Southern California Chess Federation
Hall of Fame

IM Anthony Saidy

USCF Record

FIDE Record

Accomplishments

• When the name of Anthony Saidy is brought up in chess circles, the usual context is some story connected to Bobby Fischer—Saidy losing the final game in Fischer’s 11-0 sweep of the US Championship in 1964, or Saidy secretly housing Bobby in 1972, and then persuading him to play against Spassky in Iceland. This context is a bit misleading because Anthony Saidy was actually one of America’s strongest players (and the highest rated Southern Californian) during his peak years of the 1960s and 1970s.
  
  Saidy was also a polymath who served as a doctor in the Peace Corps, provided experti se on the treatment of tuberculosis for Los Angeles County until his late 70s, and wrote several weighty chess books, ranging from deeply analytical to aestheti cally appealing. And his playing skills have remained strong; his defeat of GM Vladimir Belous in 2019 at the Nati onal Open made Saidy the oldest player ever to win over a grandmaster (82 years old).
  
  1960 was a break-out year for this Los Angeles nati ve. He won the Canadian Open, and then played for the US Student Team, which took the gold medal for the only time in history. In the first American Open (1965) Saidy took 3rd place, and later won the event twice, in 1967 and amazingly in 1992. He participated in the US championship eight times, most recently in 2002, at the age of 65. In 1967, he also finished 2nd at the US Open, and then won the Venice International Tournament, earning him the IM title.
  
  From 1967-1970, Saidy was the highest rated player from Southern California, often by a large margin. His highest FIDE rating was 2532, and USCF ratings vacillated between 2450-2500 at a ti me when fewer than a dozen Americans had reached that level. Later, Saidy also acted as a high-level coach, and was named the captain for the 1978 US Women’s Olympiad team.