Larry Mark Christiansen (born June 27, 1956) is an American
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
player of Danish ancestry. He was awarded the title
Grandmaster by
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
in 1977. Christiansen was the
U.S. champion in 1980, 1983, and 2002. He competed in the
FIDE World Championship in
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
and
2002
File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...
, and in the
FIDE World Cup
The FIDE World Cup refers to three different events over the years. Since 2000, it has been a major chess event organized by FIDE, the International Chess Federation. Since 2005, it has been a 128-player single-elimination chess tournament, for ...
in
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...
.
Biography
Christiansen grew up in
Riverside, California
Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States, in the Inland Empire metropolitan area. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. It is the most populous city in the Inland Empire an ...
, United States. In 1971, he became the first junior high-school student to win the National High School Championship. He went on to win three invitational U.S. Junior Championships in 1973, 1974, and 1975. In 1977, at age 21, he became a
grandmaster without first having been an
international master
FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...
. Christiansen tied for first place with
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov ( rus, links=no, Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов, p=ɐnɐˈtolʲɪj jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈkarpəf; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Che ...
at
Linares 1981. He won the 2001
Canadian Open Chess Championship The Canadian Open Chess Championship is Canada's Open chess championship, first held in 1956, and held annually since 1973, usually in mid-summer. It is organized by the Chess Federation of Canada. The event celebrated its 50th rendition in 2013.
H ...
. He also won
Curaçao
Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coa ...
2008 and the Bermuda Open 2011.
Christiansen played on the United States teams in the
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 an ...
in 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1996 and 2002. He won the team silver medal in 1990 and the team bronze in 1982, 1984, 1986 and 1996.
Christiansen describes his playing style as "aggressive-tactical", and he lists his favorite opening as the
Sämisch King's Indian.
Notable games
* Larry Christiansen vs. ''
Chessmaster 9000'' (September 2002), annotated at GameKnot:
Game 1Game 2Game 3Game 4
Books
* Christiansen, Larry (2000). ''Storming the Barricades''. Gambit Publications. .
* Christiansen, Larry (2004). ''Rocking the Ramparts''. Batsford.
See also
* Deep Blue (chess computer)
Deep Blue was a chess-playing expert system run on a unique purpose-built IBM supercomputer. It was the first computer to win a game, and the first to win a match, against a reigning world champion under regular time controls. Development ...
References
External links
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*
worldchessnetwork.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Christiansen, Larry
1956 births
Living people
American chess players
American chess writers
Chess grandmasters
Chess Olympiad competitors
People from Riverside, California
American male non-fiction writers
American people of Danish descent