the opening book for the pioneering program Mac Hack, co-developed Socrates II and its commercial adaptation, Kasparov's Gambit, edited the journal Computer Chess Reports, and worked on many other research and commercial chess engines. He was co-developer of the chess engine Rybka. He now works supporting the Komodo chess engine.

Alexander Kazantsev (1906-2002) was a Soviet endgame composer. n 1975 he was awarded by the Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Compositions (PCCC) the title of International Master of Composition. He graduated from Tomsk Polytechnic University and worked at the Soviet Research Institute of Electromechanics. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Kazantsev joined the army. He left military service in 1945 with the rank of colonel, and was awarded a number of orders, including Order of the Patriotic War and Order of the Red Star. He was also a popular science fiction writer and ufologist. In 1946, he proposed a hypothesis that the Tunguska event in Siberia was not caused by a meteorite fall, but in fact been the catastrophe of a nuclear-powered alien spaceship. He was a former director of the Rocket Nozzle Studies Institute. He was the author of over a dozen science fiction books.

Hugh Alexander Kennedy (1809-1878) was an English chess master. He founded the Brighton Chess Club, which attracted Howard Staunton and Henry Buckle. He was a former British army captain.

Alexander Kevitz (1902-1981) won the Manhattan Chess Club Championship 7 times. He won the Brooklyn Chess Club Championship 4 times. In 1950, he was the third highest rated chess player in the USA, behind Fine and Reshevsky. He graduated from Cornell University in 1923. He later earned degrees in law and pharmacy from Brooklyn College of Pharmacy. He was a pharmacist by profession and worked at Palmer Pharmacy.

Ratmir Kholmov (1925-2006) was a Soviet Grandmaster (1960) and Lithuanian champion 10 times, from 1949 to 1961. In 2000, he tied for 1st in the World Senior Championship. He was a sailor in the Soviet merchant marine during World War II. (source: "Ratmir Kholmov Passes at 80," ChessBase News, Mar 17, 2006 - https://en.chessbase.com/post/ratmir-kholmov-paes-at-80)

Dr. Janis Klavins (1933-2008) was the Latvian chess champion in 1952.  He earned a physics and mathematics degree from the University of Latvia.  He earned a PhD in physics from the Latvian Academy of Sciences.  He worked as an engineer, scientist, laboratory director, scientific secretary and deputy director of scientific work. He also performed research in Magnetohydrodynamics problems.

Josef Kling (1811-1876) was a German chess master and chess composer. He was a teacher of instrumental music and a Professor of Music. He later opened a coffee house with chess rooms.

Josef Klinger (1967- ) is an Austrian Grandmaster (1988). In 1985, he won the Austrian championship. In 1985, he took 3rd in the World Junior Championship. He became a professional poker player in 2002, winning over two million dollars.

Hans Kmoch (1894-1973) was an International Master (1950). After World War I, he made writing his profession.

Dr. Viktor Carl Knorre (1840-1919) was a chess master and a Russian astronomer. He moved to Berlin in 1862 to study astronomy. In 1867, he earned a PhD in astronomy from Humboldt University in Berlin. He worked at Pulkovo Observatory in 1867 as an astronomical calculator and then at Berlin Observatory. He became Professor of Astronomy in Berlin, Director of the Berlin Observatory, and discovered four minor planets (asteroids).  NASA named a minor planet (14339 Knorre) after him.  He published papers on an improved equatorial telescope mount, referred to as the "Knorre & Heele" mount.

Ignatz Kolisch (1837-1889) was one of the top players in the world before he quit chess and went into banking.   In his early years he was the private secretary of the Russian Prince Urusov.  He later became a wandering chess professional and was one of the top 4 chess players in the world in the 1860s.  In 1867, he won at Paris, ahead of Steinitz.  He moved to Vienna and met Albert Rothschild in 1868.  He became involved in banking and became a millionaire and chess patron, organizing and sponsoring many chess tournaments in the 1870s and 1880s.  In 1881 he was made a baron of the Austrian Empire.

George Koltanowski (1903-2000) was an International Master (1950) and Honorary Grandmaster (1988). He was a diamond cutter. He became the chess columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, which carried his chess column every day for the next 52 years until his death, publishing an estimated 19,000 columns. He was the host of radio and television shows on chess and wrote several books on the game. (source: New York Times, Feb 13, 2000)

Dr. Danny Kopec (1954-2017) was an American International Master (1985).  In 1980, he won the Scottish championship. He was one of the world's foremost authorities on artificial intelligence and its application to chess.  He graduated from Dartmouth College in the class of 1975. He held a PhD in Machine Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh. He was an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Systems at Brooklyn College. He published notable academic pieces in the areas of artificial intelligence, machine error reduction, intelligent tutoring systems, and computer education.

Walter Korn (1908-1997) was editor of Modern Chess Openings and chess contributor to chess publications for 50 years. After World War II, he directed the U.N. Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, helping to relocate concentration camp survivors. In 1948, he served as national director of World ORT in Geneva. He worked as business manager of the Jewish Community Center. From 1960 to 1964, he lived in Israel, working for both the Joint Distribution Committee and the United Jewish Appeal.

Vladimir Alexandrovich Korolkov (1907-1987) was an International Grandmaster for Chess Compositions (1975). He won the 7th USSR study composing championship (1962-1964). He was an electrical engineer working in the Kirov plant.

Grigory (Gary) Koshnitsky (1907-1999) was Australian champion from 1932 to 1934 and from 1939 to 1945. For 45 years, he served as editor of the chess column in the Sydney Sun-Herald. During World War II, he was an anti-tank gunner.

Alexander Kotov (1913-1981) was a Soviet Grandmaster (1950). He was awarded the Order of Lenin for an important invention relating to mortar during World War II.  He was a chief military engineer and designed the 120-PM-43 mortar in 1943.  It was used in the Soviet army up until the late 1980s. He may have been a KGB agent.

Valentina Kozlovskaya (1938- ) is a Russian Woman Grandmaster. In 1965, she won the Women's Soviet Championship. In 1996, she won the Senior Women's World Chess Championship. She is a biochemist by profession.

Tim Krabbe (1943- ), is a Dutch chess master. He has a website devoted to chess curiosities. He is a journalist and novelist by profession.

Dr. Jesse Kraai (1972- ) is a Grandmaster (2007) from the USA. He received his B.A. from Shimer College in 1994, his M.A. in philosophy from the University of Jena, Germany in 1996, and his PhD in philosophy from the University of Heidelberg in 2001. His dissertation examined the influence of Georg Joachim Rheticus on the development of Copernican theory. He is a novelist.

Dr. Martin Kreuzer (1962- ) is a Correspondence Grandmaster (1994).  Kreuzer did his graduate studies in Mathematics at the University of Regensburg. After spending one year in the United States as a foreign exchange student at Brandeis University in Boston, he finished his PhD in Mathematics in Regensburg in 1986. Next came a post-doctoral fellowship at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, from 1989 to 1991, working in algebraic geometry. He then returned to Germany, worked as a scientific assistant at the University of Regensburg and gained his habilitation in Mathematics in 1997. After substituting for the chair of algebraic geometry at the University of Bayreuth in 2000-2001 and for the chair of algebra at Technical University of Dortmund from 2002 to 2007, he moved to Passau where he holds the chair of symbolic computation at the University of Passau. His main research interests are computer algebra, cryptography, computational commutative algebra, algebraic geometry, and their industrial applications.

Dr. Iosif (Joseph) Krikheli (1931-1988) was a Georgian Grandmaster of Chess Compositions (1984). He was a mathematician and a physician by profession.

Dr. Jana Krivec is a Woman GM (2007) and 7-time woman's champion of Slovenia. She has a PhD in psychology from the University of Ljubljana. From 2005 to 2011, she worked as a researcher in the field of artificial intelligence at the Department of Intelligent Systems at the Jozef Stafan Institute. Her research field is cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, and demography.

Dr. Nikolai Vladimirovich Krogius (1930- ) is a Russian Grandmaster (1964). In 1993, he tied for 1st in the World Senior Chess Championship. He is a sports psychologist (he has a doctorate in psychology).

Leonid Kubbel (1891-1942) was one of the greatest Russian chess composers. He composed over 300 endgame studies and 2,784 chess studies and problems overall. He was a chemical engineer by profession.

Dr. Josef Kupper (1932-2017) was a Swiss International Master (1955). He won the Swiss championship 3 times. He was a Swiss actuary by profession and was vice-CEO of one of Switzerland's biggest insurance companies, Swiss Life. He was a professor at the ETH Zurich.

Dr. Vytautas Landsbergis (1932- ) was a chess player. In 1952, he took 3rd place in the Lithuanian chess championship. In 1955, he graduated from the Lithuanian Conservatory of Music. In 1969, he wrote his thesis for his PhD degree. In 1978, he became a Professor at the Lithuanian Conservatory. From 1978 to 1990, he was a professor at both the Lithuanian Conservatory and the Vilnius Pedagogical University. In 1994, he wrote a thesis for his doctor habil. He was the first head of state of Lithuania (1990-1992) after its independence declaration from the Soviet Union and served as the Head of the Lithuanian Parliament Seimas. Landsbergis is an intellectual who has been active in Lithuania's political arena for more than two decades, and a notable politician who helped contribute to the demise of the Soviet Union. He has written 20 books on a variety of topic. He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, and a member of the international advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

Lisa Lane Hickey (1938- ) is a former U.S. women's champion (1959-62, 1966). In 1963 she opened up her own chess club, Queen's Pawn Chess Emporium, in New York. Lisa owns a natural food business, Amber Waves of Grain, in New York. It is now called Earth Lore.

Zigurds Lanka (1960- ) is a Latvian Grandmaster (1992). In 1993, he won the Latvian Chess Championship. He graduated from the Latvian University. He is a journalist by profession.

Bent Larsen (1935-2010) was a Danish Grandmaster (1956) and one of the top 5 in the world in the 1960s. He won the Danish championship 6 times. He studied Civil Engineering in Copenhagen but did not graduate. To supplement his chess income, he translated detective stories into Danish. Larsen had a small hobby publishing firm. He was fluent in 8 languages. (source: New York Times, Sep 11, 2010)

Baron Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa (1818-1899) was a German chess master. He was also a diplomat, author, and chess historian. He studied law in Bonn and Berlin. From 1845 to 1864, he was a diplomat in the service of Prussia.

Dr. Berthold Lasker (1860-1928) was the older brother of Dr. Emanuel Lasker and chess master.  He was a medical doctor.

Edward Lasker (1885-1981) was a strong American master and a mechanical engineer.  He had degrees (but no PhD) in mechanical and electrical engineering.  He invented and patented a breast pump to secure mother's milk.  He developed a short-wave therapeutic apparatus. He was a safety engineer for Sears Roebuck.  He was a fellow in the New York Academy of Science. Former world champion Emanuel Lasker (1867-1941) had a PhD in mathematics.  He studied mathematics and philosophy at the universities in Berlin, Göttingen, and Heidelberg. His PhD dissertation of 1902 on ideal numbers.  He was also a research mathematician who was known for his contributions to commutative algebra, which included proving the primary decomposition of the ideals of polynomial rings. Lasker held short-term positions as a mathematics lecturer at Tulane University in New Orleans (1893) and Victoria University in Manchester.

Norbert L. Lederer (1888-1955) was a leading organizer of chess tournament in New York. He was secretary of the Marshall Chess Club. He was a lawyer by profession. (source: New York Times, Nov 26, 1955)

Anatoly Lein (1931-2018) played in 7 USSR championships.   In 1968, he was awarded the Grandmaster title.   In 1971, he won the Moscow Championship.  In 1976, he immigrated to the USA where he won the U.S. Open and the World Open that year. He was New Jersey champion from 1992 through 1995. He was a mathematician by profession who made contributions to Soviet radar. (source: New York Times, Mar 6, 2018)

Grigory Levenfish (1889-1961) was a Russian GM.  He won the Soviet championship twice. He had a degree in chemical engineering from St. Petersburg State University.  He was an engineer in the glass industry.  He helped design and construct glass factories.

Eugene Levin (1930- ) is an American master. He won the consolation section of the first US Junior Championships in Chicago. He worked at Nasa Ames Research Center in the Thermosciences Institute.

Jacob Levin (1904-1992) was an American chess master. In 1941 and 1944, he won at Ventnor City. In 1945, he won the 50th annual Pennsylvania Championship. He was a lawyer by profession.

Irina Levitina (1954- ) was a world championship Candidate (1984) and was a Woman Grandmaster (1976).  She won the Soviet Women's Championship 4 times. In contract bridge, she has been World champion six times.  She is currently the top US player in the World Bridge Federation (WBF) Masterpoint rankings.

Dr. David Levy (1945- ) is a Scottish International Master (1969) who, in 1968, made a $3,000 wager that no chess computer could beat him in ten years. He won his bet from Don Michie, John McCarthy, Seymour Pappert, and Ed Kozdrowicki. He earned a PhD in artificial intelligence from Maastrich University in 2007.  His dissertation was entitled, "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners" (sex with robots).

Vladimir Liberzon (1937-1996) was a Russian-born Israeli Grandmaster (1965). He was the champion of Moscow in 1963 and 1964. He was not a full-time professional chess player and was trained as a mechanical engineer who worked for the National Electrical Company.

Dr. Kok Ann Lim (1920-2003) was the first Singapore chess champion in 1949. He founded the Singapore Chess Federation. He was Secretary-General of FIDE from 1982 to 1988.  He was a medical doctor who isolated the flu virus at the height of the Asian influenza epidemic in 1957-58. He conducted the first clinical trials of the Sabin polio vaccine. In 1965, he was appointed dean of the medical facility at the University of Singapore. He was a professor of microbiology. Samuel Lipschuetz (1863-1905) was U.S. chess champion from 1889 to 1890 and from 1891 to 1894. His occupation was a printer.  He later was an insurance agent.

Paul Lipke (1870-1955) was a German chess master. He was a lawyer in Halle, Saxony.

