- William Lombardy
William James Lombardy (born
December 4 ,1937 ) is an American Grandmaster ofchess , writer, teacher, and one time Roman Catholic priest.Biography
He won the 1956
Canadian Open Chess Championship . In 1957, Lombardy became the first American to win theWorld Junior Chess Championship and, in so doing, the first American World Chess champion of any kind. He won the tournament inToronto with a perfect score of 11-0, the only time such a result has been achieved. Lombardy drew a two-game match withWorld Chess Champion Mikhail Botvinnik .Lombardy played first board for the US Team that won the 1960 World Student Team Championship in Leningrad,
USSR , the first time the US Team won that event (they would win again atHaifa 1970) (http://www.olimpbase.org). Lombardy defeated futureWorld Chess Champion Boris Spassky in their individual game. Lombardy won agold medal for best result on his board in that event.Lombardy represented his country in several
Chess Olympiad s, and played many times in theUS Chess Championship . Lombardy finished second in the 1960-61 US Chess Championship behindBobby Fischer and ahead ofRaymond Weinstein and a star-studded field. With this result, Lombardy qualified to compete in the WorldInterzonal tournament inStockholm for theWorld Chess Championship . However, Lombardy decided instead to retire from chess to become aRoman Catholic priest.In 1972,
Bobby Fischer was scheduled to play a match againstBoris Spassky for theWorld Chess Championship . However, Fischer had a falling out with GrandmasterLarry Evans who had been Fischer's second in his successful matches againstTigran Petrosian andBent Larsen . Therefore, Fischer remembered and called upon his old friend William Lombardy to help him out with the match. Although Lombardy was still aRoman Catholic priest , he was allowed to take time off from the priesthood to go toReykjavík ,Iceland to serve as the official "second" to Fischer during theWorld Chess Championship 1972 , between Fischer andBoris Spassky . Nevertheless Fischer often didn't make use of his services. Don Schultz remembers the following conversation: Lombardy to Fischer 'That's a difficult position. Let's go back to the hotel and analyze it.' Fischer replied 'What do you mean, analyze? That guy's a fish. Let's go bowling.' Fischer won the match and becameWorld Chess Champion .Lombardy later left the priesthood. He is now retired and lives in the East Village of
New York City , where he is writing a chess book and sells chess lessons online.External links
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