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Shelby Lyman Dies at Age 82
August 18, 2019
From the US Chess site:
Shelby Lyman
A long-time nationally syndicated chess columnist and the face of the Fischer-Spassky match in America, Shelby Lyman died Sunday at age 82.
The nephew of Harry Lyman, the “dean of New England Chess,” Lyman cut his chess teeth in Boston, where he attended Harvard, before moving to New York and becoming a master.
Lyman’s star turn came in 1972, when America was deep in the grip of Fischer-fever. He led PBS’s coverage of the Fischer-Spassky match, bringing chess to millions of people who, in other circumstances, might never have been exposed to the game. The show became so popular, Lyman told Dylan Loeb McClain in 2008, that it temporarily pushed Sesame Street off the air.
Lyman’s storied career as a chess columnist began immediately after the 1972 match ended. Originally written for New York’s Newsday, it was at its peak syndicated to 82 newspapers, with 45 still carrying the column when Lyman died.
Lyman is survived by his wife, Michele, and a large, loving family.
https://new.uschess.org/news/shelby-lyman-dies-age-82/
__________
George Mirijanian - My condolences to the Lyman family and his extended families. I first met Shelby in June 1964, when he played in the 4th Central New England Open in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. That tournament was won by IM William Addison. Shelby, who was 27 years old at the time, was one of the runners-up. He was at the tournament in Fitchburg with his uncle, Harry Lyman, who had taught him the game when he was 9 years old. Shelby certainly made his mark in chess, both as a TV chess personality and a longtime chess columnist. It is reported that Shelby’s weekly chess column was published – at its peak – in 82 newspapers worldwide. I believe no other chess columnist has his column appear in so many papers around the world. It must be a record. Rest in peace, Shelbourne “Shelby” Richard Lyman.
John Procopi - Listening to Shelby and Edmar Mednis was fantastic. Still rings clear in my brain almost 50 years later. RIP-you and Edmar brought me much joy
Jason Braun - I had just started playing tournament chess in late 1971 while in high school. My chess friend and I were transfixed by every world championship game on Channel 13 in NY. I still remember the teletype ding, followed by “we have a move”. I was lucky enough to meet (and play) him at a simul the following year. Very gracious and down-to-earth person.
Jude Acers – All-time great survivor.
_________
Shelby Lyman interviewed by Dylan Loeb McClain in January 2008 in the NYT
Q: How did you get involved in the coverage?
A: As I remember it, I was giving chess lessons to Mike Chase, who had a very important job with PBS then, who ran the facilities for half a dozen stations. He was very enamored by chess and he was very excited by the teaching I did. One day I suggested, with the Fischer-Spassky match coming up, would it be possible to put something on PBS. Between the two of us, we got this thing going.
The initial idea was to go on every hour and do an update. It kept increasing. We finally decided that we would go on for two hours and do move-by-move.
I thought it was crazy. I said, “How can you explain chess when there is no interaction?” The audience can’t ask me questions. But anyway that is what we decided to do.
And we went on on that first day, before [Channel] 13 went on their regular schedule, and then we were supposed to go off for an hour for the break. … The final format was that we would go on for two hours until 3 o’clock, which was when NET’s program day started … and then revert to a report every hour.
We got so many phone calls [praising the broadcast] that we pre-empted “Sesame Street,” and we became a five-hour move-by-move show. And we did that for the next 21 games.
Within 10 days or two weeks, we had 1 million people watching in New York alone. It was phenomenal. We had the largest audience in the history of public television, doing chess. And of course, at that time, according to a Harris Poll, only 20 percent of the adult population over the age of 18 knew the moves of the game.
Q: My recollection is that it was a pretty low-budget in the studio.
A: Oh, it didn’t have anything what they call production values. And, of course, it was live, which led to one particularly interesting event later. It was almost hokey, because I had no television experience, and we had very limited equipment up in Albany.
We had a low ceiling. It’s the middle of summer. It’s 90 degrees. I’m wearing a black suit. There’s no air conditioning. And we had this demonstration board with this shelf to put the pieces on.
Well, there wasn’t enough room on the shelf, so I was putting pieces in my pants pocket, my shirt pocket, my jacket pocket, and I was reaching into the various pockets at times to find the pieces. Pieces would drop on the floor, and I’d say, “Just a minute!” and I’d bend down to pick up the piece, while keeping my face on the camera if I could.
Q: Sounds a little nerve-racking.
A: I felt very comfortable. I didn’t care. It wasn’t intrinsically a problem. And actually the physical activity, walking from one board to the other — we had a demonstration board where we analyzed and the we had the game board — that was one of the best things for me, that physical movement. It actually got me into a rhythm of doing the match.
And the fact that we had a wall board which you could slide the pieces in, rather than magnetic, was phenomenal in terms of the rhythm and the flow. I later tried to do things with magnetic pieces, and it just didn’t look the same. Those two things were extremely important, believe it or not.
Q: How did you handle the updates from Reykjavik?
A: The move was the event. And every time that move came in, we went to the move. A bell rang, and the move was posted, and we went to the move. And that created a tremendous sense of excitement. No matter what we were saying, no matter who I was interviewing, we stopped and we went to the move. And that created a great dynamic and flow.
Q: Was there really a bell ringing? Whose idea was that?
A: It was one of those little teacher bells, where you hit the top and it goes ding-a-ling-a-ling. We didn’t have anything else. It wasn’t because we knew it would be so effective. It was.