Georgy Lisitsin (1909-1972) was a Soviet International Master (1950). He took 1st in 3 Leningrad chess championships. He played in 10 USSR chess championships. He was a mechanical engineer by profession.

John Litvinchuk (1967- ) was a chess master at the age of 12 years and 7 months. He later gave up chess and is now a Senior Project and Program Manager (PMP) for Merck Pharmaceuticals.

Eric Lobron (1960- ), born on Philadelphia, is a German Grandmaster (1982). In 1978, he won the German Junior Chess Championship. In 1980 and 1984, he won the West German Championship. He has a law degree and was a successful trader on the stock market.

Rudolph Loman (1861-1932) was a Dutch chess master. He won the Dutch championship 7 times. In 1891, he won the City of London Chess Club championship. He was an organ player and professor of music by profession.

Bill Lombardy (1937-2017) was once world junior chess champion and became a Catholic priest.    He was ordained a priest in 1967 by Cardinal Spellman. 

Lev I. Loshinsky (1913-1976) is considered the greatest of all problem composers, and perhaps the greatest chess composer of three-movers.  He won over 70 first place prizes in problem composing contests.  In 1972, he was awarded the Grandmaster for Chess Compositions title. He was a high school teacher and a professor of mathematics at the Moscow Institute of Communications.

Ake Lundqvist (1913-2000) was a Swedish Grandmaster of Correspondence Chess (1962). In 1945, he was the Swedish Correspondence Chess Champion. He was part of the Swedish cryptanalysts that broke the German Siemens Geheimschreiber crypto code during World War II. He was a botanist by profession.

Dr. Ronald Cadell MacDonald (1868-1942) was a Scottish chess master from Edinburgh. He won the Scottish championship 6 times (1901, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1927, and 1928). He was a medical doctor by profession.

Reverend George Alcock MacDonnell (1830-1899) was an Irish-born English chess master. He was ordained in the Anglican church in Dublin. After performing a marriage ceremony for a divorced church-goer, he was dismissed from the church for 4 years.

Arthur Ford Mackenzie (1861-1905) was a chess composer. From 1883 to 1905, he wrote a chess column in the weekly Jamaica Family Journal. He studied at the Collegiate School of Kingston. He was a schoolteacher in Jamaica.

Arthur John Mackenzie (1871-1949) was an English-Scottish chess master. In 1904, he was involved in creating the British Chess Federation. He won the Scottish championship in 1908, 1909, and 1913. He was a chess columnist for the Birmingham Daily Post for 53 years, from 1896 to 1949. He was a headmaster of a school in Birmingham, England.

George Henry Mackenzie (1837-1891) was a Scottish-American chess master. In 1867, he was U.S. chess champion. In 1857, he joined the King's Royal Rifle Corps in Britain and served in many of the British Empire's outposts, including Ireland and India. In 1863, he decided to join the Union forces in the American Civil War and was assigned to the 10th United States Colored Troops. In 1864, Mackenzie, a former Captain in the Union army, was arrested and imprisoned for desertion from the Union army.

Dr. Elod Macskasy (1919-1990) was a Hungarian-born Canadian chess master. In 1958, he won the Canadian Open. He won the British Columbia championship 6 times. In 1936, he was a swimmer for Hungary in the Berlin Olympics. He was a mathematics professor by profession.

Mikhail Makogonov (1900-1943) was a Soviet chess master. He was a construction engineer by profession.

Vladimir Makogonov (1904-1993) was a Soviet International Master (1950) and an honorary GM (1987). He played in 8 USSR championships. He won the championship of Azerbaijan 5 times. He was a mathematics teacher.

Gyula Makovetz (1860-1903) was editor of Hungary's first chess magazine, Budapesti Sakkszemle, from 1889 to 1894.  He was a journalist by profession and wrote books on political economy.

Vladimir Malakhov is a Russian GM.  He started his career as a nuclear physicist.  His father is a physics researcher at CERN in Geneva and his mother lectures on physics at the university of Dubna.  Vladimir worked at the Institute of Physics in Dubna after he graduated from college.

Dr. Burkhard Georg Josef Malich (1936- ) is a German Grandmaster (1975). In 1951, he won the East German (GDR) Junior Chess championship. He won the East German Championship in 1957 and 1973. He has a PhD in History and is a retired university lecturer.

Dr. Erich Watkinson Marchand (1914-1999) was a USCF Life Master. He played on Phillips Exeter Academy (1928-1931) and Harvard (1932-1936) chess teams. He was captain of the Harvard Chess Team for 3 years. He won the Missouri Championship a number of times. He was a professor of mathematics at the University of Rochester and worked in optics for Eastman-Kodak Research Laboratories.

Georg Marco (1863-1923) was a Romanian-born Austrian of Grandmaster strength. He began as a medical student but gave it up for chess. He was a journalist by profession.

Dr. Alisa Maric (1970- ) is a Woman Grandmaster.  She has a PhD in economics.

Geza Maroczy (1870-1951) was one of the best players in the world in his time.  He was awarded the Grandmaster title in 1950.  He worked in Hungary as a clerk at the Center of Trade Unions and Social Insurance.  When the Communists came briefly to power, he was a chief auditor at the Educational Ministry.  After the Communist government was overthrown, he could not find a job.  He retired from international chess in 1908 and was a practicing engineer and mathematics teacher.  For a while, he worked in waterworks construction. He was a professor of mathematics and physics in a Budapest college.

Davide Marotti (1881-1940) was an Italian chess master. In 1921, he won the first Italian championship. He was a professor of literature and philosophy.

Drazen Marovic (1938- ) is a Croatian Grandmaster (1975). He has a degree in Literature and teaches Italian, Spanish, and English.

William Martz (1945-1983) was U.S. Junior champion in 1975 and US Open co-champion in 1982.  He was later awarded the International Master title.  He graduated from high school at age 16.  He received his bachelor's and his master's degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin.  He graduated from Marquette Law School in 1970, but never practiced, turning down a clerkship with a judge.  He became a used car dealer of a Chevrolet dealership in Milwaukee. 

Aleksandar Matanovic (1930- ) is a Serbian Grandmaster (1955) and chief editor of Chess Informant since 1966. He has been a radio announcer and producer.

Karl Mayet (1810-1868) was the most original of the Berlin Pleiades. He was a barrister and a judge.

Edgar Thomas McCormick (1914-1991) played in more U.S. Open chess tournaments than any other person (37 times). He had a mathematics degree from Princeton (class of 1935). In World War II he was a cryptographer stationed in Iceland and later worked for the CIA.

John Lindsay McCutcheon (1857-1905) was an American chess player from Pittsburgh. He was a strong amateur and chess patron. He was a lawyer by profession, engaged in the iron and steel business.

Alexander McDonnell (1798-1835) was a chess player. Between June and October 1934, McDonnell and La Bourdonnais played a series of six matches, a total of 85 games.  He became secretary of the Committee of West Indian Merchants, where his duties were to watch the progress through Parliament of bills connected with the West Indies.  The post made him a wealthy man.

Dr. Neil McKelvie (1930- ) is an American master. He won the Manhattan Chess Club Championship twice (1975 and 1979). He has a PhD in chemistry and taught chemistry at City College of New York.

Luke McShane (1984- ) is a former World Youth Champions and grandmaster.  He attended Oxford University and studied mathematics and philosophy.  He interned at Goldman Sachs.  After graduating, he worked there as a trader in London's financial sector.

Colonel Charles Dillingham Mead (1815-1876) was an American chess master. He was President of the American Chess Association. He was a lawyer by profession and a member of the New York Militia.

Edmar Mednis (1937-2002) was an American grandmaster.  He was trained as a chemical engineer, and then became a stock broker.

Alisa Melekhina (1991- ) is a Woman International Master and FIDE master. She is the first female Pennsylvania State Champion. She is a classically trained ballerina and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School at the age of 22.

Ariel Mengarini (1919-1998) was an American chess master. In 1940, he won the championship of Washington D.C. In 1943, he won the U.S. Amateur chess championship with a perfect 11-0 score. He played in several US chess championships. He was a medical doctor (psychiatrist for the Veterans Administration).

Dr. Andrew Jonathan Mestel (1957- ) is an English Grandmaster (1982). He was the first person to be awarded the GM title in both over-the-board play and chess problem solving. He is a Professor of Applied Mathematics at Imperial College London. He obtained his Ph.D. with the thesis "Magnetic Levitation of Liquid Metals" at University of Cambridge.

Eugene B. Meyer (1952- ) is an American International Master (1980). In 1982, he tied for 1st in the World Open, held in Philadelphia. He is President of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Studies.

Reginald Pryce Michell (1873-1938) was an English chess master. He played in 8 British vs. USA cable matches between 1901 and 1911. He worked as a civil servant at the British Admiralty.

Vladas Mikenas (1910-1992) was an Estonian-born, Lithuanian International Master (1950). He was awarded the Honorary Grandmaster title in 1987. He was a journalist by profession.

Dr. Peter Millican is a correspondence Grandmaster. In 1990, he won the British Correspondence championship.  He is a professor of Philosophy at Oxford, and an expert in computer linguistics.  He also develops software to analyze and compare texts.  He used one of his computer programs to identify J.K. Rowling as the real writer of a detective novel called The Cuckoo Calling.  She wrote the novel under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

Daniel Yarnton Mills (1849-1904) was a Scottish chess master. He won the Scottish championship 8 times. He was an actuary by profession for a life insurance company.

Sir Philip Stuart Milner-Berry (1906-1995) was a strong international chess player. He was hired to be a code breaker when World War II broke out. He was the first chess player to be recruited by Bletchley Park. He was head of "Hut 6," a section responsible for deciphering messages which had been encrypted using the German enigma machine.

Dr. Nikolay Minev (1931-2017) was a Bulgarian-American International Master (1960). He was a medical doctor by profession. In 1965, he founded the Bulgarian national toxicology lab in Sofia.

Jordy Mont-Reynaud (born August 16, 1983) was a master in 1994 at the age of 10 years, 209 days, the youngest in the USA at the time. He graduated from Stanford and is currently the CEO of Dojo.com, a social-persuasive technology web service.

Mario Monticelli (1902-1995) was an Italian International Master (1950) and Honorary Grandmaster (1985) at the age of 83. He won the Italian Championship in 1929, 1934, and 1939. He was a journalist by profession and correspondent of the International News Service.

Maria Teresa Mora-Iturralde (1902-1980) was a Cuban International Master (1950) who, at age 14, was the only person known to have studied chess under Capablanca. In 1915, she won the school chess championship of Cuba. She worked for the Cuban Ministry of Education.

Charles Paul Narcisse Moreau (1837-1916) organized the 1903 Monte Carlo international chess tournament and participated in it. He lost all 26 games. He was an army colonel and mathematician.

Donald James Morgan (1894-1978) was an English chess player and wrote the 'Quotes and Queries' column for the British Chess Magazine from 1953 to 1978. He was a teacher by profession, teaching English, mathematics, and science.

Harry R. Morris (1905-1966) was a chess master from Philadelphia. He won the Pennsylvania Championship 4 times. He was a procurement officer in the US Air Force.

Paul Morphy (1837-1884) graduated with a Bachelor Arts degree at the age of 17. He then entered law school at the University of Louisiana and earned his law degree at age 20. He practiced law in New Orleans.

James Mortimer (1833-1911) was an American-English chess player. He was a journalist and playwright, with more than 30 London productions to his name. From 1855 to 1860, he worked in the US Diplomatic Service, based in Paris. He became a proprietor of the London newspaper, Figaro.

Doctor Eric Moskow is a US chess master and chess patron. He is a medical doctor.

Geoffrey Mott-Smith (1902-1960) was a former problem editor of The Chess Correspondent. During World War II, he was chief instructor in cryptography and cryptanalysis in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). At the time, he was considered the foremost authority on games and puzzles. He was the executive editor of the New Webster dictionaries and the Wonder Book Cyclopedia. He wrote or cowrote over 30 books on games, including chess.

Paul Motwani (1962- ) is a Scottish Grandmaster (1992). He was the first Scottish player to become a GM. He studied mathematics and physics and was a high school mathematics teacher. He now lives in Belgium and teaches third grade at an elementary school.

Dr. Julius Mueller (1857-1917) was a founding member of the Swiss Chess Federation in 1889. He introduced the Swiss System pairings system at the 1895 Swiss Championship in Zurich. He was a meteorologist and a teacher.

Dr. Karsten Mueller (1970- ) is a Grandmaster from Germany.  He earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Hamburg in 2002.

Donald Henry Mugridge (1905-1964) won the chess championship of Harvard and the chess championship of the District of Columbia (1935, 1936, and 1947). In 1932, he won the Massachusetts championship. In 1933, he joined the staff of the Library of Congress, with a specialty in American history.

Andrew Muri is a Scottish International Master. He is an actuary by profession.

Willard H. Mutchler (1903-1947) was chess editor of the Washington Post for 23 years. He was a metallurgist at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C.

Hugh Edward Myers (1930-2008) was an American chess master and author. He won or tied for 1st in the state chess championships of Illinois (1951), Wisconsin (1955), Missouri (1962) and Iowa (1983), as well as the USCF Region VIII (Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Nebraska) championship (1983). He was a civil servant by profession involved in pension and tax matters.

Gia Nadareishvili (1921-1991) was a Georgian Grandmaster for Chess Compositions (1980). He was head of the neurology department at a hospital in Tbilisi.

Miguel Najdorf (1910-1997) was an Argentine grandmaster.  He won the championship of Argentina seven times. He was also a porcelain importer and worked in the insurance business in Buenos Aires.  He had his own insurance and finance firm with over 100 employees, which made him a millionaire and one of the world's richest chess players.  He was the primary agent for the Prudential Insurance Company of America in Argentina.  He was also a longtime chess writer.

William Napier (1881-1952) was an American chess master and the British chess champion in 1904.  He started out studying music (he was a pianist and vocalist) in England, but mostly studied chess instead.  He turned to journalism and wrote for newspapers in seven different countries.  He later became secretary of the Banker's Life Insurance Company.  He then became secretary, then vice-president of the Scranton Life Insurance company.

