PHOTO CREDIT: TIM HANKS
GM Walter Browne at the 2015 National Open, his final tournament and the event he won 11 times.
he didn’t regret pressing for wins. “I saw too many people cop out.” Browne qualified for three Interzonal tournaments in 1976, 1982, and
1985 but never advanced. He competed in six Olympiads, representing Australia and the U.S., collecting five bronze medals. Browne won numerous international events, including a number of powerhouse events, among them Wijk aan Zee in 1974 and 1980, Lone Pine in 1974, Reykjavik in 1978, and the 26-player round-robin marathon in Indonesia in 1982. As an organizer, Browne was also largely responsible for the burgeoning
of five-minute tournaments at large American opens. In 1988 he founded the World Blitz Chess Association (WBCA) and published Blitz Chess magazine until 2003. In his honor, future National Open blitz events will be named The Walter Browne Memorial Blitz Championship. Browne was a poker champion, pulling in some big pots, but reports
that he purchased a hilltop estate with card winnings aren’t true, his widow Dr. Raquel Browne said. “In 1974, we moved from New York to California and all along the way, Walter played tournaments. Then Col. Ed Edmundson called the owner” of the Berkeley house they wanted to buy to give the Brownes a glowing reference. It remained their home. Walter phoned her there the night before his death to tell her that “I was the love of his life.” Radiation to cure a cancerous tonsil eventually left Browne hoarse, but
he made a touching acceptance speech at his induction into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 2003. He soon began putting together the book that in 2012 became The Stress of Chess—and its Infinite Finesse. “He wanted very much to give back to chess,” Susan Browne said. Anyone with a spark of interest in one of the most exciting half-centuries in American chess should read Browne’s frank and colorful recounting of his lifetime of wandering the globe for chess. The book includes his thoughts on 101 of his go-for- broke games against the world’s best, plus a peek into the world of high-stakes poker. (See our review in the November 2012 issue. ~ed.)
Comparisons with Bobby Fischer, four years older and a recluse from
official chess since his world championship victory in 1972, were inevitable. Both attended Erasmus Hall High School in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. Both dropped out, Fischer at 16 and Browne at 17, to become chess champions. Both champi oned chess variants, although Browne’s game of Finesse reinvented the names and powers of the pieces, while Fischer only randomized their starting squares. And only Fischer and Reshevsky accumulated more U.S. Championship wins, with eight apiece. “If Bobby Fischer was the god of chess,” Browne once said, “I’m the devil.”
Browne could indeed be Mephistophelian across the chessboard. But when not competing, he was genuine, open and funny, helpful to rivals, friends and even strangers. Richard Fauber, writing in the May 1982 Chess Life, summed him up this way:
You have to like Walter Browne. … As a host to casual acquaintances, Browne
would practically break a leg to make his guests feel at ease. Among his friends he is relaxed, casual and sharing. You put him on a board, however, and he is something else—a little volcano who can also punch the clock, and when the game is on, Browne is burning.”
In addition to his legions of fans and a wide circle of devoted friends,
Browne leaves behind a loving and large family: Raquel, his wife of 42 years; three sons, Dario, Hernan and Marcelo; three siblings, Stephen, Susan, and Roger; along with eight grandchildren, three nephews and two nieces. Browne played all the world champions from Tigran Petrosian to Garry
Kasparov and amassed an impressive record. He secured a unique place in our history, a plaque in the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame and an unforgettable place in our hearts. See the next pages for games and remembrances from Browne’s contemporaries.
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