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Walter Shipman (1929-2017)
March 17, 2017
An obituary of Walter Shipman by John Donaldson has just appeared. To my mind it is what a good summary of a life in chess should be, well-written and glowing with humanity.
https://new.uschess.org/news/walter-shipman-1929-2017/
I give the first few paragraphs:
American chess has suffered a great loss with the death of International Master Walter Shipman at the age of 87. Shipman, who died on February 28th in San Francisco, had been ill for some time.
Walter Shipman was born in New York on April 18, 1929, and first received national attention when he finished near the top of the field in the 1946 U.S. Open. This was the debut not only for him, but a golden generation of players including Robert and Donald Byrne, Larry Evans and Arthur Bisguier, who would soon transform American chess.
Unlike most of them Shipman never played professionally, despite being one of the top dozen players in the United States for most of the 1950s. He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University and worked as a lawyer his entire professional life.
Shipman was quite active as a player throughout the late 1940s and 1950s and competed in two strong events during that time, performing creditably in both. He scored 4-6 in the 1955-56 Rosenwald, a six-player double round robin that was a defacto U.S. Championship.
His win, on the Black side of the Budapest Defense against Sammy Reshevsky, was one of the key games of the tournament. Shipman was 4-5 in the 1959 Log Cabin Invitational (Lombardy, Benko, Evans, Bisguier, R. Byrne, etc.) that had many of the same players who competed in the U.S. Championship later that year.
The Manhattan Chess Club was Shipman’s home base from the beginning of his career until he moved with his wife Mary to San Francisco in the mid-1990s. He first made a name for himself in the weekly blitz tournaments, and not long after became a fixture in its lineup in the Metropolitan team league, an important competition before the rise of weekend tournaments. Shipman also competed regularly in the championship of America’s strongest club winning it six times (1972, =1974, 1984, 1985, = 1994, 1995).
Walter Shipman will be remembered as more than a player. His intelligence, wit, friendliness and sense of fair play will not be forgotten. Nor will his contributions away from the board. During the 1950s, before family life (his son Joe and daughter Judy are both accomplished tournament players) and career stepped in, Shipman was active as an administrator for the U.S. Chess Federation and the Manhattan Chess Club. It was in the latter capacity that he persuaded his fellow directors to make an exception and waive the age requirement to allow 12-year-old Bobby Fischer to join the M.C.C. in August 1955.
Almost exactly two years later Fischer and Shipman would draw in the last round of the 1957 U.S. Open in Cleveland, the scene of Bobby’s first great triumph. Shipman would finish equal fourth, one of many high placings over the years in U.S. Opens – equal third in 1950 and tied for second forty-five years later!
The two would meet again in an invitational blitz tournament held in August 1971 at the Manhattan Chess Club to honor the club’s new quarters and Fischer’s 6-0 victories over Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen. Bobby ran away with the event, scoring 21 ½ out of 22, drawing only Walter Shipman. The latter was winning that game but simply ran out of time against the super speedy Fischer. It was Shipman who perhaps best expressed what it was like to play Fischer as he got stronger and stronger; “It began to feel as though you were playing against chess itself.”
_________
Two comments:
Judee Shipman - Thank you all, especially John Donaldson, for sharing your wonderful thoughts about my sweet dad. I’m glad he’ll be remembered. My clearest memory of him is riding around on his back in our living room when I was three. He was my horsie!
Sunil Weeramantry - Although Walter did not play professionally, he always had the utmost respect for professional players. I once lamented that when I responded to the question “what do you do for a living?” by replying “I play chess”, I would invariably be asked “But what do you REALLY do?” Walter was horrified. “They would never ask that from Muhammad Ali,” he said.
I recall Walter grinding me down in a gruelling rook and pawn endgame. He would dip his fingers in a glass of water, wipe his forehead and get back to work. He was quite apologetic afterwards. “I had an extra tempo so I had to keep playing, ” he explained.
But what I will remember the most is this piece of wisdom. “There are more than a dozen qualities that go towards making a great chess player,” he told me, “and at least 10 of then have nothing to do with chess.”
I share this advice with my students. Thank you Walter.