Mario Napolitano (1910-1995) was an Italian Correspondence Chess Grandmaster (1953). He won the Italian Correspondence Chess Championship in 1941 and 1947. He was a local government officer by profession.

James E. Narraway (1857-1947) was a Canadian master from Ottawa. He won the Canadian championship in 1893, 1897, and 1898. He was an accountant for the Canadian Department of Justice and an amateur paleontologist.

Dr. Srecko Nedeljkovic (1923-2011) was an international master. In the 1950s, he gave up chess to become a medical doctor (working with Dr. Michael DeBakey, a world-renowned cardiac surgeon).

Vera Nedeljkovic (1929- ) was one of the strongest women players in the world in the 1950s. She gave up chess to be a physicist.

Verica Nedeljkovic, née Jovanovic, (1929- ) is a Serbian Woman Grandmaster (1978). She won the Yugoslav women's championship 6 times. She was a ship engineer by profession and was a lecturer at the University of Belgrade.

Charles John Newman (1856-1903) was an American master. He was champion of the Franklin Chess Club in 1886 and 1900. In 1901, he won the championship of Pennsylvania. He was a music teacher by profession.

Dr. Meindert Niemeijer (1902-1987) was a Dutch International Master for Chess Compositions (1958) and chess historian. He served as dealer for the Royal Dutch Hague Library (Koninklijke Bibliotheek), buying and selling chess books over a period of 40 years. He was a lawyer and banker by profession.

Dr. Erwin Nievergelt (1929- ) is a Swiss chess master. He was a professor of computer science.

Juraj Nikolac (1932- ) is a Croatian Grandmaster (1979). His peak rating was 2500 in 1988. He is a retired physics teacher.

Frank Niro (1948- ) he won the American Postal Chess Tournament (APCT) League championship in 1973 and became a correspondence master in that organization in 1975. He is a former hospital administrator, management consultant and auditor for a national public accounting firm.

Josef Noa (1856-1903) was a Hungarian chess master. He was a trial judge by profession.

David Norwood is an English-born Andorran Grandmaster (1989). In 1991, he joined Banker's Trust as a trader. He is a CEO of an investment company. He is a retired millionaire.

Nikolay Novotelnov (1911-2006) was a Soviet International Master. In 1942, he won the Leningrad Chess Championship. In 1947, he won the Russian Federation (RSFSR) Chess Championship. He was an economist by profession.

John Nunn (1955- ) was one of the top British chess players and was a math professor.  He went to Oxford at age 15, graduated at 18, and got his doctorate in mathematics at 23 (dissertation on Algebraic Topology). He is an amateur astronomer.

Daniela Nutu-Gajic (1957- ) is a Romanian-Australian Woman Grandmaster (1986). She won the Romanian women's championship 3 times. In 1989, she won the Yugoslav women's championship. In 1995, she won the Australian women's championship. She works in the Information Technology (IT) industry in Australia.

Fridrik Olafsson (1935- ) was Iceland's first grandmaster.  He was the Secretary General of the Icelandic Parliament and a lawyer at the Icelandic Ministry of Justice.

Dr. Adolf George Olland (1867-1933) was the first official Dutch chess champion. He won the event in 1909, but he won two unofficial Dutch championships in 1895 and 1901. Olland was a medical doctor by profession.

Karel Opocensky (1892-1975) was a Czech International Master (1950) and five-time Czech champion (1927, 1929, 1938, 1943, 1944). He was a civil servant by profession.

Gerard Oskam (1880-1952) was a Dutch chess master. In 1900, he tied for 1st with Arnoldus van Rhijn in the 28th Netherlands championship. He was a lawyer by profession.

Predrag Ostojic (1938-1996) was a Yugoslav Grandmaster (1975). He won the Yugoslav Championship in 1968 and 1971. He was a journalist by profession.

Rev. John Owen (1827-1901) was recognized as one of London's strongest amateurs. In 1851, he was ordained and became a vicar of Hooten, Cheshire from 1862 to 1900.

Sam Palatnik is a GM from Odessa. He is working on a PhD in economics of industry.

Dr. Victor Palciauskas (1941- ) was the winner of the 10th World Correspondence Championship in 1984. He has a PhD in Theoretical Physics in 1969 and is a professor of geophysics.

Marvin C. Palmer (1897-1985) won the Iowa State Championship in 1917. He won the Missouri State Championship in 1922. He won the Michigan State Championship 6 times between 1933 and 1943. He worked as a printer for the Detroit News.

Vasily Panov (1906-1973) was a Soviet International Master (1950). In 1929, he was Moscow Chess Champion. He competed in 6 USSR championships from 1929 to 1948. He was chess correspondent for Izvestia from 1942 to 1965. He was a journalist by profession.

Frank Parr (1918-2003) was an English chess player. In 1935, he was British under-18 chess champion. In 1939-40, he won the Hastings Premier event. He won the British correspondence championship 4 times. He was a messenger at the London Stock Exchange.

Lawrence "Larry" Parr (1946-2011) was an American chess player. From 1984 to 1988, he was Chess Life editor. He was the author of several chess books. He was a journalist by profession.

Gyorgy Paros (1910-1975) was a Hungarian Grandmaster of Chess Compositions (1975). He became the foremost composer of helpmates. He was a personnel manager by profession.

Julius Partos (1915-1968) was a strong chess amateur from New York. He won the Queens County Championship several times. He won the championship of Colorado in 1951. He was one of the strongest blitz players in America. He was an administrator in the New York Department of Social Services.

Louis Paulsen (1833-1891) was one of the top chess players in the world in the 1860s and 1870s.  He was born in Blumberg, Germany and his family owned a potato farm in Germany, but the potato blight wiped out the family crops.  Louis Paulsen immigrated to the United States in 1854 and settled in Dubque, Iowa.  He established a distillery, was a wholesale tobacco merchant, and made cigars.  Paulsen himself did not drink or smoke.  He returned to Germany to work on his family's potato farm.  He remained a chess amateur all his life.

Wilfried Paulsen (1828-1901) was a German chess master and the elder brother of Louis Paulsen. The Paulsen variation of the Sicilian Defense is named after Wilfried Paulsen, not his better-known brother, Louis Paulsen. He was a potato farmer by profession.

Wolfgang Pauly (1876-1934) was the greatest chess problemist of Romania. He is best known for his fairy problems. He was also an amateur astronomer who discovered a comet, now named the Pauly comet (1898 VII). He was an actuary by profession.

Dr. Max Pavey (1918-1957) was an American senior chess master. He was a medical doctor. He managed a chemical plant. In 1957, he died of leukemia at the age of 39, possible poisoned by radiation from exposure to radium.

Dr. Fred Payne (1931- ) is the youngest state chess champion in Kentucky and postal master. He earned a PhD in aeronautical engineering from Penn State in 1966 and is also a medical doctor and US Air Force fighter pilot.

Joseph Peckover (1897-1982) was the best known American chess composer in the early 20th century. He was born in England but immigrated to New York in 1921. He was the endgame editor for the American Chess Quarterly from 1961 to 1965. He composed over 100 endings. He was an artist by profession.

Dr. Jonathan Penrose (1933- ) is an International Master from the UK.  He has a PhD in psychology.

Frank Kendall Perkins (1891-1971) was an American chess master. He was champion of the Cornell University Chess Club. He was a civil engineer by profession. During World War I, he was an army Lieutenant who saw combat action in France. He was gassed twice but survived.

Pauli Perkonaja (1941- ) is a Finnish chess problemist. In 1982, he became the first International Solving Grandmaster. He won the World Chess Solving Championship in 1986, 1992, and 1995. In 2005, he won the first European Chess Solving Championship. He worked in the Finnish postal service.

Dr. Julius Perlis (1880-1913) was a Viennese player of Russian origin. He was a lawyer by profession.

Dr. Barbara Pernici (1956- ) is an Italian Woman FIDE master. She won the Italian women's championship 5 times. She has a doctorate degree in computer science from Stanford University. She is a professor at the Polytechnic University of Milan.

Frederic Perrin (1815-1889) was an American chess master. He played in the first American Chess Congress, held in New York in 1857, and the third American Chess Congress, held in Chicago in 1874. He was a professor of languages at Princeton College.

Nicholas Pert is an English GM (2001). He graduated with a degree in Mathematics and Statistics. He then trained as an actuary. He is also a professional poker player.

John "Jack" A. Peters (1951- ) was champion of New England in 1971, 1974, and 1975. He was the winner of the American Open in 1977. He is a chess columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He currently teaches at the University of Southern California.

Petko Andonov Petkov (1942- ) is a Bulgarian Grandmaster for Chess Compositions (1984). He has composed over 6,100 chess problems. He won the World Championship for Selfmates and for Fairies. He graduated in Law Sciences in Sofia. During the Communist rule of Bulgaria (1944-1989), the regime did not allow him to practice as a lawyer, so he worked as a journalist.

Nenad Petrovic (1907-1989) was the first Croatian Grandmaster for Chess Compositions (1975). In 1947, he won the world championship for chess problem solving. He was a civil engineer by profession.

Margeir Petursson (1960- ) is an Icelandic Grandmaster (1986). He won the Icelandic Championship in 1986 and 1987. He was Nordic Champion in 1987. He played for Iceland in 11 Chess Olympiads. He is a millionaire investment banker and one of the richest men in Iceland.

Dr. Michael Pfannkuche (1956- ) is a German chess problemist. He won the World Chess Solving Championship in 1988 and 1993. He is an International Solving Grandmaster (1993). He has a PhD in mathematics and works as a system programmer.

Dr. Helmut Pfleger (1943- ) is a German Grandmaster (1975). He was born in Czechoslovakia. In 1960, he was German Junior Champion. He was West German champion in 1965. He played for Germany in 7 Chess Olympiads. He is a medical doctor.

William Timbrell Pierce (1839-1922) was a British chess player and a chess problem composer. In 1878, he introduced standard chess notation in England, when he used it in his chess column in the Brighton Herald. He was an architect by profession.

Jeroen Piket (1969- ) is a Dutch Grandmaster (1989). He won the Dutch Championship 4 times. He was the personal secretary of businessman Joop van Oosterom.

Hermann Pilnik (1914-1981) was an Argentine Grandmaster (1952). He later moved to Venezuela and taught chess at the Caracas Military Academy.

Albert S. Pinkus (1903-1984) was an American chess master. He won the Manhattan Chess Club Championship in 1941 and 1945. In 1947, he won the New York State Chess Championship. His main career was an explorer of remote regions, from which he brought back zoological and botanical specimens. He also worked on Wall Street as a stockbroker.

Vasja Pirc (1902-1980) was born in Illyria, but moved to Maribor, Yugoslavia. In 1927, he won the Yugoslavian Amateur Championship. He won the Yugoslavia (now Slovenia) championship 6 times. He was a historian by profession.

Alexander Pituk (1904-2002) was a Slovak and Hungarian chess problem composer. He was an International Master in Chess Compositions (1988). He was a carpenter by profession.

Dr. Charles Planck (1856-1935) was an English chess composer. He published over 300 chess problems. He was a mathematician and medical doctor and pathologist at the East Sussex County Asylum.

Vasily Platov (1881-1952) was a Latvian chess composer. He was one of the pioneers in study composing in Russia. Vasily was an epidemiologist.

Dr. Joseph Platz (1905-1981) was a chess master. In 1926, he won the championship of Cologne. In 1928, he won the championship of the Rhine. In 1931, he won the championship of Hannover. In the 1940s, he won the Bronx Championship six times. Between 1954 and 1972, he won the Western Massachusetts & Connecticut Valley Open Championship 14 times. He won the Connecticut Championship three times. He tied for the New England Championship four times. He was a medical doctor.

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett (1878-1957) was known as Lord Dundany. He was a gifted amateur chess player. He was president of the Irish Chess Union, the Kent County Chess Association, and the Sevenoaks Chess Club. He was a writer and dramatist, mostly in the fantasy genre. He wrote over 90 books.

Dr. Jozsef Pogats (1928-2004) was a Hungarian chess master. He played in 16 Hungarian championships. He was a lawyer by profession.

Ernst Pogosyants (1935-1990) was an Armenian Grandmaster for Chess Compositions (1988). He composed about 6,000 problems and studies. He was a mathematics teacher.

Rudolph Pokorny (1880-?) was an Austro-Mexican chess master. He was a manager of hair-dressing parlors and importer of French tonics.

Elisabeta Polihroniade, nee Ionescu, (1935-2016) was a Romanian Woman Grandmaster (1982). She won the Romanian women's championship 7 times. She was a journalist and broadcaster, with her own daily radio program on contemporary culture.

Domenico Lorenzo Ponziani (1719-1796), born in Modena, was a chess author, law lecturer, and priest. From 1742 to 1772, he was professor of Civil Law in the University of Modena. In 1766, he was Canon of the Cathedral. In 1785, he was Capitular Vicar. He was fluent in 6 languages.

Stepan Popel (1909-1987) was a Ukrainian-American chess master. In 1951, 1953, and 1954, he won the Paris championship. He won the Michigan State championship 3 times. He won the North Dakota championship 11 times. In 1931, he earned a master's degree in French and Latin language and literature from the University at Lviv. In 1960, he became a professor of French language and literature at North Dakota State University in Fargo.

William Norwood Potter (1840-1895) was an English chess master and writer. He was a chess columnist for the Westminster Papers from 1868 to 1879. From 1874 to 1876, he was the editor of the City of London Chess Magazine. He was a barrister's clerk by trade.

John Prentice (1907-1987) was a Canadian chess player. From 1955 to 1971, he was president of the Chess Federation of Canada. In 1977, he received the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal for his contribution to chess. He was a bank director by profession and one of the wealthiest men in Canada.

Jean-Louis Preti (1798-1881) was an Italian-born chess player who lived in France. In 1826, he had to flee Italy because of his involvement in a political conspiracy against Austria. From 1867 to 1875, he edited the French chess magazine La Strategie. He was a musician, played the flute, and was a professor at the Royal College. He also ran an export business.

