He was on the Deep Blue team that finally beat Kasparov. He worked with joel Benjamin and Nick deFirmian. They were the chess guys, who worked with Feng Su's programmers to build the silicon monster.

A couple of years ago the NY Times ran a chess column showing Fed beating John Nunn at a tournament in Israel, I think. It was kind of humorous, because John beat the famous Nunn using an opening in which Nunn had written a book about. Fed said "I remember his book better than HE remembers his book".

<I don't think it was the money, probably a few thousand dollars. It was beating the best USA players and some strong immigrants. Probably the high point of John's career, unless he has big moments in Olympiad play that he ranks highly>

You don't know the half

It was a beautiful thing when John got clear first in the New York Open that year

First of all, he won more than a 'few' thousand dollars

Second of all, it was the strongest New York Open field up until that point.... And maybe one of the strongest big money swisses ever held in the US up until that point

The Russians (Soviets, ex-Soviets, whatever) sent their strongest ever contingent to the NY Open that year....Strong GMs like Smyslov, Ehlvest, Dorfman, Mikhail Gurevich, etc

I think that was also the same New York Open where Gata Kamsky played for the first time, and a young Judit Polgar

Anyway 'Johnny Royale', the New York Boy, ended up taking clear first, ahead of all the strong Russians

The beauty of it was he ended up playing almost every member of the powerful Russian contingent, and didn't lose a single game...I think he played six of them, won four games and drew two (someone should probably look this up for accuracy)

Now that I think about it, the prize money was about $23,000, if memory serves. It must be the US Open of these days, I'm thinking about, where you only get a few thouand for first place.

Fed should stop in here and post, now and then. I suppose like many players, he visits his page incognito, to see what people are writing about him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74V...

I remember when he got back from Hastings(77), he wanted to show me his game against Petrosian.

There were no seats available at the local chess club. So he took a vinyl board, some pcs, and sat in the middle of the floor!

"I never realized that cooking a good meal is like winning a good chess game. To cook something that people enjoy eating. And also it is relaxing to cook."

<http://www.bronxbattler.com/images/...>

seems to have put on a little weight, here with Maurice Ashley