Oscar Roberto Panno (born 17 March 1935) is an

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

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 ...

Grandmaster.

Biography

Panno was born in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

. He 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. As one of the most decorated players in the history of Chess Olympiad, Ivkov was a World championship candidate in 1965, and played in four more Interzonal t ...

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

, 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 ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

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

, and

Boris Spassky Boris Vasilyevich Spassky (; January 30, 1937 – February 27, 2025) was a Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. Spassky played three world championship matches: he lost to Tigra ...

. (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 ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

, 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 who held five world titles in three different reigns. The sixth World Chess Champion, he also worked as an electrical engineer and computer sci ...

. 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 ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

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 or esports. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American chess master and physics professor. The Elo system wa ...

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-Argentine chess grandmaster. Originally from Poland, he was in Argentina when World War II began in 1939, and he stayed and settled there. He was a leadin ...

), 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 Ljubomir Ljubojević (; born November 2, 1950) is a Serbian chess grandmaster. He won the Yugoslav Chess Championship in 1977 (tied) and 1982. Life and career Ljubojević was born on 2 November 1950 in Titovo Užice, Yugoslavia (now Užice, S ...

, 1972 at the best tie-break along with

Viktor Korchnoi Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi (, ; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. He is considered one of the strongest players never to have become World Chess Champion. Bor ...

and Jan Smejkal. 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, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

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 FIDE Onli ...

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 Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Chess Champi ...

Memorial tournament held in Villa Martelli.

References

External links

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