David Brine Pritchard (1919-2005) was an English chess player. In 1954, he won the championship of Singapore. During World War II, he was an RAF pilot.

Kalev Pugi (1925-1984), born in Estonia, was a Canadian chess player. From 1973 to 1976, he was president of the Canadian Chess Federation. He was a chemical engineer by profession.

Braslav Rabar (1919-1973) was a Yugoslav International Master (1950). He was Yugoslav champion in 1951 and 1953. He was co-editor of the monthly Yugoslav chess magazine Sahovski Glasnik. He was a broadcaster and journalist by profession.

Stuart Rachels (1969- ) became the youngest master in U.S. history at the age of 11 years, 10 months. He became the first chess player in the United States to become a master before the age of 12. He tied for first place in the 1989 U.S. Championship. He is a professor of philosophy at the University of Alabama.

Ivan Radulov (1939- ) is a Bulgarian Grandmaster (1972). He won the Bulgarian Championship 4 times. He played for Bulgaria in 8 Chess Olympiads. He was a practicing civil engineer and contributed to the design of the central train station in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Viacheslav Ragozin (1908-1962) was a Soviet grandmaster.  From 1946 to 1955, he edited the magazine publication Shakhmaty v SSSR. He was a civil engineer and had a career in the construction industry.

Rev. Charles Edward Ranken (1828-1905) was a strong British chess amateur. He graduated from Oxford in 1850. In 1867, he became Vicar at Sandford-on-Thames near Oxford.

Vivek Rao is an American International Master (1993). He is a former quantitative financial analyst.

Dr. Benjamin I. Raphael (1818-1880) was an American chess player. He helped establish the Louisville Chess Club. He played in the First American Chess Congress, making it to the semifinals before losing to Louis Paulsen. He was a medical doctor by profession.

Yuri Razuvaev (1945-2012) was a Russian Grandmaster (1976). He was the second to Anatoly Karpov from 1971 to 1978. His peak rating was 2590 in 1991. He was a historian by profession.

Dr. Tim Redman (1950- ) is a former President of the USCF twice (1981-1984 and 2000-2001) and International Arbiter.  He earned a PhD in comparative studies in literature from the University of Chicago.  Redman is a Professor of Literary Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is a world leading expert on poet Ezra Pound.

Dr. Kenneth Regan (1959- ) was a chess prodigy and International Master (1980) who was a master at age 12. In 1973, he was the first player to break Bobby Fischer's record of America's youngest master. He won a Marshall scholarship and earned his Ph.D. in mathematics at Oxford. He is now an associate professor at the University of Buffalo, Department of Computer Science, working in complexity theory.

Teodor Regedzinski (1894-1954) was a Polish chess master. He played for Poland in 5 Chess Olympiads. Because of his linguistic skills (he spoke Polish, German, Russian, English and French), he was appointed by the German Army as an interpreter during World War II.

Hans-Peter Rehm (1942- ) is a German Grandmaster for Chess Compositions (1984) and International Judge of Chess Compositions (1972). He is a mathematics teacher at Karlsruhe University.

Dana Reizniece-Ozola (1981- ) is a Woman Grandmaster (2001). She has won the Women's Latvian Chess Championship 4 times. She is the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Latvia.

Samuel Reshevsky (1911-1992) first enrolled at the University of Detroit to study accounting.  After two years, he transferred to the University Of Chicago School Of Business.  In 1933 he graduated with a degree in accounting.  He was a Certified Public Accountant by profession.  He was an accountant for a Manhattan engineering and construction firm.

Ramon Rey-Ardid (1903-1988) was a Spanish chess master. He was Spanish champion from 1929 to 1942. He was a psychiatrist and professor at Zaragoza University.

Dr. Isaac Rice (1850-1915) was a chess patron and inventor of the Rice Gambit in the King's Gambit Accepted.  He earned a Doctor of Law degree from Bates College in 1900.

Keith Bevan Richardson (1942-2017) was awarded the title of International Grandmaster of Correspondence Chess in 1975, becoming the first British player to be awarded the title of Grandmaster for chess playing. He took 3rd place in the 7th and 10th World and 13th World Correspondence Championship Final. He was a bank manager by profession.

Philip Richardson (1841-1920) was an American chess player and chess composer. He was a photographer by profession.

George William Richmond (1877-1941) was an English-Scottish chess player. In 1910, he won the Scottish championship. He played for Britain in three cable matches against the USA. He was a member of the Insurance Chess Club in London. He was employed by the Scottish Widows' Fund Society.

Dr. Ira Lee Riddle (1946-2009) was an International Arbiter. He had a PhD in mathematics.

Fritz Riemann (1859-1932) was a Polish-born (then Prussia) German master. He was the last surviving pupil of Adolf Anderssen. He was a town councilor at Ergurt, Germany.

Henri Rinck (1870-1952), born in Lyons, was a French-Spanish endgame composer. He specialized in the refining of olive oils.

Dr. Bruce Rind (1953- ) is an US International Master. He earned a PhD in psychology from Temple University and is an independent researcher in the field of intergenerational sexualities.

Karl Robatsch (1928-2000) was an Austrian Grandmaster (1961). He was Austrian Champion in 1960 and won the gold medal for the best first-board score (11 wins and 5 draws) at the 14th Chess Olympiad, held in Leipzig in 1960. He was an orchidologist (a botanist specializing in the study of orchids) by profession.

William "Bill" Gerrard Robertie (1946- ) is a chess master and former winner of the U.S. chess speed championship. He is considered the world's best backgammon player and has won the world backgammon championship twice (1983 and 1987). He is the author of at least a dozen books on chess, backgammon, and poker. He graduated from Harvard and is a systems analyst.

Maxim Rodshtein (1999- ) is a Russian-born Israeli Grandmaster (2007). In 2004, he won the World under-16 Championship. In 2006, he won the Israeli Championship. His peak rating was 2710 in 2016. He served in the Israeli Air Force.

Ludwig Roedl (1907-1970) was a German International Master (1953). In 1947, he won the South German championship. He was a lawyer.

Otto Roething (1865-1915) was a German-American chess master. In 1903, he won the New York State championship. While living in Germany, he was an expert on the trapeze and was professionally engaged in a German circus. His circus career was cut short by a serious accident.

Bror Axel Folke Per Rogard (1899-1973) was second president of FIDE. He was FIDE president from 1949 to 1970. He was the Swedish Chess Federation President between 1939 and 1949. He was a lawyer in Stockholm by profession and could speak 5 languages.

Dr. Ken Rogoff (1953- ) became a young American grandmaster, and then got a PhD in economics.  He gave up chess to become the chief economist at the World Bank and was a professor at Princeton and Harvard.  He has a PhD from MIT in Economics.  He had gone to Yale and MIT and dropped out of MIT to play chess.  In 1978 he quit competitive chess and earned his Ph.D. in Economics in 1980. He is the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

Michael Rohde (1959- ) is a Grandmaster (1988) and winner of the first National Scholastic Junior High Chess Championship, in 1973. He was a chess master at the age of 13. He was the first American since Fischer to achieve a 2300 rating at age 14. He is now an attorney.

Dr. Alexey Wilhelmina Root (1965- ) is a chess player, teacher, and writer. In 1989, she won the US Women's Chess Championship.  She earned a PhD in education from UCLA in 1999. She is Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas and has written six books on the relationship between chess and education.

Dr. Jakob Rosanes (1842-1922) was a chess master and a pupil of Adolf Anderssen. He was the author of Theorie und Praxis des Schachpiels. He was a professor of mathematics at Breslau University.

Charles R. "Chuck" Rosburg (1932-1969) won the Seattle Chess Championship in 1954. He won the 1959 Arkansas State Championship. At the time, Captain Rosburg he was a B-47 pilot at Little Rock Air Force Base. Later on, Major Rosburg became a U-2 pilot and a test pilot at the Area 51 Special Projects in Nevada. He died in 1969 in England when he was flight testing a vertical take-off jet. He ejected horizontally and was not able to land on the ground safely.

Herbert Rose (1883-1961) was a Canadian-English chess player. In 1905, he was Oxford University Chess Champion, having arrived at Oxford from Montreal as a Rhodes Scholar in 1904. From 1905 to 1908, he represented Oxford vs. Cambridge in the university team matches. From 1927 to 1953, he was a Professor in Greek and Latin at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Dr. Christine Rosenfeld (1936- ) was the first US correspondence International Woman Master (1990).  She is a medical doctor.

Nicolas Rossolimo (1910-1975) was an American Grandmaster (1953). In 1955, he won the US Open. He was a taxi driver in New York by day and ran his Nicolas Rossolimo Chess Studio on Thompson Street in Manhattan at night. He held a brown belt in judo and recorded an album of Russian songs.

Dr. Jonathan Rowson is a Scottish GM. He earned a PhD in Philosophy at Bristol University.

Arthur John Roycoft (1929- ) is an English chess endgame study composer and author. In 1959, he was awarded the title International Judge of Chess Compositions. He is the founder of the endgames magazine, EG, which he started in 1965. He was a computer systems analyst for IBM for 26 years. He is chairman of the FIDE Studies Subcommittee.

Dr. Bela Rozsa (1905-1977) was an American chess master born in Hungary. He won the North Texas Championship in 1940, 1942, and 1948. He won the Oklahoma State Championship 12 times, including the first Oklahoma championship in 1946. In 1942 and 1948, he won the Southwestern Open. In 1952, He won the CCLA 10th Grand National Correspondence Chess Tournament. He was a concert pianist, composer, and professor of music theory. He had a doctorate in Composition and Psychology of Music.

Dr. Sol Isaac Rubinow (1924-1981) was intercollegiate chess champion in 1943. In 1952, he won the Massachusetts State Championship. He earned a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania and moved to Massachusetts in 1951. He later became a professor of biomathematics at Cornell.

Ludmilla Vladmirovna Rudenko (1904-1986) was an International woman grandmaster (1976) from Leningrad. She was the first Soviet woman to capture the World Women's Championship. In January 1950, Lyudmila Rudenko (1904-1986) won the 8th Women's Chess Championship. Her occupation was an economic planner.

Valentin Rudenko (1938-2016) was a Ukrainian Grandmaster for Chess Compositions (1980). He was the first chess composer who ever had his own composition in space, aboard the mission Soyuz 9. He is considered as the best orthodox problem composer who ever lived. He worked at the Sternbrg Astronomical Institute.

Alexander Rueb (1882-1959) was the first President of FIDE (1924-1949). He was a Dutch lawyer and diplomat.

Jan Rusinek (1950- ) is a Polish Grandmaster of chess compositions (1983). He was editor of the study section of the Polish chess magazine Szachy (Chess) from 1971 to the magazine's closure in 1990. He teaches mathematics at Warsaw University.

Hanon W. Russell (1947- ) is a chess collector, chess historian, and chess expert. He has been publishing chess books for over 30 years. He is the former owner of ChessCafe that included many historical chess articles. He is a lawyer by profession.

William Watson Rutherford (1853-1927) was an English chess player from Liverpool. From 1884 to 1893, he was President of the Liverpool Chess Club. He was also a past president of the London Chess Club. From 1902 to 1903, he was mayor of Liverpool. He was considered the best chess player in the House of Commons.

Porterfield Rynd (1847-1917) was the first Irish chess champion. He won the Irish championship in 1865, and from 1892 to 1913. He was a barrister.

Tania Sachdev (1986- ) is an Indian Woman Grandmaster (2005) and International Master (2008). In 2002, she won the Asian Junior Girls Championship. She is a trained Indian classical dancer.

Matthew Sadler (1974) is an English grandmaster who won the British championship in 1995 and 1997.  He ceased playing chess professionally and opted for a career in Information Technology in the Netherlands, working for Hewlett-Packard.

Friedrich (Fritz) Saemisch (1896-1975) was awarded the title of International Grandmaster in 1950. In 1921, he won the first Austrian chess championship. He was a bookbinder by profession.

Dr. Anthony Saidy (1937- ) is an International Master (1969) from the USA.  He played in 8 US Chess Championships. He is a medical doctor specializing in tuberculosis.

Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant (1800-1872) was considered France's best chess player in the 1840s. From 1819 to 1821, he served as the secretary to the governor of French Guiana. He has later fired from that position after he protested the slave trade in that country. He wrote several books on the French Colonies, his voyages to California and Oregon, and the wines of Bordeaux. His business career included being a clerk, actor, wine merchant, and explorer.

Alessandro Salvio (1570-1640) was unofficial world champion around 1600. He was a medical doctor.

Albert Sandrin, Jr. (1923-2004) was one of the world's best blind chess players. In 1952, he enrolled in the Marshall School for the Blind and became a piano tuner.  He advertised in the Chicago telephone book for customers and soon found himself tuning pianos all over Chicago.

Anthony E. Santasiere (1904-1977) was an American chess master. In 1943, he won the New England Championship. He won the 46th US Open in 1945 in Peoria, Illinois. He won the New York State Championship 4 times (1928, 1930, 1946, 1956) and the Marshall Chess Club (he was 17 when he won in 1922) six times. He graduated from college at age 19. He was school teacher who taught mathematics in the Bronx public schools for 35 years, as well as an art and music critic. He wrote books on chess, poetry, and a children's novel. He painted over 400 canvases and published 3 volumes of verse.

Dr. Jonathan Sarfati (1964- ) is a New Zealand FIDE Master. He won the 1987-88 New Zealand championship. He has a PhD in chemistry. He is a young Earth creationist chemist and works for Creation Ministries International.

Jeff Sarwer (1978- ) learned chess at the age of 4. At age 6, he was playing at the Manhattan Chess Club. At age 7, he was giving simultaneous exhibitions to as many as 40 players at a time. At age 7, he tied for 1st in the US Primary School championship. At age 8, won the Under 10 World Youth Chess Championship in Puerto Rico. He is now a professional poker player in Europe.

