| I am Frederick Rhine. The United States Chess Federation awarded me the titles of National Master (at OTB chess) in 1983, and Senior Master of Correspondence Chess in 1997. In February 2024, less than a year after I began playing in the ICCF, it awarded me the title of Correspondence Chess Master. It looks like later this year I will qualify for the title of International Correspondence Chess Master. As of September 2025, I am the second highest rated USCF correspondence chess player, just three rating points behind Gordon Magat. https://www.uschess.org/assets/top_... The August 2020 issue of Chess Life magazine had a profile of me (for the text, see Frederick Rhine (my August 1, 2020 comment in the forum)). I played in the 1997 USCF Absolute Championship (open to the top 13 correspondence players who accept their invitations), scoring 6-6 (+2 =8 -2). The late Alex Dunne wrote in his book on the Absolute Championships, "This was Rhine's only Absolute and he held his own against the best. His two losses were against previous Absolute winners." http://bit.ly/1NB55YP That book contains my games F Rhine vs R Lifson, 1997 and F Rhine vs D Burris, 1997. But the 1997 event was not my only Absolute. I have also played in the 2023-25 events. In the 2023 edition, I drew all 12 games. That was enough to tie for second! Unlike the 1997 event, this one was under ICCF auspices and allowed the use of engines. There was only one decisive game! https://www.iccf.com/event?id=101114 In the 2024 Absolute, I have ten draws and a win(!), with just one game left, which will very likely be drawn. https://www.iccf.com/event?id=105325 This time +1 will probably only be enough to tie for fourth. In the 2025 Absolute, I have drawn all twelve games. So far there are no decisive games in the event. I have played first board for the Rogue Squadron in the Chicago Industrial Chess League. I have played online for the Shropshire & Friends team in the 4 Nations Chess League (4NCL), and the Oswestry team in the Shropshire League. I attended Lane Technical High School in Chicago with the late Chessgames.com co-founder Alberto A Artidiello until he moved out of Chicago. Lane's chess team won the Illinois state championship my junior and senior years, becoming the first school ever to win consecutive championships. Albert also became a master, as did my teammates Kenneth Mohr and Christopher Kus. The late FIDE Masters Albert Charles Chow and Morris Giles were also Laneites. In July 2013, I played in my second and third regular-rated tournaments of the millennium(!), the Greater Midwest Classic and the Chicago Class (under-2200 section). I tied for second, undefeated, in both, winning $700 and $550, respectively, and brought my rating back over 2200. http://www.uschess.org/assets/msa_j... http://www.uschess.org/assets/msa_j... I have contributed to hundreds of chess-related articles on Wikipedia under the handle Krakatoa, notably "First-move advantage in chess," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-... "George H. D. Gossip," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George... and "Swindle (chess)," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_..., all of which are almost entirely written by me. The first two of those have been Today's Featured Article, the highest honor a Wikipedia article can receive, one attained by about one out of every 1,400 articles. I have received various Wikipedia awards, including the Imperial Triple Crown Jewels and the Timeless Imperial Triple Crown (which only 12 Wikipedians have received). My user page is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:K.... Al Lawrence in the aforementioned Chess Life article referred to my "erudite chess articles on Wikipedia." Chess historian Edward Winter in his article "Wikipedia and Chess" commended my Wikipedia articles on Gossip and Hugh Edward Myers. (The latter article is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_....) https://www.chesshistory.com/winter... I am the editor and proofreader of the book "Tournament Battle Plan: Optimize Your Chess Results!" by Daniel Gormally. I was the proofreader of the book "Triple Exclam!!! The Life and Games of Emory Tate, Chess Warrior" by Daaim Shabazz. I was a contributor to the now-defunct Chicago Chess Blog, http://chicagochess.blogspot.com. I discovered, and documented in my blog post https://chicagochess.blogspot.com/2..., what Taylor Kingston calls "the Mortimer Effect," which has lowered the Morphy Numbers of many modern players (maybe you!). https://chesscafe.com/the-skittles-... I have a Morphy Number of 4 by virtue of L Barden vs F Rhine, 2010 as well as two simul games I lost to Arthur Bisguier when I was in high school. Six hundred and forty-four of my games are in chessgames.com's database. My favorites are F Rhine vs D Sprenkle, 1981, K Thompson vs F Rhine, 1992, and F Rhine vs A Boerkoel, 1996, each of which has been Game of the Day. Rhine-Sprenkle was published with my annotations in Chess Informant (Volume 32) and cited in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (Vol. B (2nd ed.) at 183 n.19). In Volume 33 of Chess Informant, my 18th move (18.Nxd6!) in that game was voted the 8th-9th most important theoretical novelty in Volume 32. The game was also cited in MCO-13 and "The Aggressive Nimzowitsch Sicilian 2...Nf6" by Eric Schiller, and occupies an entire chapter in all three editions of "Beating the Sicilian" by John Nunn. It is game 218 in "1000 TN!! The Best Theoretical Novelties" (Chess Informant, 2012). Anish Giri, in his 2023 Chessable course "Lifetime Repertoires: Giri's 1. e4 - Part 3" recommends this line for White. https://www.chessable.com/lifetime-... Following my game against Sprenkle, he writes after 22.Be3, "The computer evaluates this as completely hopeless for Black and it is. Our king is in fact much safer, thanks to our much better pieces." https://www.chessable.com/learn/159... More than 40 years after I played the game, my line still kicks ass! 
