Shelbourne Richard Lyman (October 22, 1936 – August 11, 2019) was an American chess player and teacher known for hosting a live broadcast of the

1972 World Chess Championship The World Chess Championship 1972 was a match for the World Chess Championship between challenger Bobby Fischer of the United States and defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. The match took place in the Laugardalshöll arena in ...

for the

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television station Channel 13 in

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. This broadcast became the highest-rated

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program ever at that time, far surpassing viewership expectations. Shelby Lyman was born in Brooklyn, New York but grew up in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. He was a graduate of the Boston Latin School and Harvard University who after graduation taught

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at the

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for three and a half years. Shortly after the 1972 World Championship ended, he began writing a syndicated column about chess for ''

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''; at its peak, this column was published in 82 newspapers around the world. He later hosted a two-hour broadcast covering the

World Chess Championship 1986 The 1986 World Chess Championship was played between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov in London and Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) from July 28 to October 8, 1986. Kasparov won. Anatoly Karpov was already assured of this rematch during his prev ...

. This segment was recorded at

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and aired on 120 public television stations. Shelby Lyman's uncle, Harry Lyman, was a chess master in New England.

Chess playing career

Lyman won the

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Chess Championship as a teenager. When he was twenty-seven, he won the

Marshall Chess Club The Marshall Chess Club, in Greenwich Village, New York City, is one of the oldest chess clubs in the United States. The club was formed in 1915 by a group of players led by Frank Marshall. It is a nonprofit organization and a gold affiliate of ...

Championship in

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. At one point, he was the 18th-highest-ranked player in the

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References

1936 births 2019 deaths American chess players City College of New York faculty American chess writers American television hosts People from Brooklyn {{US-chess-bio-stub