Elaine Saunders (1926-2012) was a child prodigy. She won the World Junior Women's championship at the age of 10 and repeated it at age 11. She won the British Ladies Champion (1939, 1946, 1956, 1965) and World under-21 Ladies Champion at age 13. She was a University Lecturer in Classics at Oxford University.

Diane Savereide (1954- ) is an International Woman Master (1975) and six-time winner of the US Women's Chess Championship. She works as a software developer in Los Angeles.

Delmar Saxton (1908-1979) won the Omaha Championship 4 times. In 1938, he won the Tri-State Championship (Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota). He has won the Nebraska State Championship in 1941 and 1943. He was a gardener by profession.

Emil Schallopp (1843-1919) was a German chess master who had a classic education.  He was also chief stenographer (shorthand) of the Reichstag in Berlin and worked as stenographer in the Prussian House of Representatives.  He was also President of the Shorthand Association and a member of the Commissioner of Examiners.

Morris A. Schapiro (1903-1996) was a chess master. He led the Columbia University chess team to 4 national championships. He won the Manhattan Chess Club championship in 1921 (the youngest member of the club) and 1922. He was an investment banker by profession.

Theodor von Scheve (1851-1922) was a German chess master and writer. In 1888, he took 2nd in the Jubilee tournament of the Berlin Chess Club, behind Max Harmonist. In 1901, he took 3rd, behind Janowski and Schlechter, at Monte Carlo. He was an army officer by profession.

Dr. Eric Schiller (1955- ) is a chess author and USCF national master, International Arbiter, and International Trainer. In 1974, he won the Illinois Junior Championship. He has written over 100 chess books. He earned a PhD in linguistics from the University of Chicago in 1991, specializing in Khmer (Cambodian) languages.  His dissertation was entitled, "An Autolexical Account of Subordinating Serial Verb Constructions."

Lothar Schmid (1928-2013) was a German grandmaster and the chief arbiter of the 1972 and 1992 Fischer-Spassky matches.  His family were the co-owners of the Karl May press, which published the German author Karl May (1842-1912) adventure novels.  Karl May, after Goethe, was Germany's best-selling author.  Schmid studied law and became manager of the publishing firm in Bamburg when his father died.  He was the owner of the largest private chess library in the world, over 50,000 chess books, occupying 7 rooms on the top two floors of his house in Bamberg, Germany.

Dr. Paul Felix Schmidt (1916-1984) was an Estonian International Master (1950). He won the Estonian Chess Championship in 1936 and 1937. In 1939, he emigrated from Estonia to Germany. In 1941, he won the German Open chess championship. After World War II, he studied at Heidelberg University and gained a PhD in chemistry. In 1952, he moved to Canada, then to the United States. He was a chemist and professor by profession.

Raymond "Ray" W. Schutt (1944-2007) was a National Master from Hayward, California. In 1966, he won the Central California Open Championship. In 1967, he tied for 1st in the Southwest Open Championship. In 1995, he won the US Senior Open Championship. He had a bachelor's and masters degrees and worked in the aerospace industry.

Dr. Aron Schvartzman (1908-2013) was an Argentine chess master. From 1931 to 1948, he was champion of Club Argentino de Ajedrez in Buenos Aires. He was a medical doctor by profession.

Gabriel Schwartzman (1976- ) is a Romanian-born American Grandmaster (1993). He was a master at the age of 12. He was an International Master at 15. He became a Grandmaster at age 17. He won the 1996 US Open at the age of 19 (youngest since Bobby Fischer) and was the winner of the Internet World Student Championship. He started the world's first interactive chess school in 1996, the Internet Chess Academy. He has a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Florida and an MBA as Palmer Scholar from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is now a CEO at a software company.

Adolf Schwarz (1836-1910) was a Hungarian-born chess master who settled in Vienna. He was considered the strongest chess player in Vienna. He was a merchant and a stock broker.

Herbert Seidman (1920-1995) was a U.S. Senior Master from Brooklyn. He won the Marshall Chess Club championship 6 times. In 1961 and 1971, he won the New York State Chess Championship. He had an MBA and worked for the American Cancer Society as a statistician. He became Vice-President of Epidemiology and Statistics in the American Cancer Society. He published several scientific papers on smoking-related cancer.

Deep Sengupta (1988- ) is an Indian Grandmaster (2010). In 2000, he won the World Youth Chess Championship. In 2005, he won the Junior Chess Championship of India. In 2014, he won the Commonwealth Chess Championship, held in Glasgow. His peak rating was 2594. He works for an oil and natural gas company in India.

Jennifer Shahade (1980- ) is a Woman Grandmaster (2005) and a two-time U.S. Women's Champion (2002 and 2004). She is the author of Chess Bitch (2005). In 1998, she became the first and only female to win the U.S. Junior Open. She has a degree in comparative literature at New York University. She is also a professional poker player.

Tal Shaked (1978- ) was America's youngest Grandmaster in 1997 and highest rated Junior (2500). He was won the 1987 National Primary Championship, the 1990 National Elementary Championship, the 1991 National K-8 Championship, the 1992 National K-8 Championship, the 1992 U.S. Cadet (under 16) Championship, and the 1995 U.S. Junior (under 20) Championship. In 2002, he graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in computer science. In 2004, he received a master's degree in computer science from the University of Washington. He now works as a software engineer for Google.

Elizabeth Shaughnessy (1937- ) is an Irish-American chess player. She is a former Irish Women's Chess Champion. She is an architect by profession.

James Sherwin (1933- ) is an International Master (1958).  He was an Executive Vice President of GAF Corporation who was the American Chess Foundation (ACF) President from 1979 to 1990.  He was involved in some Wall Street scandals in 1988 and was replaced as President of the ACF by Fan Adams, a retired Mobil Corporation executive.  Sherwin was tried 3 times for stock manipulation charges. In 1986 he tried to lift the price of Union Carbide stock shortly before selling a large block of shares.  Government prosecutors finally dropped the charges after the appeals court overturned the verdict in 1991.  His arrest made the front page of the New York Times and all the financial publications.  Sherwin lost his job and moved to Switzerland and England.  The United States Attorney who prosecuted Sherwin was Rudi Giuliani.  They spent over a million dollars in prosecuting the case.  GAF and Sherwin spent over a million dollars defending the case. He now lives neat Bath, England.

Dr. Alex Sherzer is an American GM (1993). He attende the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is a medical doctor. William Anthony Shinkman (1847-1933) was an American chess composer for over 60 years. Together with his contemporary Samuel Loyd he was the most famous chess composer of the USA in the late 19th and early 20th century. He composed over 3,500 chess problems in his lifetime. He was known as the "Wizard of Grand Rapids." He lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he first worked as an insurance agent, real estate broker, and, in 1893, city clerk of Grand Rapids.

Walter Penn Shipley (1860-1942) won the Pennsylvania State Chess Championship three times. He edited a chess column in the Philadelphia Inquirer for over 30 years. He was President of the Franklin Chess Club in Philadelphia. He was a recognized expert in the law of decedents' estates.

Walter Shipman (1929-2017) was an International Master (1982). He won the championship of the Manhattan Chess Club 6 times. He was a lawyer by profession.

Boris Siff (1911-1998) was an American Senior Master. In the 1950s, he won the championships of Boston, New England, and Florida. In 1956, he won the championship of Massachusetts and tied for 1st in 1958. In 1973, he tied for 1st in the California Open. He was a machinist by profession.

Froim Simkhovich (1896-1945) was a Soviet composer of chess problems and endgame studies from Leningrad. He composed about 85 problems. He started out as a pharmacy clerk and became a chemical engineer.

Frank Skoff (1916-2009) was United States Chess Federation (USCF) Vice-President from 1969 to 1972, and President of the USCF from 1972 to 1975. He had an M.A. in English from the University of Illinois (1950) and taught high school English in Chicago.

Jorn Sloth (1944- ) is an International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster (1978) and FIDE Master from Denmark. He is the first Dane to win a world championship at chess. In 1964, he won the European Junior Championship at Groningen. He teaches mathematics and Russian.

Ken Smith (1930-1999) was a Texas master who founded Chess Digest in 1962. He had won the Texas Championship 8 times, the Southwest Championship 7 times, the Southern Open 4 times, the Mexican Championship once, and the British Open once. In 1983 while playing in the National Open in Las Vegas, Ken Smith won $140,000 at a poker tournament.

Robert W. Smith (1956- ) is a New Zealand FIDE Master. He played for New Zealand in 12 Chess Olympiads, from 1976 to 2010. He won the New Zealand Correspondence Chess Championship in 1978. He won the New Zealand Championship in 1996. He is a former President of the New Zealand Chess Federation. He is a freelance television news producer by profession.

Vasily Smyslov (1921-2010) was a Soviet Grandmaster (1950) and World Chess Champion (1957-58). He was a student at the Moscow Institute of Aviation from 1938 to 1940 and studied aviation science. He wanted to become a professional baritone singer and took singing and music lessons in 1948. In 1950, he failed an audition with the Bolshoi Theatre, and only then decided to make chess a career. At the age of 75 he produced his first CD of Russian romances.

Andrew Eden Soltis (1947- ) is an American Grandmaster (1980), author, columnist, and chess historian. His monthly column "Chess to Enjoy" in Chess Life magazine, was begun in 1979 and is the longest running column in that magazine. He has authored over 100 chess books. He was a news reporter for the New York Post from 1969 until he retired in 2014.

Captain Vladimir Sournin (1875-1942) was a Russian-born, American chess master. He won the Washington D.C. championship in 1908, 1920, 1922, 1932, 1933, and 1938. He won the championship of the Washington Chess Club multiple times. He was an Army officer who worked in the Chief of Engineers Office of the War Department.

Dr. Elmer Ernest Southard (1876-1920) was a strong chess player. He represented Harvard in the intercollegiate matches and scored 22 wins out of 24 games in the four annual contests of his collegiate career. He was a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He was Bullard Professor of Neuropathology at Harvard Medical School, as well as pathologist to the Massachusetts Commission on Mental Diseases and a Director of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Institution. He worked at the Danvers Insane Hospital in Danvers, Massachusetts.

Martin Southern was president of the Southern Chess Association from 1930 to the 1950s. In 1954, he won the Tennessee State Chess Championship. He was a lawyer in Knoxville by profession.

Veniamin Sozin (1896-1956) was a Russian chess master. He played in 4 Soviet chess championships. A major variation of the Sicilian Defense was named after him. He was an accountant by profession.

Dr. Jon Speelman (1956- ) is an English Grandmaster. He earned a PhD in mathematics from Oxford.

Jack Lee Spence (1926-1978) was a chess expert from Omaha. In 1951, he won the first Midwest Open. He won it again in 1959. He won the Nebraska Chess Championship twice. He was the most active chess organizer in the Midwest in the 1950s. He was a lawyer by profession.

Gary Hugh Sperling (1945-2018) was a past president of the U.S. Chess Federation (1977-1981) and the Marshall Chess Club. He was an attorney and administrative law judge in Manhattan. He was Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Ports and Terminals.

Dr. Louis Statham (1907-1983) was a US chess philanthropist.  He had a PhD in mathematics and pioneered the use of shock waves in oil exploration.

Howard Staunton (1810-1874) was one of the top players in the world.  He was a Shakespearean scholar and wrote a 517-page book on the history of English public schools. The latter years of his life were devoted to literary pursuits, and especially to Shakespearian study. For editing the Illustrated Shakespeare, known as Routledge's edition, he received $5,000, which is the largest pay ever given for work of this description.

Michael Francis Stean (1953- ) is an English Grandmaster (1977). In 1974, he tied for 1st in the British Chess Championship. He played for England in 5 Chess Olympiads. He was a second for Viktor Kori during his world championship matches. He is a tax accountant.

Dr. Leo Stefurak is a Seattle chess master and instructor. He has a PhD in cognitive neuro psychology.

Leonid Stein (1934-1973) was a Jewish Soviet Grandmaster (1962) from Ukraine and three-time Soviet champion (1963, 1966, and 1967). He was a factory work (a fitter) by profession before he became professional chess player.

Lajos Steiner (1903-1975) was Hungarian champion in 1931 and 1936. He played for Hungary in 3 Chess Olympiads. In 1939, he immigrated to Australia where he won the Australian championship 4 times. He was awarded the International Master title in 1950. He was trained as a mechanical engineer.

Daniel Stellwagen is a Dutch chess GM. He is currently working on his PhD in organic chemistry and catalysis.

Ottavio Stocchi (1906-1964) was an Italian chess composer and an International Judge of Chess Compositions (1956). He specialized in orthodox two-movers. He composed over 920 problems, of which 840 were two-movers. He was a director of his own agricultural firm in Langhirano, Italy.

Gosta Stoltz (1904-1963) was a Swedish Grandmaster (1954). He won the Swedish championship in 1951, 1952, and 1953. He worked as a car mechanic, but eventually became a full-time chess professional.

Leon Stolzenburg (1895-1974) won the U.S. in 1926 and 1928. He won the Michigan chess championship a record 13 times. He won the Chess Review Golden Knights Postal Chess Championship 3 times. He won the third US Open Postal Chess Championship in 1966. He won the championship of the Correspondence Chess League of America (CCLA) twice. He was a medic in the hospital at Tarnopol, Ukraine, in World War I. He was a pharmacist.

Patricia Anne Sunnucks Mothersill (1927- ) is an English Woman International Master (1954). She was British Women's champion in 1957, 1958, and 1964. She was a major in the Women's Royal Army Corps and was not allowed to travel to the USSR.

Harold Sussman (1911-2004) was an American chess master from Brooklyn. He was a dentist by profession.

Duncan Suttles (1945- ) is a Canadian Grandmaster (1973) who became Canada's second Grandmaster and first correspondence GM in 1982. He won the British Columbia Championship in 1963 and 1966. He was Canadian Champion in 1969. He tied for 1st at the US Open in 1973. He retired from chess and became involved in stocks and computer programming. He is president of Magnetar Games.

Dr. Ludvig Oskar Svenonius (1853-1926) was a Swedish master. In the late 19th century, he was considered Sweden's best chess player. He contributed many articles on chess openings to Deutsches Wochenschach. He was a medical doctor.

