Reuben Fine
Reuben C. Fine was an American chess player, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology. He was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the mid-1930s until his retirement from chess in 1951. He was granted the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE in 1950, when titles were introduced.
Fine's best result was his equal first place in the 1938 AVRO tournament, one of the strongest tournaments of all time. After the death of world champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946, Fine was one of six players invited to compete for the World Championship in 1948. He declined the invitation, however, and virtually retired from serious competition around that time, although he did play a few events until 1951.
Fine won five medals in three Chess Olympiads. He won the US Open all seven times he entered. He was the author of several chess books, covering endgame, opening, and middlegame.
Early life and family
Fine was born in the Bronx, New York City to Russian Jewish parents Jacob and Bertha Fine. He had a sister, Evelyn, and was raised by his mother alone from the age of two. An uncle taught him chess when he was eight.Chess career
Teenage master
Fine began chess as a young teenager at the famous Manhattan Chess Club, where he hustled for nickels, until he was asked to stop; he used the money to help feed his family. Afterwards he moved to the rival Marshall Chess Club in New York City, stomping grounds for many famous players, such as Bobby Fischer, later on. At this stage of his career, Fine played a great deal of blitz chess, and he eventually became one of the best blitz players in the world. By the early 1930s, he could nearly hold his own in blitz chess against the then world champion Alexander Alekhine, although Fine admitted that the few times he played blitz with Alekhine's predecessor José Raúl Capablanca, the latter beat him "mercilessly".Fine's first significant master-level event was the 1930 New York Young Masters tournament, which was won by Arthur Dake. He narrowly lost a 1931 stakes match to fellow young New York master Arnold Denker.
Fine placed second at the 1931 New York State Championship with a score of 8/11, half a point behind Fred Reinfeld. Fine won the 15th Marshall Chess Club Championship of 1931 with 10½/13, half a point ahead of Reinfeld. He defeated Herman Steiner by 5½–4½ at New York 1932; this was the first of three matches between them.
U.S. Open Champion
At 17, Fine won his first of seven US Opens at Minneapolis 1932 with 9½/11, half a point ahead of Samuel Reshevsky; this tournament was known as the Western Open at the time. Fine played in his first top-class international tournament at Pasadena 1932, where he shared 7th–10th with 5/11; the winner was world champion Alexander Alekhine. Fine repeated as champion in the 16th Marshall Club Championship, held from October to December 1932, with 11½/13, 2½ points ahead of the runner-up.College
Fine graduated from City College of New York in 1932, at the age of 18; he was a successful student there. He captained CCNY to the 1931 National Collegiate team title; a teammate was master Sidney Bernstein. This tournament later evolved into the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship. Fine then decided to try the life of a chess professional for a few years.Olympiad results
Fine won the U.S. team selection tournament, New York 1933, with 8/10. This earned him the first of three national team berths for the chess Olympiads. Fine won five medals representing the United States; his detailed record follows; his totals are, for 65.6%.- Folkestone 1933: board three, 9/13, team gold, board silver
- Warsaw 1935: board one, 9/17, team gold
- Stockholm 1937: board two, 11½/15, team gold, board gold
North American successes
European debut
Having had outstanding successes in North America, Fine tried his first European individual international tournament at Łódź 1935, where he shared 2nd–3rd with 6/9 behind Savielly Tartakower. Fine won Hastings 1935–36 with 7½/9, a point ahead of Salo Flohr.Narrow misses at U.S. Championship
Although Fine was active and very successful in U.S. open tournaments, he was never able to win the U.S. Championship, usually placing behind his great American rival, Samuel Reshevsky. The U.S. Championship was organized in a round-robin format during that era. When in 1936 Frank Marshall voluntarily gave up the American Championship title he had held since 1909, the result was the first modern U.S. Championship tournament. Fine scored 10½/15 in the U.S. Championship, New York City 1936, and tied third–fourth, as Reshevsky won. In the U.S. Championship, New York 1938, Fine placed second with 12½/16, with Reshevsky repeating as champion. In the U.S. Championship, New York 1940, Fine again scored 12½/16 for second place, as Reshevsky won for the third straight time. Then in the 1944 U.S. Championship at New York, Fine scored 14½/17 for second, losing his game to Arnold Denker, and finishing half a point back, as the latter won his only national title.Fine tallied 50/64 in his four U.S. title attempts, for 78.1%, but was never champion. Not being national champion seriously hurt Fine's prospects for making a career from chess.
