I played in the 1997 USCF Absolute Championship (open to the top 13 correspondence players who accept their invitations), scoring 6-6 (+2 =8 -2). Alex Dunne wrote in his book on the Absolute Championships, "This was Rhine's only Absolute and he held his own against the best. His two losses were against previous Absolute winners." http://bit.ly/1NB55YP That book contains my games F Rhine vs R Lifson, 1997 and F Rhine vs D Burris, 1997.

But the 1997 event was not my only Absolute: I am now playing in the 2023 edition. I play first board for the Rogue Squadron in the Chicago Industrial Chess League.

I attended Lane Technical High School in Chicago with the late Chessgames.com co-founder Alberto A Artidiello until he moved out of Chicago. Lane's chess team won the Illinois state championship my junior and senior years, becoming the first school ever to win consecutive championships. Albert also became a master, as did my teammates Kenneth Mohr and Christopher Kus. The late FIDE Masters Albert Charles Chow and Morris Giles were also Laneites.

In July 2013, I played in my second and third regular-rated tournaments of the millennium(!), the Greater Midwest Classic and the Chicago Class (under-2200 section). I tied for second, undefeated, in both, winning $700 and $550, respectively, and brought my rating back over 2200. http://www.uschess.org/assets/msa_j... http://www.uschess.org/assets/msa_j...

I have contributed to hundreds of chess-related articles on Wikipedia under the handle Krakatoa, notably "First-move advantage in chess," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-... "George H. D. Gossip," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George... and "Swindle (chess)," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_..., all of which are almost entirely written by me. The first two of those have been Today's Featured Article, the highest honor a Wikipedia article can receive, one attained by about one out of every 1,400 articles. I have received various Wikipedia awards, including the Imperial Triple Crown Jewels and the Timeless Imperial Triple Crown (which only 12 Wikipedians have received). My user page is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:K....

I was the proofreader for the book "Triple Exclam!!! The Life and Games of Emory Tate, Chess Warrior" by Daaim Shabazz. I was a contributor to the Chicago Chess Blog, http://chicagochess.blogspot.com. There, I discovered and documented what Taylor Kingston calls "the Mortimer Effect," which has lowered the Morphy Numbers of many modern players (maybe you!). https://chesscafe.com/the-skittles-...

One hundred and fifty-one of my games are in chessgames.com's database. My favorites are F Rhine vs D Sprenkle, 1981, K Thompson vs F Rhine, 1992, and F Rhine vs A Boerkoel, 1996. Rhine-Sprenkle was published with my annotations in Chess Informant (Volume 32) and cited in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (Vol. B (2nd ed.) at 183 n.19). In Volume 33 of Chess Informant, my 18th move (18.Nxd6!) in that game was voted the 8th-9th most important theoretical novelty in Volume 32. The game was also cited in MCO-13 and "The Aggressive Nimzowitsch Sicilian 2...Nf6" by Eric Schiller, and occupies an entire chapter in all three editions of "Beating the Sicilian" by John Nunn. It is game 218 in "1000 TN!! The Best Theoretical Novelties" (Chess Informant, 2012).

Thompson-Rhine was published with my annotations in Chess Informant (Volume 57), and cited in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (Vol. B (3rd ed.) at 172 n.163). Jeremy Silman discusses the game and my analysis of it in his book "Winning with the Sicilian Defence" (2nd ed.).

Joel Johnson in his book "Attacking 101: Volume #005" says of my blitz game F Rhine vs NN, 2019, "White played a flawless Smith-Morra Gambit that IM Marc Esserman would have been proud of." Georges Koltanowski published F Rhine vs A Artidiello, 1974 in his syndicated newspaper column. Richard J Palliser discusses the opening of F Rhine vs S Nagle, 1997 in his book "tango!"