click for larger viewThompson-Rhine was published with my annotations in Chess Informant (Volume 57), and cited in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (Vol. B (3rd ed.) at 172 n.163). Jeremy Silman discusses the game and my analysis of it in his book "Winning with the Sicilian Defence" (2nd ed.). Probably the best game I have ever played is the astonishing F Rhine vs B Lemke, 2025, but it's too deep for me to understand. It was an ICCF game and I was greatly assisted by Stockfish 17.1 (which is legal on ICCF). I doubt that any unaided human could have played that game. Joel Johnson in his book "Attacking 101: Volume #005" says of my blitz game F Rhine vs NN, 2019, "White played a flawless Smith-Morra Gambit that IM Marc Esserman would have been proud of." Georges Koltanowski published F Rhine vs A Artidiello, 1974 in his syndicated newspaper column. Richard Palliser discusses the opening of F Rhine vs S Nagle, 1997 in his book "tango!" I have played some theoretically significant correspondence games in the Damiano Variation of Petroff's Defense (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 Nxe4!?), demonstrating that Black's third move, commonly regarded as a blunder, is fully playable. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/che... Nikolaos Ntirlis analyzes two of my games in an article on the variation in Volume 158 of Chess Informant. Cyrus Lakdawala and Carsten Hansen include five of my games in their book on the line, "None Shall Pass: The Unbeatable Damiano Petroff: A tricky and surprisingly solid defense." Jacob Aagaard analyzes the endings of two of my Internet blitz games in his 896-page tome "A Matter of Endgame Technique" (alas, mine was lacking). Cyrus Lakdawala includes my study-like win in F Rhine vs A Zhao, 2019 in his book "Tactical Training in the Endgame." He also mentions me, albeit not by name, in his book "In the Zone: The Greatest Winning Streaks in Chess History" when he refers to "The Classical Sicilian, which as one of my atheist students told me, is the closest thing he has to a religion." Cyrus analyzes my game against Gadir Guseinov in his book "The Makogonov Variation: A ruthless King's Indian killer." Commentator Mato Jelic somewhat extravagantly calls my game E Sollano vs F Rhine, 1977 "The Greatest Ever Blitz Game Played in Chicago." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl8... See also Suren's analysis at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWa... My 7...Bxc5!! in that game, played the year before Boris Avrukh was born, is a big improvement on the flaccid 7...Bg6, his recommendation in the book "Beating 1.d4 Sidelines" (2012). Someone also made a video (moves only) of J Aagaard vs F Rhine, 2021, a 2-1 bullet game where I drew and should've beaten the grandmaster - if only I'd had time! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-O... Someone else (or perhaps two different people) did a video (moves only) of Tal vs F Rhine, 1988, my loss to the great Mikhail Tal in a simul. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfk... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3o... The latter refers to me as a "great grandmaster!" which isn't quite accurate . . . User: JimmyVermeer discusses my games NN vs F Rhine, 2021, P Pantelidakis vs F Rhine, 1974, and P Napetschnig vs F Rhine, 1977 in his video "The 109 fastest checkmates in chess history, part 10 of 11." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GT... The sequel "The 109 fastest checkmates in chess history, part 11 of 11," contains a Fool's Mate I played, which I had mentioned in a comment on this site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Z... Napetschnig-Rhine is also mentioned in https://www.chess.com/terms/fools-m.... Rick Kennedy discusses my game F Rhine vs NN, 2018 on his Jerome Gambit blog. https://jeromegambit.blogspot.com/2... My game F Rhine vs NN, 2010 is mentioned in the "Checkmate Patterns Course" by Raf Mesotten and John Bartholomew on chessable.com. I composed this study, which Pal Benko published in "Benko's Bafflers" in Chess Life, May 2006: White to play and draw 
