Nicholas Ernest de Firmian (born July 26, 1957) is an American

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

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, winning in 1987 (with

Joel Benjamin Joel Lawrence Benjamin (born March 11, 1964) is an American chess player who holds the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM). In 1998, he was voted "Grandmaster of the Year" by the U.S. Chess Federation. Life and career Benjamin is a native of Bro ...

), 1995, and 1998. He also tied for first in 2002, but

Larry Christiansen Larry Mark Christiansen (born June 27, 1956) is an American chess player of Danish ancestry. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1977. Christiansen was the U.S. champion in 1980, 1983, and 2002. He competed in the FIDE World Champ ...

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 The opening is the initial stage of a chess game. It usually consists of established Chess_theory#Opening_theory, theory. The other phases are the chess middlegame, middlegame and the chess endgame, endgame. Many opening sequences, known as ''op ...

treatise A treatise is a Formality, formal and systematic written discourse on some subject concerned with investigating or exposing the main principles of the subject and its conclusions."mwod:treatise, Treatise." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Acc ...

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

''. He was born in

Fresno, California Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...

Chess career

De Firmian 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 Ca ...

s and played on the United States

Olympiad An olympiad (, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the Ancient Olympic Games, ancient and Olympic Games, modern Olympic Games. Although the ancient Olympics were established during Archaic Greece, Greece ...

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. ...

. 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 other ...

. 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 scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, 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 whi ...

from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

.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: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

. He also helped prepare the chess opening book for the

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

Deep Blue Deep Blue may refer to: People, figures, and characters * Deep Blue (musician), electronic and drum and bass musician * Deep Blue (DC Comics), a superhero in the post-Crisis DC Universe * Deep Blue (''Tokyo Mew Mew''), a character from ''Tokyo ...

team for its successful 1997 match with

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born Garik Kimovich Weinstein on 13 April 1963) is a Russian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion (1985–2000), political activist and writer. His peak FIDE chess Elo rating system, ra ...

. In 2000, de Firmian tied for first place at the

U.S. Masters Chess Championship The U.S. Masters Championship is an official national chess championship sanctioned by US Chess that has been held 27 times since 1982. The event is a Swiss tournament usually restricted to players who have established peak ratings over 2200, plus ...

. In 2006 he revised and expanded the classic 1921 book ''Chess Fundamentals'', by

José Capablanca José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced very differently in each of the two languages: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , ...

. 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. c. 2012, de Firmian began a scholastic chess program with the Mechanics Institute in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Publications

* * * * *

Notable games

In de Firmian–

Predrag Nikolić Predrag Nikolić (born 11 September 1960 in Bosanski Šamac) is a Bosnian chess grandmaster. Biography He first competed for the Yugoslav Championship in 1979, taking a share of second place. The following year and agai ...

, 1985, de Firmian conducts an attack which ends with a complex mating

combination In mathematics, a combination is a selection of items from a set that has distinct members, such that the order of selection does not matter (unlike permutations). For example, given three fruits, say an apple, an orange and a pear, there are ...

. After 27.Nef6+ White gains an overwhelming advantage even if Black avoids immediate checkmate with precise defense.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:de 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 University of California, Berkeley alumni Sportspeople from Fresno, California