Eugenio Szabados (1898-1974) was a Hungarian-Italian International Master. He won the Italian championship in 1921. He was President of the Italian Chess Federation from 1950 to 1958. He sponsored four international tournaments in Venice. He built and owned a fleet of ships, but all of his ships were confiscated in 1956 due to the Suez crises.

Dr. Salomon Szapiro (1882-1944) was a Polish chess master. He was a medical doctor by profession.

Jozsef Szen (1805-1857) of Hungary was famous for his endgame skill in both analysis and play. He worked as a paid official in the Pest Department of Archives.

Mark Taimanov (1926-2016) was one of the top chess players in the world and a concert pianist.

James Tarjan (1952- ) became a grandmaster in 1976.  He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and received a master's in library science (MLS) degree from UCLA.  In 1984, he gave up professional chess to become a librarian at the Santa Cruz Public Library.  He donated all his chess trophies to be used in scholastic chess tournaments. In 2014, he re-entered the tournament chess world and played in the US Open in Orlando. He scored 7 out of 9.

Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934) was one of the top chess players in the world and a medical doctor in Nuremberg specializing in hypnosis.

Savielly Grigoryevich Tartakower (1887-1956) won the Polish Championship in 1935 and 1937.  He represented Poland in 6 Chess Olympiads.  During World War I, he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army and saw action in Russia. During World War II, he joined the underground forces of General Charles de Gaulle.  He went to England, serving with the Free French Army. He had a PhD in jurisprudence.

Emory Tate (1958-2015) was an International Master. He was a 5-time Armed Forces Champion while serving as an enlisted person in the US Air Force.

Richard Teichmann (1868-1925) was a student of modern languages and studied in Berlin. In 1892, he moved to England as a language teacher for 10 years.  He was one of the top chess players in the world at the beginning of the 20th century.  He was handicapped by chronic eye trouble and wore a patch over his right eye.

Rudolf Teschner (1922-2006) was a German chess master from Potsdam. He won the Berlin Championship 7 times. In 1948, he won the chess championship of East Germany. In 1951, he won the combined championship of East and West Germany. He was a journalist by profession. Peter Thiel (1967) is a Life chess master and an American entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of PayPal and the founder of Clarium Capital. He went on to the Stanford Law School and received his J.D. in 1992. After graduation, he worked as a judicial clerk, a securities lawyer, a speechwriter, and a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse prior to founding Thiel Capital in 1996. He co-founded PayPal in 1999, serving as chief executive officer until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

Sir George Thomas (1881-1972) won the British chess championship twice.  He was also 7-time British badminton champion (he won 21 British badminton titles between 1903 and 1928), and quarter-finalist tennis player at Wimbledon (1922).  He played at Wimbledon from 1919 to 1926.  He was also an internationally ranked hockey, squash and table-tennis player.  He became "Sir George" when he succeeded his father, Sir George Sidney Meade Thomas, as the 7th Baronet in 1918.

John Charles "J.C." Thompson (1910-1999) was a USCF Master Emeritus (1984). He won his first Dallas championship in 1930. He was the founder of the Texas Chess Association in 1935. In 1939, he started a chess column in The Dallas Times-Herald. He introduced the Swiss pairing system at the Southwest Open, held in Corpus Christi in 1942. He won the Southwest Open 7 times. He was a past USCF vice-president. He was fluent in 9 languages. He was an accountant by profession.

Edmund Thorold (1832-1899) was an English chess player from Bath. He was instrumental in setting up the Sheffield Chess Club and, at one time, was its President. He was also president of the West Yorkshire Chess Association. He was a member of the Bath and Bristol Chess Club. He graduated from Oxford. He was a private tutor in the classics and mathematics.

Jonathan Tisdall (1958- ) was born in New York, but later became an Irish citizen, and then a Norwegian citizen. He won the Norwegian Chess Championship three times. He was awarded the Grandmaster title in 1993. He is a chef and works as a freelance journalist.

Professor Charles Tomlinson (1808-1897) was an English chess player and writer. From 1841 to 1844, he ran a chess column in the Saturday Magazine. In 1856, he published the first chess-players' annual, Tomlinson's Chess players' Annual. He was Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). He was the founder and president of the Salisbury Chess Club and president of the Highgate Chess Club. He was a lecturer on experimental science at King's College.

Vasilije Tomovic (1906-1994) was a Montenegrin chess master. Before World War II, he was the first significant chess player in Montenegro. He was a mathematician and philosopher.

Eileen Trammer (1910-1983) was a British chess player who won the British Ladies' Championship with a perfect 11-0 in 1949. She won the British Ladies' Championship four times (1947, 1949, 1953, 1961). She was awarded the International Woman Master title in 1950. She was a musician by profession until deafness compelled her to retire. She then took up chess.

Peter Karel Traxler (1866-1936) was a well-known Czech chess master and problemist, best known for the Traxler Variation of the Two Knights Defense. From 1896 to 1899, he edited Ceske listy sachove (Czech chess letters). He composed over 900 chess problems. He was a Catholic priest.

Alan N. Trefler (1956- ) was a chess player. In 1975, as a USCF expert (2075), he tied for 1st place (with International Grandmaster Pal Benko) in the open section of the World Open in New York. He is CEO of Pegasystems, a leader in Business Process Management. He holds a degree in Economics and Computer Science from Dartmouth College.

Dr. Karel Treybal (1885-1941) was a Czech chess master. He won the Czechoslovakian Championship in 1907 and 1921. He played for Czechoslovakia in 4 Chess Olympiads. During World War I, he fought for Czechoslovakia as an army lieutenant (later captain) and was wounded twice. He was a district judge northwest of Prague.

Dr. Petar Trifunovic (1910-1980) was a Yugoslav (Croatia) Grandmaster (1953). He won the Yugoslav championship 5 times. He played for Yugoslavia in 7 Chess Olympiads. He held the Doctor of Law degree and became a government official.

Alexei Troitzky (1866-1942) is considered to have been the greatest composers of chess endgame studies.  He was a forest engineer in remote parts of Russia and Siberia.

Allan Troy (1932-2005) was a chess master from California. He was the California speed chess champion in the mid-1960s. He won the El Segunda Chess Championship in 1968. In the 1960s, he ran Troy's Chess Shoppe in Torrance, California. He worked as a manager at Hughes Aircraft in Los Angeles.

Ingrid Tuk was a Dutch woman chess master. In 1968, she won the Dutch women's championship. She worked in a strip club in Amsterdam.

Theodore Henry Tylor (1900-1968) was a British Correspondence Champion from 1932 to 1935. For nearly 40 years, he was a lawyer and Fellow and tutor in jurisprudence at Oxford.

Anatoly Ufimtsev (1914-2000) was a Soviet and Kazakh chess master. He won the championship of Kazakhstan 11 times. He was an economist by profession.

Wolfgang Uhlmann (1935- ) is a German grandmaster (1959). In 1951, he won the German Youth Championship. He won the East German championship eleven times. He played on for East Germany in 11 Chess Olympiads. He is an accountant.

Olaf I. Ulvestad (1912-2000) was a chess master from Washington State. He won the championship of Washington State 3 times. In 1957, he founded the Seattle Chess Center. During World War II, he has a tank commander in North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany.

Dr. Irina Mikhailova Umanskayal (1963- ) is a Woman Grandmaster from Russia.  She has a PhD in pedagogy.  Her dissertation was "Developing of advanced junior chess-players with the help of chess software and Internet resources."

Wolfgang Unzicker (1925-2006) was a German grandmaster (1954). He was West German champion 7 times. He was East and West German Champion in 1953. He was the strongest West German player from 1945 to about 1970. From 1950 to 1978 he competed in 13 chess Olympiads for West Germany, playing board 1 in 10 of them. He was a law student and judge of an administrative court. He was legal advisor to the German Chess Federation.

Sergey S. Urusov (1827-1897) was a leading 19th century Russian master. He was considered the second strongest Russian player after Alexander Petrov. He was a prince and a major general in the Tsarist army. He fought in the Crimean War in 1854-55. At one point, he offered to play the enemy a game of chess in the front trench, the winner taking the trench. He was an amateur mathematician, reading mathematical essays before the Moscow Mathematical Association. In 1870-71, he wrote Handbook for the Study of Geometry, Algebra and Trigonometry, published in 3 volumes.

Michael Valvo (1942-2004) was an International Master (1980). He spent much of his life working with computers.

Joop van Oosterom (1937-2016) was a Correspondence Grandmaster (1993) from the Netherlands. He finished 2nd-4th in the 15th World Correspondence Chess championship (1996-2002). He won the 18th (2003-2005) and the 21st (2005-2008) Correspondence Chess World Championship. He was a Dutch billionaire and chess patron that sponsored the Melody Amber (his daughter) chess events in Monte Carlo and the yearly Women vs. Veterans tournaments.  He made his fortune as the founder of the Volmac Software Group.

Theo van Scheltinga (1914-1994) was a Dutch International Master (1965). In 1947, he tied for 1st in the Dutch championship, but lost the play-off to Euwe. He worked as a carpenter at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

Dr. Diego Valerga is a grandmaster from Argentina. He is also a pediatrician.

Cyril Vansittart (1852-1887) was an English-Italian chess master. He played in two Italian chess championships. He was a banker by profession.

Dr. Stan Vaughan is a chess master and organizer.  He has a PhD in accounting.

Gavriil Veresov (1912-1979) was a Belarus International Master (1950). He won the championship of Belarus 5 times. He was Captain of the Guards and wounded several times during World War II.

Milan Vidmar, Sr. (1885-1962) was Yugoslavia's first grandmaster.  He was an electrical engineer (PhD from the University of Vienna).  He was a specialist in power transformers and transmission of electric current.   He was also the Chancellor of the University of Ljubljana. 

William Samuel Viner (1881-1933) was an Australian chess master from Perth, West Australia. He won the West Australian championship 4 times in succession. He won the Australian championship 4 times. In January 1907, he won the New Zealand Chess Championship, held at Christchurch. He was a clerk at a gas company by profession.

Eeltje Visserman (1922-1978) was a Dutch chess player. He was an International Judge of Chess Compositions (1958) and International Grandmaster of Chess Compositions (1972). During his lifetime, he composed over 800 chess problems. He was problem editor in Tijdschrift van de KNSB and Probleemblad. He is considered the greatest chess composer in the Netherlands. He was a civil servant in the Dutch Ministry Housing and Building.

Yakov Vladimirov (1935- ) is an International Judge of Chess Compositions (1965) and Grandmaster for Chess Compositions (1988). He has won 14 Soviet and Russian national composing championships. He is a 14-time world champion in chess composition. He is the editor of Shakhmatnaya Kompozitsiya chess magazine. He is head of the Russian Chess Federation's commission on composition. He is a technical college lecturer.

Erwin Voellmy (1886-1951) was Swiss champion in 1911, 1920, and 1922. He was a mathematics teacher at Basle Gymnasium and had a PhD in mathematics.

Larissa Volpert (1926-2017), born in Lenignrad, was a Soviet Woman Grandmaster (1977). In 1947, she tied for 1st in the Leningrad Women's Championship. She won the Soviet women's chess championship in 1954, 1958, and 1959. She was a Russian and Estonian philogist (study of languages in written historical sources) by profession.

Alexander Volshin (1971- ) is a Russian Grandmaster (1997). In 2000, he won the Capablanca Memorial in Cuba. He is a vice-president at Barclays Capital in London.

Dr. Zvonko Vranesic (1938- ) is a Canadian IM. He has a PhD in Electrical Engineering.

Milan Vukcevich (1937-2003) was an American International Master.  He was once considered a candidate for the Nobel prize in chemistry.   He was a professor of metallurgy (Ph.D. from MIT) at Case Western Reserve University from 1967 to 1973 before leaving to work for General Electric. He later became Chief Scientist at General Electric and Saint-Gobain Crystals & Detectors and was awarded 7 patents.

Dr. Saul Philip Wachs (1931- ) is an American chess master. In 1946, he won the first Pennsylvania Chess Championship, scoring a perfect 8-0 score. In 1951, he won the U.S. Junior Championship, held in Philadelphia.  In 1954, he took 8th-9th place in the US Chess Championship.  He later became a rabbi.  He received a PhD in Education and Jewish history from Ohio State University.

Robert Wade (1921-2008) was a New Zealand and British International Master. He was New Zealand champion three times and British champion twice. He was a civil servant. (source: The Telegraph, Nov 30, 2008)

Alexander Wagner (1868-1942) was a Polish chess master. He was a railway administrator by profession.

Matthias Wahls (1968- ) is a German Grandmaster (1989). In 1985, he won the German Youth Championship. In 1996 and 1997, he won the German championship. His peak rating was 2609 in 1999. In 2007, he founded the world's largest poker school, PokerStrategy.com. It has over 6 million members.

Joshua Waitzkin (1976- ) won the US Junior Chess championship in 1993 and 1994.  He is the only person to have won the National Primary, Elementary, Junior High School, High School, U.S. Cadet, and U.S. Junior Closed chess championships in his career.  He later gave up chess and became a martial artist. In 2004, he won the world champion title in the competitive sport of Taiji Push Hands (Taiji Tui Shou).

Carl August Walbrodt (1871-1902) was an Austrian-German chess master. In 1893, he tied for first at the 8th German Congress at Kiel. In 1897, he resigned the editorship of the Berliner Schachzeitung and started publishing the Internationale Schachzeitung. From 1899 to 1902, he wrote a chess column in the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger. He was a manufacturer of pantographs by profession.

Charles Gilbert Marriott Watson (1879-1961) was Australian chess champion in 1922 and 1930-31. In 1898, he won the Victorian chess championship. He won the Melbourne Chess Club championship 8 times. He competed in the London 1922 International tournament. He was a managing director of a life insurance company.

William Watson (1962- ), born in Baghdad, is an English Grandmaster (1990). In 1994, he won the British Chess Championship. He is a practicing tax lawyer.

