Pal Benko

Pal Benko (Hungarian: Benkő Pál; July 15, 1928 – August 26, 2019) was a Hungarian-American chess player, author, and composer of endgame studies and chess problems.

Pal Benko
Benko in 1964
Full namePál Benkő
Country
  • Hungary (before 1962)
  • United States (after 1962)
Born(1928-07-15)July 15, 1928
Amiens, France
DiedAugust 26, 2019(2019-08-26) (aged 91)
Budapest, Hungary
TitleGrandmaster (1958)
Peak rating2530 (July 1973)

Early life

Benko was born on July 15, 1928 in Amiens, France, where his Hungarian parents were on vacation. He was raised in Hungary.[1] Benko learned to play chess aged eight from his father, but did not compete in tournaments until age 17, due to World War II.[1] During the war, he dug ditches for the Hungarian army before being captured by the Soviet army, which forced him to be a laborer.[2] He eventually escaped to his home, only to find that his brother and father had been sent to Russia as laborers, and his mother died as the war neared its conclusion.[1]

Benko made rapid progress once he began tournament play, and became Hungarian champion by age 20.[1] He qualified for the 1952 Interzonal tournament, but was unable to compete as he was sent to a concentration camp in March 1952 for attempting to defect to the American embassy in West Berlin during a chess tournament in East Berlin.[1][3] He starved and saw others around him die.[4][2] He remained imprisoned for 16 months, attaining release after Stalin's death.[1] He emigrated to the United States in 1958 after defecting following the World Student Team Championship in Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1957.[1] FIDE awarded him the title of Grandmaster in 1958.[5] He was previously awarded the title of International Master in 1950.[6]

World title candidate

Benko's highest achievement was qualifying and competing in the Candidates Tournament—the tournament to decide the challenger for the World Championship—in 1959 and 1962. Both tournaments had eight of the world's top players.[1][7] He finished eighth in 1959 and sixth in 1962. Benko qualified for the 1970 Interzonal tournament, the leaders of which advance to the Candidates.[1][5] He gave up his spot in the Interzonal to Bobby Fischer, however, who went on to win the World Championship in 1972.[1][5]

Other achievements

Benko finished in first place (or tied for first place) in eight U.S. Open Chess Championships, a record. His titles were: 1961, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1974, 1975.[8] He won the 1964 Canadian Open Chess Championship.[9] He represented Hungary at the 1957 Student Olympiad in Reykjavík on board one, scoring 7½/12, and Hungary was fourth as a team. He had earlier played for the national Hungarian team at the Moscow 1956 Olympiad, on board three, scoring 10/15, and helping Hungary to team bronze.[10] He moved to the United States, but it was not until 1962 that he appeared on the U.S. team. He would wind up on six teams in a row. At Varna 1962, Benko played board two, scored 8/12 for the silver medal on his board, and the U.S. finished fourth.[11] At Tel Aviv 1964, he was again on board two, scored 9½/14, and the U.S. ended up sixth.[12] At Havana 1966, Benko was on board three, scored 8/12, and the Americans won team silver.[13] At Lugano 1968, he made 6/12 on board three, and the U.S. finished fourth.[14] At Siegen 1970, Benko was on board four, scoring 8½/12, and the Americans again finished fourth.[15] His last Olympiad was Skopje 1972, where he played on board three, made 9½/16, and the U.S. ended up ninth.[16]

Benko defeated four players who held the World Champion title at some point in time. They are Bobby Fischer,[17] Mikhail Tal,[18] Tigran Petrosian,[19] and Vassily Smyslov.[20] His career score against Fischer was three wins, eight losses and seven draws.[17] After Fischer retired, Benko was one of the few players with whom he maintained contact; reportedly the two corresponded every week.[1] According to Chessmetrics, at his best, Benko was ranked 17th in the world, with a peak rating of 2687.[21]

Later life and death

In later life Benko was a tutor to many up-and-coming players from his native Hungary; his students included the Polgár sisters (Susan, Sofia, Judit Polgár) and Peter Leko.[1] Benko had a column on chess endgames in Chess Life magazine, which is published by the United States Chess Federation, for decades: "In the Arena" (1972–1981), "Endgame Lab" (1981–2013), and chess problem column "Benko's Bafflers".[5] In 2003 he revised Reuben Fine's book Basic Chess Endings. Benko died on August 26, 2019, in Budapest at the age of 91.[1]

