Club Championship 2020

Hungarian Benko learnt chess from his father at the age of eight but didn't compete in tournament chess until seventeen because of World War 2. The war took its toll on his family with his mother dying and his father, himself and his brother imprisoned in forced labour camps in the USSR by the 'liberating' Soviet forces in 1945. He eventually escaped back to Hungary when his chess rapidly improved enabling him to win the Hungarian Championship in 1948. He qualified for the 1952 World Championship Interzonal but was caught and imprisoned whilst attempting to defect to the US Embassy in Berlin. He was eventually released after the death of Stalin and represented Hungary at the 1956 Moscow Olympiad. Whilst in Reyjavik in 1957 Pal managed to successfully defect and subsequently emigrated to the United States in 1958, the same year that FIDE awarded him the title of Grand Master.

Once in the US his chess flourished and he won the US Championship a record eight times between 1961 and 1975. He represented the US in every Olympiad from 1962 to 1972 and he qualified for the World Championship Candidates Tournaments finishing eighth in 1959 and sixth in 1962. Perhaps his greatest contribution to chess was to cede his qualification for the 1970 World Championship Interzonals to Bobby Fischer who went on to win the title in 1972. Without Benko's altruism Fischer would not have had an opportunity to challenge Spassky for at least another three years. It was an act of kindness that Fischer respected and Benko was one of the few people with whom Fischer maintained contact with in later years.

Although Benko never claimed the title he did beat four World Champions at various stages in their careers, Fischer, Tal, Petrosian and Smyslov being his victims. Indeed it was with 1.g3, the Benko Opening that he pioneered in the 1962 Candidates, that he beat both Fischer and Tal. The Benko Gambit (1.d4,Nf6; 2.c4,c5; 3.d5,b5;) was also popularised by him in the 1960's.

In later life Benko returned to his native Hungary and became a highly rated chess tutor; he included such luminaries as the Polgar sisters and Peter Leko amongst his pupils for which he is fondly remembered by Susan Polgar with his obituary on her chess blog. Benko died in his native Budapest in August 2019 aged 91.