click for larger viewThe solution is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stale... It is based on an earlier study of mine, also published in Benko's column. Both compositions also appear in Harold van der Heijden's endgame study database. https://www.chess.com/news/view/76-... The above study is also cited in "The Complete Chess Swindler" by David Smerdon and "Rewire Your Chess Brain: Endgame Studies and Mating Problems to Enhance Your Tactical Ability" by Cyrus Lakdawala. I was once one of the world's best players at suicide chess (also known as "losing chess"), a chess variant where one wins by giving away all of one's pieces. http://perpetualcheck.com/antichess... I have successfully submitted 240 puns for Game of the Day. Game Collection: Puns I submitted. User: johnlspouge has remarked, "As far as I can tell, <FSR> is churning out 'actual puns' almost as fast as I can [insert bodily function of choice]." K Tjolsen vs S Marder, 2010. The coveted 2013 Caissar for Best (Worst) Pun went to "Control-Ault-Delete," the pun I submitted for Fischer vs R Ault, 1959, the Game of the Day on December 19, 2012. I won the 2019 Caissar in the same category for my greatest pun ever (and IMO one of the greatest chessgames puns ever) "Late December Back in '63: What a Lady, What a Knight!," N Littlewood vs B Brinck-Claussen, 1963, the Game of the Day on December 30, 2019. Since Caissars are awarded in January, my wins may illustrate recency bias. Nine of my games have been Game of the Day: NN vs F Rhine, 1977 ("Strangers on a Train"), F Rhine vs F Lasch, 1986 ("Lasch Call"), K Thompson vs F Rhine, 1992 ("Like a Rhinestone Cowboy"), R Delaune vs F Rhine, 1997 ("Red Red Rhine"), F Rhine vs D Burris, 1997 ("Fred Rhine Felled"), F Felecan vs F Rhine, 2019 ("Felecan Brief"), F Rhine vs D Sprenkle, 1981 ("Sparkling Rhine"), F Rhine vs A Boerkoel, 1996 ("Das Rhinegold"), and F Rhine vs NN, 2018 ("'Twas the Night Before Christmas"). Six wins, a draw, and two losses. I am responsible for World Junior Championship (1957), Vidmar Memorial (1969), Carlsen - Anand World Championship Match (2014), Game Collection: Drawing lines, and 32nd Correspondence World Championship (2020), among others. Legendary chess journalist Leonard Barden recently told me in an email, "I follow your many thoughtful contributions to chessgames.com with interest." I am a member of the ChessBookie Hall of Fame, having finished fourth in the Summer 2015 Leg, seventh in the Winter 2016 Championship Leg, ninth in the Winter 2017 Championship Leg, ninth in the Spring 2017 Leg, and seventh in the Summer 2017 Leg. I am very active on Chessable, where my handle is "Krakatoa." https://www.chessable.com/profile/K... I am a "Legend" and have 134 badges, five shy of the world record held by Maestro. https://www.chessable.com/badges/Ma... |
Kibitzing
, favouring Black")>. Now, you'd think it'd be fun to play a position that a GM says simply favors you, but I'm suddenly on my own and I feel only pressure to squeeze the justified win out of the position. It's complicated! The g-pawn and the Queen are dangerous. White has an annoying Nb5+ in some lines where I run my king over. Sure, my opponent is not a fish and wouldn't have gone for this if it were simply dead lost. But still, I want it to be smoother sailing, darnit. I just don't think I'm cut out for correspondence chess. 