The recent memorials for Vassily Smyslov mentioned that he played at Lone Pine, the major international tournament in this country during the 1970s. "The Best of Lone Pine" was reissued in 2009 and contains many gems by Benko, Miles, Evans, Petrosian, Najdorf and other famous grandmasters. Some of the other participants are still around: Jack Peters writes the chess column in the L.A. Times, Joel Benjamin, Nick de Firmian, John Watson, Jon Speelman and Larry Christiansen are active on the Web, and Tony Saidy frequently writes to Alex Baburin on Chess Today.com. I'm wondering: how did the chess careers of some of the others turned out? Jim Tarjan quit chess and Roy Ervin had a sad breakdown, but is anyone able to bring the story down to date?

Memories of Lone Pine 1978: I went with Roy Ervin to Lone Pine in 1978. We stayed with Anatoly Lein who won that year. I remember him playing Roy speed chess, 5min. to 3 min., watching the news and kicking my but in a blind fold game! I remember Roy and I playing the Donaldson brothers in speed team chess. And my favorite memory was when Petrosian and Polugaevsky arrived. The event was held at the Lone Pine Armory Building. It had at the entrance large double doors. They opened both doors when they entered. Wearing trench coats and marching together through those doors, they looked like KGB! I also remember beating Walter Browne out of $50.00 (not in chess of course but in backgammon). That man would bet on two rain drops racing to the bottom of a window.