Oscar Roberto Panno (born 17 March 1935 in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

) is an

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

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 ...

Grandmaster. Panno was the first top world chess player born in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

. Panno won the 2nd

World Junior Chess Championship The World Junior Chess Championship is an under-20 chess tournament (players must have been under 20 years old on 1 January in the year of competition) organized by the World Chess Federation (FIDE). The idea was the brainchild of William Rits ...

in 1953, ahead of such future strong Grandmasters as

Borislav Ivkov Borislav Ivkov (12 November 1933 – 14 February 2022) was a Serbian chess Grandmaster. He was a World championship candidate in 1965, and played in four more Interzonal tournaments, in 1967, 1970, 1973, and 1979. Ivkov was a three-time Yugos ...

Bent Larsen Jørgen Bent Larsen (4 March 1935 – 9 September 2010) was a Danish chess grandmaster and author. Known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play, he was the second strongest non-Soviet player, behind Bobby Fischer, for much of the 19 ...

, and Fridrik Olafsson. He also won the championship of Argentina the same year. Oscar Panno became a grandmaster at the age of twenty. He competed in five interzonal tournaments, with his greatest success coming at

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

1955. In a field of 21 players, Panno finished clear third, only half a point out of second and ahead of such players as Efim Geller,

Tigran Petrosian Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian (, ; 17 June 1929 – 13 August 1984) was a Soviet-Armenian chess grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his almost-impenetrable defensive playing style ...

, and

Boris Spassky Boris Vasilievich Spassky ( rus, Бори́с Васи́льевич Спа́сский, Borís Vasíl'yevich Spásskiy; born January 30, 1937) is a Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 ...

. (He beat future World Champion Spassky in their individual game.) This result was probably the peak of his career, as it advanced him to the 1956 Candidates tournament in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

, the winner of which would play a 24-game match for the World Championship with

Mikhail Botvinnik Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, ( – May 5, 1995) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster. The sixth World Chess Champion, he also worked as an electrical engineer and computer scientist and was a pioneer in computer chess. Botvinnik ...

. However, his form from the interzonal did not carry over and he finished in a tie for 8th-9th in a ten-man field. Chessmetrics.com, which attempts to rank players from before the introduction of

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 ...

ratings, estimates that he was as high as 18th in the world in his prime, in late 1955. He had an

Elo rating The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor. The Elo system was invented as an improved c ...

of 2585 and was 19th in the world in his second prime (1973). Panno has several successes at the tournaments at Mar del Plata. He won the international tournaments in 1954 and 1969 (shared with

Miguel Najdorf Miguel Najdorf (born Mojsze Mendel Najdorf) (15 April 1910 – 4 July 1997) was a Polish–Argentinian chess grandmaster. Originally from Poland, he was in Argentina when World War II began in 1939, and he stayed and settled there. He was ...

), and the open tournaments in 1986, 1988, and 1994. He twice in a row won the strong Palma de Mallorca international invitational tournament: 1971 together with Ljubomir Ljubojević, 1972 at the best tie-break along with

Viktor Korchnoi Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ( rus, Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, p=vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. H ...

and

Jan Smejkal Jan Smejkal (born March 22, 1946) is a Czech chess player and, since 1972, an International Grandmaster. In the 1970s, he was among the world chess elite. He was champion of Czechoslovakia in 1973, 1979 and 1986 and won many international tournam ...

. Panno tied for first at the prestigious Lone Pine 1977. He played various famous grandmasters. In addition to his win over Boris Spassky in 1955, he also beat him at the 1976

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populated ...

interzonal. Panno played eleven times for Argentina in

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 ...

s (1954–58, 1962, 1966–70, 1976, 1986–88, 1992).Men's Chess Olympiads: Oscar Panno
/ref> The 1954 Olympiad team won the Silver medal, while the 1958 and 1962 teams won the Bronze medal. He was still active as of 2008, finishing third in the

Bobby Fischer Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943January 17, 2008) was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Championships at the age of 14. In 1964, he won with an 11� ...

Memorial tournament held in Villa Martelli.

References

External links

* * * * 1935 births Living people Argentine chess players Chess grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors World Junior Chess Champions Sportspeople from Buenos Aires Argentine people of Greek descent {{Argentina-chess-bio-stub