U.S. Champion, Candidate
By the late 1960s, he was playing chess semi-professionally. He won the 1972 U.S. Championship; after tying with Samuel Reshevsky and Lubomir Kavalek in the tournament proper, Byrne won the 1973 playoff at Chicago. Byrne achieved his career highlight of third place at the Leningrad Interzonal in 1973, with 12.5/17, which made him only the fourth American (after Samuel Reshevsky, Bobby Fischer, and Pál Benkő) to qualify for the Candidates Tournament (part of the world chess championship process). Byrne lost his first-round Candidates' match to former world champion Boris Spassky by 1.5–4.5 at San Juan, Puerto Rico 1974.
As a 1974 Candidate, Byrne was seeded directly to the 1976 Biel Interzonal, where he performed very strongly, but missed a playoff berth by only half a point, sharing 5–6th places with 11.5/17.
Read more about this topic: Robert Byrne (chess Player)
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