Norman Stephen Weinstein (1950- ) was the winner of the 1968 US Junior Open (with Greg DeFotis), the 1972 Atlantic Open, the 1972 Massachusetts State Championship, and the 1973 US Open (on tiebreak over Browne, Suttles, DeFotis, and Rodriquez) in Chicago. He tied for 2nd (behind Walter Browne) in the 1972 US Open in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He became an International Master in 1975. He won the Canadian Open in 1976. He attended MIT and went to graduate school at Brandeis. He was a computer programmer and now a very successful currency trader (Banker's Trust).

Max Ignaz Weiss (1857-1927) was a Hungarian-born Austrian chess master. He tied for 1st with Mikhail Chigorin at New York 1889. He quit chess for a banking career (Rothschild Bank). He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna, and later taught those subjects.

Maurice Wertheim (1886-1950) was a chess player and chess patron. He was president of the Manhattan Chess Club. He graduated from Harvard University in 1906 with a B.A. and received his M.A. in 1907. In 1915, he entered into a career as an investment banker in New York, and four years later would become a firm partner of Hallgarten & Company. He founded his own firm Wertheim & Company in 1927.

Dr. Siegfried Werthhammer (1911-1983) won the West Virgina championship 12 times. He was the editor of the West Virginia Chess Bulletin. He was chairman of pathology at Marshall University Medical School.

Guy West (1958- ) is an Australian International Master (1990). In 1996, he won the Australian championship. He has played for Australia in 9 Chess Olympiads. He is a managing director of an Internet company.

George Shorrock Ashcombe Wheatcroft (1905-1987) was British Correspondence Champion in 1935. He played for Britain in the 1937 Chess Olympiad, held in Stockholm. He was President of the British Chess Federation from 1953 to 1956. He was Professor of English Law.

Norman Tweed Whitaker (1890-1975) was an International Master (1965). He competed in 10 Western championships (US Open) from 1913 to 1931. He tied for 1st in the 1923 and 1930 US Open (Western Chess Association tournament). He took 2nd place in 6 US Opens. Whitaker was trained as a lawyer (three law degrees) and worked as a civil servant for the US Patent and Tradmark Office, as a patent attorney. He graduated from Georgetown University with a law degree.

Alain Campbell White (1880-1951) was an American problem composer, author, and patron.  In 1891, he published his first chess problem in the Dubuque Chess Journal. In 1914, he founded the Good Companion Club, to which almost all known chess composers belonged. During World War I, he helped break the German Navy cryptographic codes (source: New York Times, July 17, 1988). He was a botanist by profession and was the founder of Connecticut's State Park system. In 1902, he graduated from Harvard with honors in Romance languages, then earned a master's degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University in 1904.

James White (1835-1907) was an English chess player. He edited a chess column in the Leeds Mercury Supplement from 1879 to 1906. He authored about 150 chess problems. He was a school teacher and professor of music by profession.

Ken Whyld (1926-2003) was a British chess author and researcher, best known as the co-author with David Hooper of The Oxford Companion to Chess. He made his living in information technology while writing books on chess and researching its history.

Enos Reginet Wicher (1911-1993) won the Wisconsin chess championship three times, in 1939, 1940 (with Arpad Elo), and 1951. In 1952, he won the Georgia State Championship. He was a professor of physics at Columbia University.

Dr. Michael Wierzbicki is a US chess master and winner of 10 state chess titles; He earned a PhD in psychology from Indiana University in 1980.

Michael Wilder (1962- ) is an American Grandmaster (1988). In 1988, he won the US Chess Championship. He attended law school at the Univeristy of Michigan. He is now a practicing tax attorney at McDermott Will & Emery.

Elijah Williams (1810-1854) was an English chess master. From 1840 to 1846, he wrote a chess column for the Bath and Cheftenham Gazette. He was the first president of the Clifton Chess Club. He came in 3rd at the London International in 1851. His occupation was an apothecary (druggist), but he gave this career up for chess.

Rudolf Heinrich Willmers (1821-1878) was a Danish chess player and composer of chess problems. In 1857, his chess problem won the first prize of the problem competition of the First American Chess Congress in New York. He was a concert pianist.

Stanley B. Wilson (1881-1960) was a Canadian chess master from Montreal. In 1937, he won the Canadian Correspondence championship. He was an artist by profession.

Elliott Winslow (1952- ) was an American International Master (1986) who became a backgammon professional (2001 Player of the Year) and a poker professional.

Harold Winston (1945- ) is Chairman of the U.S. Trust. He was president of the Intercollegiate Chess League of America in 1972. He was president of the US Chess Federation from 1987 to 1990. He is a past president of the Chess Journalists of America. He is a lawyer by profession. He graduated magna cum laude at Loyola University Law School in Chicago.

Thomas Winter-Wood (1818-1905) was an English chess player. He was president of the Plymouth Chess Club for over 20 years. He was a writer and a poet.

John Wisker (1846-1884) was British Chess Champion in 1870 (after beating Amos Burn in a play-off) and 1872 (after a play-off with Cecil Valentine De Vere). By winning twice in succession, Wisker retained the British Chess Association (BCA) championship Challenge Cup. From 1872 to 1877, he was the Secretary to the British Chess Association. He was a journalist by profession and was a reporter for the City Press in Victoria, Australia.

Alexander Wittek (1852-1894) as an Austrian chess master. He played at Graz 1880, Berlin 1881, and Vienna 1882. In 1882, he was ranked 9th in the world with a historical rating of 2607. He was an architect by profession.

George H. Wolbrecht (1870-1929) was an American chess master from St. Louis. In 1906 and 1910, he won the Western Chess Association (US Open) Championship. He was a civil engineer by profession.

Patrick Wolff (1968- ) is an American Grandmaster (1990) and the 1992 US Chess Champion and the 1995 US Chess Co-Champion. He is a former National High School (1987) champion and US Junior champion (1984). He attended Yale and graduated from Harvard in 1996 with a B.A. degree in philosophy. In 2005, he was hired by Peter Thiel as an analyst at Clarium Capital, where he became managing director. He now manages his own hedge find, Grandmaster Capital.

Philip Woliston (1920- ) is an American chess master. In 1939, at the age of 19, he won the 12th California State Chess Championship. He later changed his name to Philip Reinhold Geffe. He attended California Institute of Technology. He is an electrical engineer by profession with an expertise in filter design.

Dr. Wong Meng Kong (1963- ) is a Singaporean Grandmaster (2000). In 1979, he won the Asian Junior Chess Championship. He has won the championship of Singapore 3 times. He has played for Singapore in 11 Chess Olympiads. He is a medical doctor and practices psychiatric medicine.

Robert Bownas Wormald (1834-1876) was an English chess amateur and the author of several chess books. He was a problem composer and chess columnist for the Illustrated London News. He graduated from Oxford and was a journalist by profession.

Thomas Herbert Worrall (1807-1878) was a strong British-American chess amateur. He was a former British Army officer. He was British Commissioner in Mexico as part of the British Mexican Legation and was later transferred to New York.

Fred M. Wren (1900-1978) was an amateur chess player. He wrote chess columns entitled The Old Woodpusher and Tales of a Woodpusher. He won the Canadian Maritime Championship in 1941 and 1945. From 1958 to 1960, he was editor of Chess Life. He was Vice Consul in the Visa Section of the American Consulate in Canada.

Otto B. Wurzburg (1875-1951) was an American chess composer from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Otto composed more than 1,200 chess problems in 3 or more moves. He was one of the secretaries in the Good Companion Club. He worked full time in the US Post Office.

Marmaduke Wyvill (1814-1896) was a strong English player of the 19th century. In 1850, he was the strongest chess player at the St. George's Chess Club in London. He was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond, North Yorkshire in 1847 and was a Liberal Party politician. He remained a member of Parliament until 1868.

Vitold Yakimchik (1911-1977) was a Soviet chess master from Kazakhstan and a leading chess composer. In 1967, he was awarded the International Judge of Chess Compositions. In 1968, he tied for 1st place in the USSR Championship for Chess Studies. He was a metallurgical engineer.

David Yanofsky (1925-2000) was a Canadian grandmaster.  He was a lawyer by profession and did postgraduate work at Oxford from 1951 to 1953. He had been the mayor of a suburb of Winnipeg.

Ye Rongguang (1963- ) is a Chinese Grandmaster (1990). In 1990, he became the first Chinese GM. In 1990, he won the championship of China. His peak rating was 2545 in 1991. He now lives in the Netherlands and works for the Netherlands Chinese Photographic Society.

Mikhail M. Yudovich Sr. (1911-1987) was a Jewish Soviet International Master (1950) and Correspondence Grandmaster (1972). He took 3rd place in the 1931 USSR championship, behind Botvinnik and Riumin. He won the 7th USSR Correspondence Championsip in 1966. He was a journalist by profession.

Alexander Nikolayevich Zaitsev (1935-1971), born in Vladivostok, was a Soviet Grandmaster (1967). In 1967, he tied for 1st at the 10th Chigorin Memorial in Sochi. He tied for 1st in the 36th USSR Championship at Alma-Ata in 1968-69. He was awarded the GM title in 1967. He was an electro-technical engineer by profession.

Tatiana Zatulovskaya (1935-2017) was a Russian-born Israeli Woman Grandmaster (1976). She was USSR women's champion in 1960, 1962, and 1963. In 1967, she took 2nd in the Women's Candidates tournament. In 1971, she won the first Women's Interzonal tournament, held in Ohrid. In 1993 and 1997, she won the Women's Seniors World Championship. She was a geological engineer and gymnast.

Elmars Zemgalis (1923-2014) was a Latvian-American chess master. He settled in Seattle and was the strongest player in the Pacific Northwest from 1952 to the mid-1960s. He won the 1953 Washington State championship, scoring 9-0. He won the 1959 Washington State Championship, scoring 6-0. In 2003, he was awarded the Honorary Grandmaster title. He was a mathematics professor and a research mathematician for Boeing.

Dr. Erich (Eric) Ernest Zepler (1898-1980) was a German-born chess composer. In 1957, he was awarded the International Judge of Chess Compositions title. In 1973, he was awarded the International Master for Chess Compositions. In Germany, he was head of the Telefunken radio receiver laboratories. During World War II, he worked for the British Army. His discoveries in radio electronics were used in the Royal Air Force bombers. In 1949, he became a professor of electronics at Southampton University, perhaps the first electronics professor in the world.

Adolf Julius Zinkl (1871-1944) was an Austrian chess master. He worked for the postal service (Reichspost) in Vienna.

Dr. Savo Zlatic (1912-2007) was a Croation chess composer. He was a Master for Chess Composition (1999). He was a medical doctor by profession.

Eugene A. Znosko-Borovsky (1884-1954) was a chess master and chess author. He fought and was wounded in both the 1904 Russo-Japanese war and World War I. He also fought for the White forces during the Russian revolution and was evacuated to France. His occupation was a music and drama critic, and he was an expert on Russian theater.

Dr. Johannes Zukertort (1842-1888) was one of the top chess players in the world. He was a chess master, physician, pianist, magazine editor, music critic, linguist, swordsman and marksman.  In 1865, he obtained a medical degree at Breslau. He was fluent in   English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Sanskrit, Arabic, Turkish, Danish, and Polish.  He was decorated for gallantry 9 times in three Prussian wars with Denmark, Austria, and France and was once left for dead.  He was one of the best dominoes and whist players in the world.  Zukertort was a fencer, a world class whist and dominoes player, a pianist, a music critic, swordsman, marksman, editor of a political paper, and on the staff of Bismark's newspaper, the Allgemeine Zeitung. He was a leading spokesman for prison reform.

Adolphus Zytogorski (1806-1882) was a Polish-British chess master. He was one of the earliest chess-playing refugees to come to Britain. He had been a political refugee after the collapse of the Polish-Russian War (November Uprising) in 1830-31. He was an editor of The Chess Player's Chronicle. He later became a translator of folk tales.

Accountant — Allgaier, Bird, Boden, Diez del Corral. Hodges, Narraway, Reshevsky, Sozin, Stean, Taulbut, Thompson, Uhlmann, Vaughan, Yates

Actuary — Kupper, Mills, Muir, Pauly, Pert

Administrator — Havel (railroad), Niro (hospital), Parots (Dept of Social Services), Wagner (railway)

Aircraft crew chief - Wall

Aircraft navigator — Czapski, Edmondson

Aircraft pilot — G. Anderson, C. Jarecki, Payne, Pritchard, Rosburg

Airman — Tate (USAF SSgt)

Ambassador — G. Anderson, Bruehl, Capablanca

Ambulance driver — Alekhine

Apothecary — E. Williams

Archeologist — Gresser, Hunt

Architect — Hooper, Pierce, Shaughnessey, Wittek

Archivist - Szen

Art dealer — Boden, Grimm

Art historian — Bayersdorf

Artist — Boden, Duchamp, Grimm, Grob, Jursevskis, Peckover, Santasiere, Wilson

Astronomer — Aarseth, Antoniadi, Knorre, Newcomb, Pauly

Athlete — Agdestein (soccer), Thomas (badminton), Waitzkin (martial arts)

Attaché — Capablanca

Auditor — Niro

Automobile inspector — Dake

Automobile mechanic - Stoltz

Automobile salesman - Martz

Backgammon professional player — Robertie, Winslow

Ballerina - Melekhina

Banker — Aaron, Addison, Bernstein, F. Berry, Brunner, Kolisch, Niemeijer, Petursson, Prentice, Richardson, Schapiro, Vansittart, Volshin, Weiss, Wertheim

Biochemist — Kozlovskaya

Biophysicist — I. Brooks

Bomb designer - Bleiman

Book publisher — Aagaard, Dudley, Larsen, Schmid, K. Smith

Bookbinder - Saemisch

Botanist — Lundqvist, White

Bridge designer — Fairhurst

Bridge player professional - Levitina

Bridge toll collector — Dake

Broadcaster — Polihroniade, Rabar

Businessman — Arnason (communications company), Behr (manufactured sandpaper), Cortlever (gemstone and marble business), Denker (meat packing), Judd (cloak dealer), Lane (natural foods business), Mont-Reynaud (web service), Najdorf (porcelain), Pokorny (tonic importer), Rice, Rinck (olive oils), Oosterom (Volmac Software Group), Turover (lumber)

