Larry Kaufman

[mehmet123]

"The man behind the Komodo Dragon 2, Larry Kaufman, was a successful broker in the mid-80s. He earned enough money to retire for the rest of his life and lie in a hammock, reading books. But instead, he won the senior chess championship in 2008 to become a chess Grandmaster at the age of over 60 years, worked on several chess engines, like Machack, Rybka, and of course, the Komodo series, steadily played on the highest "Shogi" level for decades, and wrote plenty of books - his newest one "Chess Board Options" just came out a week ago. In the interview with Kaufman, there is even more to discover about his fascinating life."

Interview with Larry Kaufman
https://en.chessbase.com/post/larry-kau ... gon-s-tale

[AdminX]

"The man behind the Komodo Dragon 2, Larry Kaufman, was a successful broker in the mid-80s. He earned enough money to retire for the rest of his life and lie in a hammock, reading books. But instead, he won the senior chess championship in 2008 to become a chess Grandmaster at the age of over 60 years, worked on several chess engines, like Machack, Rybka, and of course, the Komodo series, steadily played on the highest "Shogi" level for decades, and wrote plenty of books - his newest one "Chess Board Options" just came out a week ago. In the interview with Kaufman, there is even more to discover about his fascinating life."

Interview with Larry Kaufman
https://en.chessbase.com/post/larry-kau ... gon-s-tale

Thanks for the heads up.

[AdminX]

Enjoyed the video, it covered allot of what is in his new book 'Chess Board Options'.

Thanks for sharing!

[mehmet123]

When I opened this topic about Larry Kaufman, I knew some information about him , but later I learned that he is a much more colorful person than I thought.

There was a topic in this forum about his new book. But for those who do not know, it is useful to remind

"Larry Kaufman can safely be called an exceptional chess grandmaster.
Larry Kaufman started out as a prodigy, however not in chess but as a whizz kid in science and math. He excels at shogi (Japanese chess) and Go, and is also a world-famous computer programmer and a highly successful option trader. Remarkably, as a chess player he only peaked at the weirdly late age of fifty.

Yet his victories in the chess arena are considerable. Over a career span of nearly sixty years Kaufman won the state championships of Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, Virginia, D.C. and Pennsylvania. He was an American Open Champion and won the U.S. Senior Championship as well as the World Senior Championship.

‘Never a great chess player’ himself (his words), he met or played chess greats such as Bobby Fischer, Bent Larsen, Walter Browne, Boris Spassky, Viktor Kortchnoi and many others. He worked as a second to legendary grandmaster Roman Dzindzichashvili, and coached three talented youngsters to become International Master, one of them his son Raymond.

This engrossing memoir is rife with stories and anecdotes about dozens of famous and not-so-famous chess players. In one of the most remarkable chapters Larry Kaufman reveals that the American woman chess player that inspired Walter Tevis to create the Beth Harmon character of Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit fame, is his former girlfriend. You will learn about neural networks, material values and how being a chess master helps when trading options. And find lots of memorable but little-known annotated games.

Larry Kaufman is an American Grandmaster. He has been involved in computer chess since 1967, when he worked on ‘MacHack’, the first computer that competed in tournaments with human players. More recently he has been working on the programs Rybka and Komodo."
https://www.newinchess.com/memoir

[Chessqueen]

"The man behind the Komodo Dragon 2, Larry Kaufman, was a successful broker in the mid-80s. He earned enough money to retire for the rest of his life and lie in a hammock, reading books. But instead, he won the senior chess championship in 2008 to become a chess Grandmaster at the age of over 60 years, worked on several chess engines, like Machack, Rybka, and of course, the Komodo series, steadily played on the highest "Shogi" level for decades, and wrote plenty of books - his newest one "Chess Board Options" just came out a week ago. In the interview with Kaufman, there is even more to discover about his fascinating life."

Interview with Larry Kaufman
https://en.chessbase.com/post/larry-kau ... gon-s-tale

Here is the Youtube interview with Mr. Larry Kaufman, very interesting ==>

[mehmet123]

Happy Birthday Larry

I wish you and family all the best in future



"I was born in Washington D.C. in 1947, but moved to nearby Silver Spring, Maryland as a baby and grew up there. My parents weren’t wealthy, but my father had a good job as an attorney for the 8 U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, so there was never any problem with paying for chess tournaments, books, etc. or for college, so at least I had time to pursue chess seriously while studying at M.I.T. My father taught me chess when I was seven, although the only thing I remember about that is that I misunderstood the rule about pawns being allowed to move two squares on their first move; I thought this meant only on the first move of the game! I was very surprised when I learned that this was incorrect. My father was not a strong player (I would estimate 1600 Elo in his best years), and never played in tournaments. He actually learned the game from my mother, although she never played nor showed any interest in chess during my lifetime. I don’t remember playing a lot of games with my father or with his circle of chess partners in my youth; I believe they gave me rook or knight odds in some games when I was around ten, and once I got strong enough to win on even terms we rarely played. My father did take a board in one of my simuls when I was already a strong master, and he was the only winner out of 20 players; he earned the victory, I didn’t throw the game. In his old age, after all of his chess partners had died, we sometimes played at rook plus knight handicap (queen odds was too much), and the day before he died at age 96 he played chess (at rook odds I think) with my son Ray, who was already a master."


From the Book Chess Board Options by Larry Kaufman.

[lkaufman]

Happy Birthday Larry

I wish you and family all the best in future

Thanks! Curiously, today on my birthday Amazon finally started selling my book “Chess Board Options” months after some other outlets.

[carldaman]

It's a great day for a birthday, ain't it?
And on the same day, Chessbase is offering its big 25% discount.

[the_real_greco]

Well, it seems I'm late on two counts. To the birthday (which, happy belated birthday!) but also to the book, which somehow I didn't know existed. Time to order it and begin reading...

[Stephen Ham]

Dear GM Larry Kaufman,

Please accept my belated birthday wishes for your continued chess, chess engine, and personal successes.

All the very best!

ICCF GM - Stephen Ham