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OSSINING, N.Y. – Robert Byrne, an international grandmaster and U.S. chess champion, died Friday at his home in Ossining after a battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 84.
Robert Eugene Byrne was born in Brooklyn on April 20, 1928. He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and Yale, and earned a master’s degree from Indiana University.
Byrne was the chess columnist for The New York Times, where he analyzed top-flight matches from 1972 to 2006.
Byrne was a philosophy professor at Indiana University through most of the 1950s. It wasn’t until he was in his 40s that he become a full-time chess player. He turned professional in the 1960s.
Memorial visitation will be held at noon on Saturday at Dorsey Funeral Home, 14 Emwilton Place, Ossining. A memorial service will be at 1 p.m.
For more about Byrne, see his obituary in the New York Times.
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