Donald Byrne

Donald Byrne (June 12, 1930 – April 8, 1976) was one of the strongest American chess players during the 1950s and 1960s.

Byrne was a student of Brooklyn chess coach and master John W. Collins. Collins wrote about his students in the book My Seven Chess Prodigies, which features both Byrne brothers Donald and Robert and young Bobby Fischer.

Byrne won the U.S. Open Chess Championship in 1953 in Milwaukee and around that time he achieved the second-highest rating in the U.S., behind Reshevsky, against whom Byrne had a winning record. He was awarded the International Master title by FIDE (English: World Chess Federation) in 1962, and played for or captained five U.S. Chess Olympiad teams between 1962 and 1972. In 1972, he led a team representing Penn State University (the remainder of the team was alumni) to the US Amateur Team Championship in Philadelphia. The winning Penn State team consisted of Byrne, Dan Heisman, Steve Wexler, Bill Bickham, and Jim Joachim (alt.). Byrne's older brother, Grandmaster Robert Byrne, was also a leading player of that time.

Byrne was a great ambassador for American chess, seemingly on good terms with players from both sides of the Iron Curtain. At the 1966 Chess Olympiad in Havana, Cuba, Fischer, a member of the Worldwide Church of God, would not compete on Saturdays, and the tournament officials knew this, yet they scheduled his first game against a Soviet player on Saturday, leading to accusations and hot tempers by the U.S. and Soviet teams and the tournament officials. Byrne's diplomacy and communications skills and the respect that all the players had for his integrity were enough to get the game rescheduled with everyone saving face the tournament proceeded without further incident. Host Fidel Castro gave Byrne a beautifully hand carved chess set as a thank you.

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