Jacob Aagaard analyzes the endings of two of my Internet blitz games in his 896-page tome "A Matter of Endgame Technique" (alas, mine was lacking). Cyrus Lakdawala includes my study-like win in F Rhine vs Alex Zhao, 2019 in his book "Tactical Training in the Endgame." He also mentions me, albeit not by name, in his book "In the Zone: The Greatest Winning Streaks in Chess History" when he refers to "The Classical Sicilian, which as one of my atheist students told me, is the closest thing he has to a religion." Cyrus analyzes my game against Gadir Guseinov in his book "The Makogonov Variation: A ruthless King's Indian killer."

Commentator Mato Jelic somewhat extravagantly calls my game E Sollano vs F Rhine, 1977 "The Greatest Ever Blitz Game Played in Chicago." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl8... See also Suren's analysis at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWa... My 7...Bxc5!! in that game, played the year before Boris Avrukh was born, is a big improvement on the flaccid 7...Bg6, his recommendation in the book "Beating 1.d4 Sidelines" (2012).

Someone also made a video (moves only) of J Aagaard vs F Rhine, 2021, a 2-1 bullet game where I drew and should've beaten the grandmaster - if only I'd had time! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-O... User: JimmyVermeer discusses my games NN vs F Rhine, 2021, P Pantelidakis vs F Rhine, 1974, and P Napetschnig vs F Rhine, 1977 in his video "The 109 fastest checkmates in chess history, part 10 of 11." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GT... The sequel "The 109 fastest checkmates in chess history, part 11 of 11," contains a Fool's Mate I played, which I had mentioned in a comment on this site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Z...

My game F Rhine vs NN, 2010 is mentioned in the "Checkmate Patterns Course" by Raf Mesotten and John Bartholomew on chessable.com.

I composed this study, which Pal Benko published in "Benko's Bafflers" in Chess Life, May 2006:

White to play and draw

click for larger view

The solution is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalem... It is based on an earlier study of mine, which Benko also published in his column. Both of these compositions appear in Harold van der Heijden's endgame study database. https://www.chess.com/news/view/76-... The above study is also cited in "The Complete Chess Swindler" by David Smerdon and "Rewire Your Chess Brain: Endgame Studies and Mating Problems to Enhance Your Tactical Ability" by Cyrus Lakdawala.

I was once one of the world's best players at suicide chess (also known as "losing chess"), a chess variant where one wins by giving away all of one's pieces. http://perpetualcheck.com/antichess...

I have successfully submitted 205 puns for Game of the Day. Game Collection: Puns I submitted. User: johnlspouge has remarked, "As far as I can tell, <FSR> is churning out 'actual puns' almost as fast as I can [insert bodily function of choice]." The coveted 2013 Caissar for Best (Worst) Pun went to "Control-Ault-Delete," the pun I submitted for Fischer vs R Ault, 1959, the Game of the Day on December 19, 2012. I won the 2019 Caissar in the same category for my greatest pun ever (and IMO one of the greatest chessgames puns ever) "Late December Back in '63: What a Lady, What a Knight!," N Littlewood vs B Brinck-Claussen, 1963, the Game of the Day on December 30, 2019. Since Caissars are awarded in January, my wins may illustrate recency bias.

Six of my games have been Game of the Day: NN vs F Rhine, 1977 ("Strangers on a Train"), F Rhine vs F Lasch, 1986 ("Lasch Call"), K Thompson vs F Rhine, 1992 ("Like a Rhinestone Cowboy"), R K Delaune vs F Rhine, 1997 ("Red Red Rhine"), F Rhine vs D Burris, 1997 ("Fred Rhine Felled"), and F Felecan vs F Rhine, 2019 ("Felecan Brief"). Four wins and two losses.

I am responsible for World Junior Championship (1957), Vidmar Memorial (1969), Carlsen - Anand World Championship Match (2014), and Game Collection: Drawing lines, among others.

I am a member of the ChessBookie Hall of Fame, having finished fourth in the Summer 2015 Leg, seventh in the Winter 2016 Championship Leg, ninth in the Winter 2017 Championship Leg, ninth in the Spring 2017 Leg, and seventh in the Summer 2017 Leg.