Legacy
Benko in 2005 with the Benko Gambit position

Some chess openings Benko pioneered are named for him:[5]

He was awarded the title of International Master of Chess Composition by FIDE,[5] and was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 1993.[5][1]

Books
  • The Benko Gambit. 1974. RHM Press. ISBN 0-713-42912-7
  • Winning with Chess Psychology by Pal Benko and Burt Hochberg. 1991. Random House Puzzles & Games ISBN 0-8129-1866-5
  • Basic Chess Endings by Reuben Fine, revised by Pal Benko. 2003. Random House Puzzles & Games ISBN 0-8129-3493-8
  • Pal Benko: My Life, Games and Compositions by Pal Benko, Jeremy Silman, and John L. Watson. 2004. Siles Press. ISBN 1-890085-08-1
  • Pal Benko's Endgame Laboratory. 2007. Ishi Press. ISBN 978-0-923891-88-6

Notable games

gollark: Anyway, I've made somewhat better-targeted-than-usual lasering, a cool door system, automatic inventory clearing, a haskell interpreter*, a dynmap player tracker, rednet exploits, a fixed rednet repeater, RCEoR/S, PaintEncode, Lolcrypt, useful terminal-streaming things, command-computer game of life floorboards, wireless printing, a cool screensaver, augmented reality, convenient modemless communication, and an easy-to-use trilateration system.
gollark: It was originally 14 or so because squid.
gollark: `You are muted and cannot speak for 4 days, 20 hours, 27 minutes, 59 seconds.`
gollark: Ingame, yes.
gollark: In the sense that they're included in it, yes.

References
  1. McClain, Dylan Loeb (August 26, 2019). "Pal Benko, who stepped aside for Bobby Fischer, dies at 91". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on August 28, 2019. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  2. Benko, Pal. Silman, Jeremy. Pal Benko: My Life, Games, and Compositions. Siles Press. ISBN 978-1890085087 (2004)
  3. Zeller, Frank (July 15, 2018). "Pal Benko celebrates his 90th birthday". ChessBase.
  4. The Early Life of Pal Benko, chess.com
  5. "Pal Benko". World Chess Hall of Fame. March 23, 2017. Archived from the original on August 28, 2019. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
  6. "Pal Benko's rating card". FIDE. Archived from the original on August 27, 2019. Retrieved September 5, 2019.
  7. "Pal Benko dies aged 91". Chess24.com. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  8. "Yearbook" (PDF). USchess.org. 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 5, 2018. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
  9. "Canadian Championship History". Chess.ca. Archived from the original on August 28, 2019. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
  10. "12th Chess Olympiad, Moscow 1956, Group 4 standings". Olimpbase.org. Archived from the original on October 8, 2017. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
  11. "15th Chess Olympiad, Varna 1962, Group 2 standings". Olimpbase.org. Archived from the original on October 9, 2017. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
  12. "16th Chess Olympiad, Tel Aviv 1964, Group 4 standings". Olimpbase.org. Archived from the original on August 11, 2019. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
  13. "17th Chess Olympiad, Havana 1966, Group 3 standings". Olimpbase.org. Archived from the original on November 28, 2018. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
  14. "18th Chess Olympiad, Lugano 1968, Group 2 standings". Olimpbase.org. Archived from the original on May 6, 2016. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
  15. "19th Chess Olympiad, Siegen 1970, Group 3 standings". Olimpbase.org. Archived from the original on February 16, 2018. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
  16. "20th Chess Olympiad, Skopje 1972, Group 8 standings". Olimpbase.org. Archived from the original on January 10, 2018. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
  17. CHESSGAMES.COM * Chess game search engine – Games where Pal Benko defeated Robert James Fischer
  18. CHESSGAMES.COM * Chess game search engine – Games where Pal Benko defeated Mikhail Tal
  19. CHESSGAMES.COM * Chess game search engine – Games where Pal Benko defeated Tigran Petrosian
  20. CHESSGAMES.COM * Chess game search engine – Games where Pal Benko defeated Vassily Smyslov
  21. Chessmetrics Player Profile: Pal Benko
  22. Benko Counter-Gambit, David Levy, (Batsford, 1978), p.11

Further reading
  • Benko's Ultimate Truth, by Diana Mihajlova, Chess Life, Oct. 2013, pp. 36–40.
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