International success
However, Fine's international tournament record in the 1930s was superior to Reshevsky's. The former did play many more top-class international events than the latter during that period, and was usually near the top of the table. By the end of 1937, Fine had won a string of strong European international tournaments, and was one of the most successful players in the world. Fine won at Oslo 1936 with 6½/7, half a point ahead of Flohr. Fine captured Zandvoort 1936 with 8½/11, ahead of World Champion Max Euwe, Savielly Tartakower, and Paul Keres. Fine shared 3rd–5th at the elite Nottingham 1936 event with 9½/14, half a point behind winners José Raúl Capablanca and Mikhail Botvinnik. Fine shared 1st–2nd at Amsterdam 1936 on 5/7 with Euwe, half a point ahead of Alekhine. Fine placed 2nd at Hastings 1936–37 with 7½/9, as Alekhine won.The year 1937 was Fine's most successful. He won at Leningrad 1937 with 4/5, ahead of Grigory Levenfish, who shared first in that year's Soviet Championship. Fine won at Moscow 1937 with 5/7. Those two victories make Fine one of a very select group of foreigners to have won on Russian soil. Fine shared 1st–2nd at Margate 1937 with Keres on 7½/9, 1½ points ahead of Alekhine. Fine shared 1st–3rd at Ostend 1937 with Keres and Henry Grob on 6/9. At Stockholm 1937, Fine won with 8/9, 1½ points ahead of Gideon Ståhlberg. Fine then defeated Stahlberg by 5–3 in a match held at Gothenburg 1937. Fine placed 2nd at the elite Semmering/Baden 1937 tournament with 8/14, behind Keres. At Kemeri, Latvia 1937, Fine had a rare relatively weak result, with just 9/17 for 8th place, as the title was shared by Reshevsky, Flohr, and Vladimirs Petrovs. Fine shared 4th–5th at Hastings 1937–38 with 6/9 as Reshevsky won.
AVRO 1938
In 1938, Fine tied for first place with Paul Keres in the prestigious AVRO tournament in the Netherlands, scoring 8½/14, with Keres placed first on tiebreak. This was one of the most famous tournaments of the 20th century. It was organized with the hope that the winner of AVRO, a double round-robin tournament, would be the next challenger to world champion Alexander Alekhine. Since Alekhine won the title in 1927, he had been avoiding a rematch with his predecessor, Capablanca, whom many considered the strongest possible challenger. Fine finished ahead of future champion Mikhail Botvinnik, current champion Alekhine, former world champions Max Euwe and Capablanca, and Samuel Reshevsky and Salo Flohr. Fine won both of his games against Alekhine. Fine got out to a tremendous start, scoring five wins and a draw in his first six games, but then lost in round seven to Keres, and this wound up as the decisive game for the tournament victor, providing his tiebreak.Wartime years
As World War II interrupted any prospects for a world championship match, Fine turned to chess writing. In 1939, Fine became the first world-class player to edit the classic opening guide Modern Chess Openings. His work on the sixth edition of the book led to a significant increase in sales. In 1941 he wrote Basic Chess Endings, a compendium of endgame analysis which, some 80 years later, is still considered one of the best works on this subject. His book was the most comprehensive on the subject written to that time, included significant original work by Fine, and received worldwide acclaim. His The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, though now out of date, is still useful for grasping the underlying ideas of many standard chess openings; it was revised in 1989.Fine played a few serious American events during World War II, with international chess at a virtual standstill, and continued his successes with dominant scores. He won the U.S. Open at New York 1939 with 10½/11, half a point ahead of Reshevsky. In the 23rd Marshall Club Championship of 1939, Fine won with 14/16. He won the 1940 U.S. Open at Dallas with a perfect 8/8 in the finals, three points ahead of Herman Steiner. Fine won the New York State Championship, Hamilton 1941, with 8/10, a point ahead of Reshevsky, Arnold Denker and Isaac Kashdan. Fine won the 1941 Marshall Club Championship with 14/15, ahead of Frank Marshall. Fine won the 1941 U.S. Open at St. Louis, with 4/5 in the preliminaries, and 8/9 in the finals. Fine won the 1942 Washington, D.C. Chess Divan title with 7/7. He defeated Herman Steiner in match play for the second time by 3½–½ at Washington 1944. Fine won the U.S. Speed Championships of both 1944 and 1945. In the Pan-American Championship, Hollywood 1945, Fine placed 2nd with 9/12, behind Reshevsky. He played in the 1945 US vs USSR Radio team match, scoring ½/2 on board three against Isaac Boleslavsky. Then Fine traveled to Europe one last time to compete, in the 1946 Moscow team match against the USSR, scoring ½/2 on board three against Paul Keres.