William Lombardy

Lombardy is a redirect to this article. For the Italian region with the English name Lombardy see Lombardy

William Lombardy at the 1960 Chess Olympiad
Surname	William James Lombardy
Association	United States
Born	December 4, 1937 New York City , United States
Died	October 13, 2017 Martinez (California)
title	International Master (1957) Grand Master (1960)
Best Elo rating	2540 (January 1978)

William James Joseph Lombardy (born December 4, 1937 in New York - † October 13, 2017 in Martinez , California ) was an American chess player . He became known to a wider public through his longstanding collaboration with Bobby Fischer .

Player career

William Lombardy (left), his trainer John W. Collins (center) and Bobby Fischer (right) in the 1950s

William Lombardy is observed by Bobby Fischer on October 29, 1960 playing against Radovici (Romania) (XIV. Chess Olympiad in the Leipzig Ring Messehaus )

Lombardy learned to play chess at the age of 10 and joined the Marshall Chess Club in New York in 1952, where he took part in regular internal game operations and team competitions. In 1954 he won the championship of New York State, then he won the championship in 1954/55 of the Marshall Chess Club. 1956 Lombardy won the open championship of Canada together with Larry Evans (Evans was first after scoring); 1957 the U20 Junior World Championship in Toronto with the so far unique final result of eleven wins in eleven games. In the same year he was awarded the title of International Master .

In 1960 the World Chess Federation FIDE awarded him the title of Grand Master . This was preceded by a phenomenal result Lombardy at the student team world championship in Leningrad in 1960, where he scored 12 points from 13 games on the first board for the USA and defeated the eventual world champion Boris Spassky . The United States became sensationally ahead of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia as student world champions. In the US championship in 1960/1961 he was second and qualified for the interzonal tournament , but he refused to participate. In 1963 and 1965 he won the US Open Championships. Lombardy represented his homeland at the Chess Olympiads in 1958 , 1960 , 1968 , 1970 , 1974 , 1976 and 1978 . In 1976 in Haifa he won gold with the American team, in 1970 in Siegen he received gold for the best result on the first reserve board.

In 1972 he was Fischer's second in the fight for the world championship against Boris Spassky . However, Fischer rarely made use of his support in questions of chess analysis. Frank Brady described him in his Fischer biography with regard to his other activities at the World Cup as "perhaps the most important supporting actor [in the Reykjavik drama]", beginning with Fischer staying away from the draw and sending Lombardy as his representative, which caused a scandal.

From the 13th match, Lombardy, who suffered from a cold, was replaced by Lubomir Kavalek .

Lombardy played his last Elo rated games in February 2009 at the "39th Annual World Amateur Team" tournament in Parsippany .

He is played by Peter Sarsgaard in the 2014 film Pawn Sacrifice - Game of Kings . In 2019 he was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame .

Private life

Lombardy grew up in an impoverished Italian family in New York and received his education in a Catholic private school, which gave him not only a secular but also a spiritual education. Lombardy was ordained a Catholic priest in 1967 . He retired from the Church in the late 1970s and married a Dutch woman with whom he had a son, who was born in 1984. The marriage ended in divorce in 1992.

Book publications

• Modern Chess Opening Traps (1972)
• US Championship Chess (1975)
• Chess Panorama (1977)
• Chess for Children: Step by Step (1977)
• Guide to Tournament Chess (1978)
• Understanding Chess: My System, My Games, My Life (2011)

Web links

Commons : William Lombardy  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about William Lombardy in the catalog of the German National Library
• Replayable chess games by William Lombardy on chessgames.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mike Klein: GM William Lombardy, 1937-2017. In: chess.com. October 13, 2017, accessed October 14, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Joshua Anderson: Chess in Excelis ; Chess Life Magazine No.01, 2018, p. 25.
3. ^ Willy Iclicki: FIDE Golden book 1924-2002 . Euroadria, Slovenia, 2002, p. 75.
4. ↑ Chess Review, September 1960, p. 270.
5. ↑ William Lombardy's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
6. ↑ Rene Chun: Bobby Fischer's Pathetic Endgame , The Atlantic, December 2002. "Fischer did almost all the analysis himself"
7. ↑ Frank Brady: Bobby Fischer: Genius and madness in the life of the chess legend . Riva, January 18, 2016, ISBN 978-3-95971-250-7 , pp. 188–.
8. ↑ Edward Winter : Chess Seconds , May 29, 2014
9. ↑ Joshua Anderson: Chess in Excelis ; Chess Life Magazine No.01, 2018, p. 25.
10. ↑ Dylan Loeb McClain: William Lombardy, Chess Grandmaster Turned Priest, Dies at 79 , The New York Times, October 14, 2017