And we had someone — usually a female, as things were done in those times — a woman would come in with a move on a piece of paper.
https://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...sultPosition=2
August 18, 2019
From the US Chess site:
Shelby Lyman
A long-time nationally syndicated chess columnist and the face of the Fischer-Spassky match in America, Shelby Lyman died Sunday at age 82.
The nephew of Harry Lyman, the “dean of New England Chess,” Lyman cut his chess teeth in Boston, where he attended Harvard, before moving to New York and becoming a master.
Lyman’s star turn came in 1972, when America was deep in the grip of Fischer-fever. He led PBS’s coverage of the Fischer-Spassky match, bringing chess to millions of people who, in other circumstances, might never have been exposed to the game. The show became so popular, Lyman told Dylan Loeb McClain in 2008, that it temporarily pushed Sesame Street off the air.
Lyman’s storied career as a chess columnist began immediately after the 1972 match ended. Originally written for New York’s Newsday, it was at its peak syndicated to 82 newspapers, with 45 still carrying the column when Lyman died.
Lyman is survived by his wife, Michele, and a large, loving family.
https://new.uschess.org/news/shelby-lyman-dies-age-82/
__________
George Mirijanian - My condolences to the Lyman family and his extended families. I first met Shelby in June 1964, when he played in the 4th Central New England Open in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. That tournament was won by IM William Addison. Shelby, who was 27 years old at the time, was one of the runners-up. He was at the tournament in Fitchburg with his uncle, Harry Lyman, who had taught him the game when he was 9 years old. Shelby certainly made his mark in chess, both as a TV chess personality and a longtime chess columnist. It is reported that Shelby’s weekly chess column was published – at its peak – in 82 newspapers worldwide. I believe no other chess columnist has his column appear in so many papers around the world. It must be a record. Rest in peace, Shelbourne “Shelby” Richard Lyman.
John Procopi - Listening to Shelby and Edmar Mednis was fantastic. Still rings clear in my brain almost 50 years later. RIP-you and Edmar brought me much joy
Jason Braun - I had just started playing tournament chess in late 1971 while in high school. My chess friend and I were transfixed by every world championship game on Channel 13 in NY. I still remember the teletype ding, followed by “we have a move”. I was lucky enough to meet (and play) him at a simul the following year. Very gracious and down-to-earth person.
Jude Acers – All-time great survivor.
_________
Shelby Lyman interviewed by Dylan Loeb McClain in January 2008 in the NYT
Q: How did you get involved in the coverage?
A: As I remember it, I was giving chess lessons to Mike Chase, who had a very important job with PBS then, who ran the facilities for half a dozen stations. He was very enamored by chess and he was very excited by the teaching I did. One day I suggested, with the Fischer-Spassky match coming up, would it be possible to put something on PBS. Between the two of us, we got this thing going.
The initial idea was to go on every hour and do an update. It kept increasing. We finally decided that we would go on for two hours and do move-by-move.
I thought it was crazy. I said, “How can you explain chess when there is no interaction?” The audience can’t ask me questions. But anyway that is what we decided to do.
And we went on on that first day, before [Channel] 13 went on their regular schedule, and then we were supposed to go off for an hour for the break. … The final format was that we would go on for two hours until 3 o’clock, which was when NET’s program day started … and then revert to a report every hour.
We got so many phone calls [praising the broadcast] that we pre-empted “Sesame Street,” and we became a five-hour move-by-move show. And we did that for the next 21 games.
Within 10 days or two weeks, we had 1 million people watching in New York alone. It was phenomenal. We had the largest audience in the history of public television, doing chess. And of course, at that time, according to a Harris Poll, only 20 percent of the adult population over the age of 18 knew the moves of the game.
Q: My recollection is that it was a pretty low-budget in the studio.
A: Oh, it didn’t have anything what they call production values. And, of course, it was live, which led to one particularly interesting event later. It was almost hokey, because I had no television experience, and we had very limited equipment up in Albany.
We had a low ceiling. It’s the middle of summer. It’s 90 degrees. I’m wearing a black suit. There’s no air conditioning. And we had this demonstration board with this shelf to put the pieces on.
Well, there wasn’t enough room on the shelf, so I was putting pieces in my pants pocket, my shirt pocket, my jacket pocket, and I was reaching into the various pockets at times to find the pieces. Pieces would drop on the floor, and I’d say, “Just a minute!” and I’d bend down to pick up the piece, while keeping my face on the camera if I could.
Q: Sounds a little nerve-racking.
A: I felt very comfortable. I didn’t care. It wasn’t intrinsically a problem. And actually the physical activity, walking from one board to the other — we had a demonstration board where we analyzed and the we had the game board — that was one of the best things for me, that physical movement. It actually got me into a rhythm of doing the match.
And the fact that we had a wall board which you could slide the pieces in, rather than magnetic, was phenomenal in terms of the rhythm and the flow. I later tried to do things with magnetic pieces, and it just didn’t look the same. Those two things were extremely important, believe it or not.
Q: How did you handle the updates from Reykjavik?
A: The move was the event. And every time that move came in, we went to the move. A bell rang, and the move was posted, and we went to the move. And that created a tremendous sense of excitement. No matter what we were saying, no matter who I was interviewing, we stopped and we went to the move. And that created a great dynamic and flow.
Q: Was there really a bell ringing? Whose idea was that?
A: It was one of those little teacher bells, where you hit the top and it goes ding-a-ling-a-ling. We didn’t have anything else. It wasn’t because we knew it would be so effective. It was.
And we had someone — usually a female, as things were done in those times — a woman would come in with a move on a piece of paper.
https://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...sultPosition=2
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