Walter Browne

Walter Browne
Walter Browne at the 2002 U.S. Chess championships in Seattle, Washington
Full name	Walter Shawn Browne
Country	United States
Born	(1949-01-10)10 January 1949 Sydney, Australia
Died	24 June 2015(2015-06-24) (aged 66) Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
Title	Grandmaster
Peak rating	2590 (July 1982)

Walter Shawn Browne (10 January 1949 – 24 June 2015) was an Australian-born American chess Grandmaster and poker player. Browne won the U.S. Chess Championship six times.

Browne was born to an American father and an Australian mother in Sydney. His family moved to the New York area when he was three. Browne moved to California in 1973.

Browne won the U.S. Junior Championship in 1966.

He represented Australia for a short time. He won the 1969 Australian Chess Championship. He tied first with Renato Naranja while representing Australia at the 1969 Asian Zonal tournament in Singapore, earning the International Master title, which immediately earned him an invitation to an international grandmaster tournament in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There, he gained the Grandmaster title by tying for second through fourth places, with Bruno Parma and Arthur Bisguier, behind reigning world champion Boris Spassky.

He played first board for Australia at the 1970 and 1972 Chess Olympiads, before switching to representing the United States in 1974.

He won the U.S. Chess Championship six times. His victories were at Chicago 1974 with 9½/13, Oberlin 1975 with 8½/13, Mentor 1977 with 9/13, Greenville 1980 with 7½/12, South Bend 1981 with 9/14, and 1983 with 9/13. Of these six titles, three were shared, with three-way ties in 1980 and 1983, and a two-way split in 1981. His six titles have been exceeded only by the eight titles of Bobby Fischer, all won outright by at least a point, and Samuel Reshevsky.