Max Pavey (March 5, 1918 – September 4, 1957) was an American chess master.
Biography
After graduating from City College of New York in 1937, he studied medicine in Glasgow, and while a student won the Scottish Championship at Aberdeen 1939, with 7.5/9. [1] Pavey would leave Scotland soon after this tournament, in June 1939, just before World War II. He was U.S. Lightning Champion in 1947. In 1948, he placed tied 5-8th place in the U.S. Open Chess Championship at Baltimore with 8.5/12. [2] He was New York State Champion in 1949. During this time he also earned a master's degree in chemistry at Brooklyn College.
In 1951, he took third in New York ( United States Chess Championship with 7/11; Larry Evans won). [3] Also in that year, Pavey gave a simultaneous exhibition in Brooklyn, and faced a seven-year-old Bobby Fischer in the future World Chess Champion's first attempt at serious chess; Pavey won in about a quarter of an hour. [4]
In 1954, he took third in the New York Manhattan Chess Club Championship ( Arnold Denker won). In 1953, he finished second behind Donald Byrne at the Milwaukee U.S. Open Chess Championship. In 1954, he represented USA on third board in a match against the USSR in New York, and lost to Paul Keres (+1–2=0). Following this event, Chessmetrics estimates a peak rating of 2549 for Pavey in July 1954, ranking him No. 88 in the world. [3] In 1955, he played on sixth board and lost to Tigran Petrosian (+0 –2 =0) in another USA vs USSR match in Moscow. [3]
In 1955/56, he won in New York (Manhattan CC-ch), with 12/15. In 1956, he tied for 10-11th in New York (3rd Rosenwald Memorial; Samuel Reshevsky won). [3] In 1956/57, he beat young Bobby Fischer in New York (Manhattan CC-ch, semi-final), and won group 2 of that event with 4/5. [5]
Pavey died in the Mount Sinai Hospital, NYC, after a long battle with leukemia in 1957. The radium processing plant in Mt. Kisco where he worked as a plant supervisor immediately announced that it was shutting down, but the plant's owners, the Canadian Radium and Uranium Corp., initially denied there was a connection between Pavey's death and the plant's closure. A month after Pavey's death, the company pleaded guilty to "injuring" three workers, including Pavey. [6]
Notable chess games
- Anthony Santasiere vs Max Pavey, New York, US-ch 1951, English, A16, 0-1
- Max Pavey vs Paul Keres, New York 1954, match US vs SU, King's Indian Defense, E60, 1-0
- Robert James Fischer vs Max Pavey, New York Manhattan 1956, King's Indian Attack, Symmetrical Defense, A05, 0-1
References
- ^ http://www.rogerpaige.me.uk/tables19.htm[ permanent dead link]
- ^ 1948 Archived 2009-01-03 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b c d http://www.chessmetrics.com Archived 2006-04-14 at the Wayback Machine, the Max Pavey player file
- ^ The Games of Robert J. Fischer, edited by Robert Wade and Kevin O'Connell, Batsford 1972, p.43
- ^ Wade & O'Connell, pp. 116–117
- ^ "Pavey".
External links
- Max Pavey player profile and games at Chessgames.com