Carpenter — Pituk, Scheltinga

Cartographer — Grimm

CEO — Norwood (investment company), Schwartzmann (software company), Trefler (Pegasystems)

Chef - Tisdall

Chemist — Barber, Baumbach, Fuderer, Hyder, R. Robinson, Sarfati, Schmidt, Stellwagen, Vukcevich

Circus performer — Roething (trapeze artist)

Civil servant — Duras, Hanstein, Michell, Milner-Barry, Myers, Opocensky, Sergeant, Visserman, Wade, Whitaker

Clergy - Allen, Atwood, Ceron, Lombardy, G. MacDonnell, Owen, Ponzaini, Ranken, Ruy Lopez, Skipworth, Traxler, Wayte

Clerk — Boden, Burn, Potter, Shinkman, Viner

Code breaker — Aitken, Alexander, Avram, Golombek, Holowach, Lundqvist, McCormick. Milner-Berry, Mott-Smith

Composer — Chekover, Rozsa

Computer programmer — F. Anderson, Berliner, Bisguier, Biyiasas, Botvinnik, Brasket, Pfannkuche, Savereide, Suttles, N. Weinstein

Computer scientist — Berliner

Computer systems analyst - Roycroft

Conductor — Brody (opera), H. Johner (Zurich Orchestra)

Consulate employee — Judd, Wren

Criminal Investigator — Alekhine

Critic — Irzykowski, Znosko-Borovsky (music and drama)

Currency trader — N. Wesinstein

Dancer — Agdestein (ballroom), Foster (ballet), Harmonist (ballet), Sachdev (Indian classical)

Dean - Divinsky

Dentist — Basalla, Castaldi, Sussman

Diamond cutter - Koltanowski

Diamond merchant - Freedman

Diplomat — G. Anderson, Capablanca, Judd, der Lasa, Mortimer, Rueb

Disc jockey — Karaklajic

Dramatist - Plunkett

Dressmaker — Kalmar-Wolf

Economist — Bondarevsky, Boytsun, Farago, Forintos, Gipslis, Glek, Kraidman, A. Maric, Novotelnov, Palatnik, Rogoff, L. Rudenko, Ufimtsev

Editor — Mott-Smith

Electronics technician - Bang

Engineer — Alapin (railway), Alatortsev (hydraulics), R. Ault (computer software), Botvinnik (electrical), Budowski (agriculture), Esling (railway), Fairhurst (civil), Ilivitsky, Kaminer (chemical), Kasparian (railway), Kazantsev (chemical and mechanical), Korolkov (electrical), Kotov, Kubbel (chemical), Ed. Lasker (mechanical), Levenfish (chemical), Liberzon (electrical), Lisitsin (mechanical), Makogonov (construction), Mednis (chemical), Perkins (civil), Petrovic (civil), Pugi (chemical), Radulov (civil), Ragozin (civil), Schutt (aerospace), Shaked (software), Simkhovich (chemical), L. Steiner (mechanical), Vidmar (electrical), Wolbrecht (civil), Woliston (electrical), Yakimchik (metallurgical), Zaitsev (electro-technical), Zatulovskaya (geological)

Epidemiologist - Platov

Explorer — Pinkus, Saint-Amant

Factory worker — Stein (fitter)

Farmer — W. Adams (chickens), Granda-Zuniga, L. Paulsen (potato)

Forester — Cootes, Troitzky

Gardner — Saxton

Geologist - Gurgenidze

Geophysicist — Izmailov

Government official — Napolitano, Trifunovic

Gunner - Koshnitsky

Gymnastics instructor — Bobotsov

Hair dresser - Pokorny

Headmaster — A. Mackenzie

Historian — Aitken, Asanov, Bagley, Buckle, Harding, Pirc, Razuvaev

Industrialist — Cabot

Information Technology professional — Sadler, Whyld

Insurance business — Byland, Dake, Doyle, Horowitz, Jasnogrodsky, Kashdan, Kupper, Lipschuetz, Maroczy, Mills, Najdorf, Napier, Pauly, Richmond, Shinkman, C. Watson

Interpreter - Regedzinski

Inventor — Alexandre, Atwood, Blathy, W. Evans, Fuderer, Ed. Lasker, Statham, Zepler

Investment manager — Dlugy, Fishbein

Journalist — Aaron, Asztalos, Bardeleben, Bogdanovic, R. Byrne, Diemer, L. Evans, Golombek, Gunsberg, Karlovich, Kavalek, Lanka, Makovetz, Marco, Mikenas, Monticelli, Mortimer, Napier, Ostojic, Panov, L. Parr, Petkov, Polihroniade, Rabar, Soltis, Teschner, Tisdall, Wisker, Wormald, Yudovich

Judge — R. Black, Mayet, Noa, Treybal, Unzicker

Justice of the Peace - Hazeltine

KGB officer — Baturinsky (Colonel)

Lawyer — Abrahams, Allen, Balinas, Bardeleben, Barnett, Barry, Barsov, O. Bernstein, Cochrane, Estrin, Ferguson, Filip, Harkins, Hjartarson, Lederer, Levin, Lipke, Martz, Mayet, McCutcheon, Mead, Meyer, Morphy, Niemeijer, Olafsson, Oskam, Perlis, Phillips, Pogats, Ponziani, Rice, Rogard, Rohde, Rueb, Russell, Rynd, Sherwin, Shipley, Shipman, Spence, Sperling, Tartakower, Treybal, Tylor, Udovcic, Watson, Wheatcroft, Whitaker, Wilder, Winston, Yanofsky

Lecturer - Botterill

Lexicographer — Andric

Librarian — Eaton, Mugridge, Tarjan

Lighting contractor — Fred Cramer

Linguist — Alapin, Albin, Gheorghiu, Grimm, Schiller

Lithographer — Grimm

Machinist - Siff

Magazine publisher - Bagley

Management consultant — F. Anderson, Niro

Manufacturer — Walbrodt (pantographs)

Mathematician — Coveyou, Elkies, Euwe, Hartston, Krikheli, E. Lasker, Lein, Moreau, Nunn, Planck, Speelman, Tomovic, Zemgalis

Medical doctor — E. Adam, Albulet-Pogorevici (pediatrician), Ardaman (psychiatrist), Barendregt , J. Bellin (anesthesiologist), Bely, Bergraser, Bohatirchuk, Burger, Calvo, G. Dean, Esser (plastic surgeon), J. Gonzales, Herman, Just, Kosashvili, Krikheli, B. Lasker, Lim Kok Ann, E. MacDonald, Mengarini (psychiatrist), Minev, Moskow, Nadareishvili, S. Nedeljkovic, Olland, Payne, Pavey, Pfleger, Planck, Platz, Raphael, Rey-Ardid (psychiatrist), Rosenfeld, Saidy, Salvio, Schvartzman, Southard, Svenonius, Szapiro, Tarrasch, Valerga (pediatrician), Werthhammer, Wong, Zlatic, Zukertort

Merchant — Alapin, Burn (cotton and sugar), McDonnell, L. Paulsen, Saint-Amant (wine), Schwarz

Messenger — F. Parr

Metallurgist — Blandford, Griffith, Mutchler

Meteorologist — Aronin, Mueller

Military officer — Araiza (Mexican Lt. Col), Avram (Lt. Commander, USN), Bilguer (German Army Lt.), Chepmell (British Army Major), Czapski (Lt. Col, USAF), Dudley (Lt. Col, USAF), Edmondson (Lt. Col, USAF), J. Gonzales (Cuban navy), Gustaitis (Lithuanian general), Hanham (Army major), Hanneken (Prussian general), Jaenisch (Russian Army major), Jansa (Captain in the Czechoslovakian army), Kazantsev (Soviet Army colonel), H. Kennedy (British army captain), G. Mackenzie (US Army captain), Moreau (French army colonel), Perkins (US Army Lt.), Scheve (German army officer), Sournin (US Army captain), Sunnucks (British Army major), Urusov (Tsarist general), B. Wall (Major, USAF), Worrall (British Army officer)

Minister of Sport — B. Ivanovic

Musician — Blackmar (violinist, pianist), Chekover (pianist), du Mont (pianist), Grimm (pianist), Holowach (violinist), H. Johner (violin), P. Johner (cellist), Philidor, Preti (flute), Rozsa (pianist), Taimanov (pianist), Trammer, Willmers (pianist)

Newspaper columnist — Grob

Newspaper editor - Dufresne

Newspaper publisher — Bagley, Mortimer

Notary public — Hazeltine

Novelist - Krabbe

Oil industry - Abhyankar-Gokhale, F. Adams, Adhiban, Sengupta

Orchidologist - Robatsch

Paleontologist - Narraway

Papyrologist - Huebner

Paratrooper — F. Berry, Estrin

Personnel manager - Paros

Pharmacist — Kevitz, Stolzenburg

Philogist - Volpert

Philosopher — Goering, Kraii, Rowson, Tomovic

Photographer — Battell, Richardson, Ye

Physicist — W. Harris, Klavens, Malakhov, V. Nedeljkovic

Piano tuner - Sandrin

Playwright — Andric, Mortimer

Poet — From, Winter-Wood

Poker professional player — Klinger, Sarwer, Shahade, K. Smith, Wahls, Winslow

Politician — Adianto (Filipino Senator), Barnett, Divinsky (alderman), Landsbergis (president of Lithuania), Olafsson, Reizniece-Ozola (Latvian Minister of Finance), Riemann (town councilor), Rutherford (mayor), Wyvill, Yanofsky (mayor)

Portrait Painter — Boden, Grob, Horwitz

Postal service — Perkonaja, Wurzburg, Zinkl

Postal supervisor - Hoesslinger

Principal — Atkins, Hanauer, Hazeltine, Hicks, Howe

Printer — Bagley, Jerome, Lipschuetz, Palmer

Prison inspector — From

Procurement officer - Morris

Project and Program Manager - Litvinchuk

Psychologist — Barendregt, Fine, Hartston, Hearst, Krivec, Krogius, J. Penrose, Rind, Stefurak, Wierzbicki

Rabbi — Alexandre, Wachs

Radio announcer - Matanovic

Railway worker — Bachmann

Real Estate Agent — Kim Commons, Shinkman

Reporter — Baczynskyj, Bogdanovic, Canal, Soltis, Wisker

Restaurant manager - Battell

Rubber planter — Bent

Sailor — Dake, W. Evans, Kholmov

Salesman — Dake (telephone directories)

Schoolmaster — Atkins, Euwe

Science fiction writer — Dubeck, Kazantsev

Science writer - Comay

Scientist — Aarseth, Bron, V. Rudenko, Vukcevich

Secretary - Piket

Securities trader — Dlugy, Fishbein

Shakespeare scholar — Staunton

Ship builder - Szabados

Ship captain — W. Evans

Singer - Smyslov

Software developer — Kaplan, Millican, Savereide

Soldier — Araiza, Bisguier, From

Sportswriter — Chadwick

Statistician - Seidman

Stenographer - Schallopp

Stock broker — I. Gurevich, Henley, E. Jackson, Kaufman, Lobron, McShane, Mednis, Pinkus, Schwarz, Sherwin, Suttles, Wolff

Stripper — Tuk

Systems analyst - Robertie

Systems manager — Epstein

Tank commander - Ulvestad

Taxi driver — Addison, Frias, Rossolimo

Teacher — Agnel (French), Albin (linguistics), Alexandre, Allen (ancient languages), Anderssen (German and mathematics), Asztalos (philosophy), Atkins (mathematics), R. Ault (mathematics), Barcza (mathematics), Battell (English), Belakovskaia (business), Blackmar (music), Bohatirchuk (radiological anatomy), Botterill (philosophy), Bouwmeester (mathematics), Busemann (computer science), D. Byrne (English), R. Byrne (philosophy), Chadwick (music), Divinsky (mathematics), du Mont (music), Dubeck (physics), Dudley (business administration), Elkies (mathematics), Elo (physics and astronomy), Euwe (mathematics), Formanek (mathematics), Gheorghiu (languages), Goering (philosophy), Henneberger (mathematics), Holowach (music), Jaenisch (mathematics and mechanics), H. Joner (violin), S. Jones (mathematics), Kalme (mathematics), Keres (mathematics), Kling (music), Knorre (astronomy), Kopec (computer science), Em Lasker (mathematics), Loman (music), Loshinsky (mathematics), Mackasy (mathematics), Malich (history), Marchand (mathematics), Maroczy (mathematics and physics), Marotti (literature and philosophy), Marovic (languages), McKelvie (chemistry), Mestel (mathematics), Millican (philosophy), Morgan (science and mathematics), Motwani (mathematics), Newman (music), Nievergelt (computer science), Nikolac (physics), Nunn (mathematics), Palciauskas (geophysics), Pernici (computer science), Perrin (languages), Pogosyants (mathematics), Ponziani (law), Popel (French and literature), Rachels (philosophy), Redman (literary studies), Regan (computer science), Rehm (mathematics), Rogoff (economics), A. Root (Interdisciplinary Studies), Rosanes (mathematics), Rose (Greek and Latin), Rozsa (music), Rubinow (mathematics), Rusinek (mathematics), Santasiere (mathematics), Saunders (classics), Schmidt (chemistry), Skoff (English), Sloth (Russian and mathematics), Southard (psychology), Teichmann (language), Thorold (classics and mathematics), Tomlinson (science), Tylor (jurisprudence), Voellmy (mathematics), Vukcevich (metallurgy), Wheatcroft (English Law), J. White (music), Wicher (physics), Zemgalis (mathematics), Zepler (electronics)

Technical designer — Antoshin

Television news producer — R. Smith

Tobacconist - Gunsberg

Translator — Albin, Alekhine, Fine, Hort, Larsen, Regedzinski, Zytogorski

Tutor — Allgaier

Writer — Andric, Bagley, Plunkett, Winter-Wood