March 17, 2017
An obituary of Walter Shipman by John Donaldson has just appeared. To my mind it is what a good summary of a life in chess should be, well-written and glowing with humanity.
https://new.uschess.org/news/walter-shipman-1929-2017/
I give the first few paragraphs:
American chess has suffered a great loss with the death of International Master Walter Shipman at the age of 87. Shipman, who died on February 28th in San Francisco, had been ill for some time.
Walter Shipman was born in New York on April 18, 1929, and first received national attention when he finished near the top of the field in the 1946 U.S. Open. This was the debut not only for him, but a golden generation of players including Robert and Donald Byrne, Larry Evans and Arthur Bisguier, who would soon transform American chess.
Unlike most of them Shipman never played professionally, despite being one of the top dozen players in the United States for most of the 1950s. He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University and worked as a lawyer his entire professional life.
Shipman was quite active as a player throughout the late 1940s and 1950s and competed in two strong events during that time, performing creditably in both. He scored 4-6 in the 1955-56 Rosenwald, a six-player double round robin that was a defacto U.S. Championship.
His win, on the Black side of the Budapest Defense against Sammy Reshevsky, was one of the key games of the tournament. Shipman was 4-5 in the 1959 Log Cabin Invitational (Lombardy, Benko, Evans, Bisguier, R. Byrne, etc.) that had many of the same players who competed in the U.S. Championship later that year.
The Manhattan Chess Club was Shipman’s home base from the beginning of his career until he moved with his wife Mary to San Francisco in the mid-1990s. He first made a name for himself in the weekly blitz tournaments, and not long after became a fixture in its lineup in the Metropolitan team league, an important competition before the rise of weekend tournaments. Shipman also competed regularly in the championship of America’s strongest club winning it six times (1972, =1974, 1984, 1985, = 1994, 1995).
Walter Shipman will be remembered as more than a player. His intelligence, wit, friendliness and sense of fair play will not be forgotten. Nor will his contributions away from the board. During the 1950s, before family life (his son Joe and daughter Judy are both accomplished tournament players) and career stepped in, Shipman was active as an administrator for the U.S. Chess Federation and the Manhattan Chess Club. It was in the latter capacity that he persuaded his fellow directors to make an exception and waive the age requirement to allow 12-year-old Bobby Fischer to join the M.C.C. in August 1955.
Almost exactly two years later Fischer and Shipman would draw in the last round of the 1957 U.S. Open in Cleveland, the scene of Bobby’s first great triumph. Shipman would finish equal fourth, one of many high placings over the years in U.S. Opens – equal third in 1950 and tied for second forty-five years later!
The two would meet again in an invitational blitz tournament held in August 1971 at the Manhattan Chess Club to honor the club’s new quarters and Fischer’s 6-0 victories over Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen. Bobby ran away with the event, scoring 21 ½ out of 22, drawing only Walter Shipman. The latter was winning that game but simply ran out of time against the super speedy Fischer. It was Shipman who perhaps best expressed what it was like to play Fischer as he got stronger and stronger; “It began to feel as though you were playing against chess itself.”
_________
Two comments:
Judee Shipman - Thank you all, especially John Donaldson, for sharing your wonderful thoughts about my sweet dad. I’m glad he’ll be remembered. My clearest memory of him is riding around on his back in our living room when I was three. He was my horsie!
Sunil Weeramantry - Although Walter did not play professionally, he always had the utmost respect for professional players. I once lamented that when I responded to the question “what do you do for a living?” by replying “I play chess”, I would invariably be asked “But what do you REALLY do?” Walter was horrified. “They would never ask that from Muhammad Ali,” he said.
I recall Walter grinding me down in a gruelling rook and pawn endgame. He would dip his fingers in a glass of water, wipe his forehead and get back to work. He was quite apologetic afterwards. “I had an extra tempo so I had to keep playing, ” he explained.
But what I will remember the most is this piece of wisdom. “There are more than a dozen qualities that go towards making a great chess player,” he told me, “and at least 10 of then have nothing to do with chess.”
I share this advice with my students. Thank you Walter.
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