Nicholas Ernest de Firmian (born July 26, 1957) 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 who received the

FIDE title 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 ...

of Grandmaster (GM) in 1985. He is a three-time

U.S. chess champion The U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational tournament held to determine the United States chess champion. Begun as a challenge match in 1845, the U.S. Championship has been decided by tournament play for most of its long history. Since 1936, ...

, winning in 1987 (with Joel Benjamin), 1995, and 1998. He also tied for first in 2002, but Larry Christiansen won the playoff. He is also a chess writer, most famous for his work in writing the 13th, 14th, and 15th editions of the important

chess opening A chess opening or simply an opening is the initial stage of a chess game. It usually consists of established theory; the other phases are the middlegame and the endgame. Many opening sequences have standard names such as the "Sicilian Defen ...

treatise A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions." Tre ...

Modern Chess Openings ''Modern Chess Openings'' (usually called ) is a reference book on chess openings, first published in 1911 by the British players Richard Clewin Griffith (1872–1955) and John Herbert White (1880–1920). The fifteenth edition was published in ...

''. He was born in

Fresno, California Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

. He has represented the United States at several

Interzonal Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by the World Chess Federation FIDE from the 1950s to the 1990s. They were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle and were held after the Zonal tournaments, and before the C ...

s and played on the United States

Olympiad An olympiad ( el, Ὀλυμπιάς, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the ancient and modern Olympic Games. Although the ancient Olympics were established during Greece's Archaic Era, it was not unti ...

teams of 1980, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1996, 1998, and 2000. De Firmian earned the

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 ...

title in 1979 and the GM title in 1985. Beginning in the 1990s, he lived for many years in Denmark. He currently resides in California. He won the 1983

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 ...

. In 1986, he won the World Open and the first prize of $21,000, at that time a record for a

Swiss system tournament A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the othe ...

. De Firmian was a founding member of Prochess, a grandmaster advocacy group dedicated to promoting chess in the United States. He has a degree in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...

from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

.Penguin Random House
Nick De Firmian ABOUT THE AUTHOR
/ref> De Firmian is a noted expert on

s and in 1990 he revised ''

'', 13th edition (''MCO-13''). In 1999 he wrote the 14th edition of ''Modern Chess Openings'' (''MCO-14''), which, along with ''Nunn's Chess Openings'' (''NCO''), is considered an outstanding single volume opening reference in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

. He also helped prepare the chess opening book for the IBM Deep Blue team for its successful 1997 match with

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...

. In 2006 he revised and expanded the classic 1921 book ''Chess Fundamentals'', by José Capablanca. The edition was harshly criticized by chess historian Edward Winter, who claimed that de Firmian "destroyed" the book by changing Capablanca's writing and removing games from previous editions to include new games not played by Capablanca. De Firmian also wrote the 15th edition of ''MCO'', published in April 2008. Ca. 2012, de Firmian began a scholastic chess program with the Mechanics Institute in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

.Adisa Banjoko
US Chess Rising: Adisa Banjoko with de Firmian & Donaldson
May 19, 2017. Retrieved January 26, 2020.

Notable Game

Nick de Firmian vs Predrag Nikolic, Tunis Interzonal (1985)
de Firmian conducts an attack which ends with a complex mating combination.

Publications

* * * * *

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Firmian, Nick 1957 births Living people American chess players American chess writers American male non-fiction writers American instructional writers Chess grandmasters Chess theoreticians Chess Olympiad competitors