Larry Evans-Bill Lombardy Match

William Lombardy and Larry Evans play below 1859 painting of Morphy by Charles Loring Elliott hanging in the Manhattan chess Club.
Behind the players stands George P.Edgar who donated the trophy.

The trophy, designed by Man Ray,  was originally offered in the aborted Fischer-Reshevsky with the idea of passing it on to future match winners.   This match was played in both the Marshall and the Manhattan Chess Clubs from  June 16 -29, 1962.

    
     Larry Evans, United States chess champion, narrowly defeated Grandmaster William Lombardy by a score of 5½ - 4½ in a 10-game match for the George P. Edgar Trophy.
     The contest was held at the Marshall and Manhattan chess clubs in New York City from June 16 to June 29. The match was hard fought from beginning to end. There were only three draws, none of them of the "grandmaster" variety. The shortest game—an Orangutan (or Polish) Opening—ended in a draw after 29 moves. The other drawn games (numbers four and nine) went to 67 and 81 moves respectively before play ended.
     Evans got off to a poor start, losing the first game (in which he had White) in 41 moves [40 moves with a sealed, but never played 41st move]. He made a quick recovery, however, and after drawing game two, won the third game, drew the fourth and won the fifth. Thus, at the halfway mark, he had a lead of 3-2 and the match moved from the Marshall club to the Manhattan.
     The second half of the struggle, was, if anything, more bitterly contested than the first. Lombardy, with White, won the sixth game, tying the match, but Evans came back to take the seventh. The eighth game proved decisive. Lombardy, for the only time in the match, lost with the white pieces. Thus he was two points down with only two games to go, and this margin proved too much—in spite of his most stubborn efforts.
     Games nine and ten were both adjourned, Lombardy having a winning advantage in number ten. On Friday, June 29, the players met for the last time at the Manhattan Club to play off the final two adjournments. If Lombardy could win the ninth game, the match would probably end in a tie. After 81 moves, however, the marathon encounter resulted in a draw by repetition. The tenth game was now a formality: Lombardy made his sealed move and Evans resigned.
     Thus Larry Evans had added another to his string of 1962 chess triumphs and had again demonstrated a Lasker-like ability to navigate his way to victory along the dangerous edge of defeat. Like Lasker, he had been lucky, and, like Lasker, he had deserved his luck. 
     As for Lombardy, the outcome of the match can hardly have been to his liking, but his reputation as one of the world's leading players was not at all tarnished. Completely without serious practice for many months, because of his studies, he naturally lacked something of the steadiness that usually characterizes his play. In a somewhat longer match, he might well have regained his deadly accuracy and given Evans fewer chances to "Laskerize."
     By winning, Evans received $900 of the $1500 purse donated by George P. Edgar through the American Chess Foundation. The match, sponsored by the USCF in cooperation with the ACF, was refereed by International Master Hans Kmoch. 

Below are games 1 and 3:

Lombardy has had a difficult time lately.

 Not really. Just this: https://en.chessbase.com/post/fischer-second-lombardy-faces-eviction

Thanks guys.

I looked and found the respective elo ratings but also something odd. I wanted to compare the ratings prior to the match to see where they were at the time, but, while Evans rating was there in the April 1962 listing, Lombardy's was nowhere to be found. I don't know for sure but I suspect ratings might have been calculated only for those active in the prior 12 month period.

April rating list for Senior Masters (Lombardy's name fell nowhere in the entire list)

But in August 1962, after the match, both players are listed.

As you can see,:  AFTER the match, Lombardy is only 5 pts. lower than Evans.

Paul Benko? Weird i've never seen his name westernised before. But Hans Berliner did not become a Hank or Edmar Mednis an Eddie.

He's called Paul quite a bit in the early 60s publications.

Lombardy has annotations for the first game in his book 'Understanding Chess', an interesting book for anyone interested in US chess in that time period.  He has stories about nearly all the players listed here.  I think Lombardy, Hearst and Benko are still living, someone correct me if I am wrong.

Here is a brill game annotated by the legendary Lombardy from the American chess quarterly, Fall 1961, page 42.

His calculation and positional understanding is simply amazing.

I tip my half full glass of Sierra Nevada Topedo towards Robbie for taking the time and energy to transcribe this game.

I just published an article on Tony Santasiere (https://www.chess.com/article/view/santasiere-s-folly).  One of the games I transcribed while working on it, but didn't include was this game between Santasiere and Lombardy played after a Lombardy hiatus and just before Santasiere retired:

"If" Off
Two players of whom little has been heard in recent years have shown thay still know their trade very well.  Santasiere, who tied for second behind Lombardy, loses this game mainly because of the variation.  White starts with an initial advantage but has no easy job;  and, if he cooperates just a little as often happens, Black may do well.  Here, however, there is no such "if."

(notes by Al Horowitz)

One returns the compliment and I thank you so much for plucking these dusky gems from the past and dusting them off to let them shine once more.  Slainte.