Southern California Chess Federation
Hall of Fame

IM Cyrus Lakdawala

USCF Record

FIDE Record

Accomplishments

• For the last twenty years, Cyrus has been more of an author than a tournament participant, but especially during the 1990s he was one of the most dominant Southern Californian chess players in open and closed events.
• Hailing from San Diego, Cyrus Lakdawala began defeating masters as a teenager, but really achieved high-level success in his late 20s and 30s.
• FIDE Master (FM), 1986
  International Master (IM), 2002
• Cyrus won the SoCal Open on three occasions (1987, 1995 and 2003) and won the Closed Invitational State Championship five times (1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2004).
• In 1987, Cyrus won the National Open, and in 1998, he won the American Open and the US G/60 Championship.
• Cyrus won the US G/30 three times in the early 2000s. And, he won the American Open blitz in 1986 and the National Open blitz in 2000.
• Since Cyrus began a career as an author, he has declined to play in major tournaments; Nevertheless, he has remained active in local San Diego encounters, such as the Gambito events that are approaching their 1100-week iteration, and has played approximately 4,000 rated games in a 55-year career.
• In 2024, Cyrus completed his 71st chess book, including move-by-move analysis of players from Capablanca to Caruana.
• From 1983 to 1992, Cyrus wrote a syndicated chess column for Copley News Service, which was featured in over 300 newspapers, worldwide.
• His Rank and File partnership with IM Jack Peters is so well regarded as a high point in local chess journalism, and there can certainly be no better gift for a chess player than to learn more about the game with rigor and humor, the trademark of Cyrus and his prolific pen.