Nick de Firmian

Nicholas Ernest de Firmian (born July 26, 1957) is an American chess player who received the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM) in 1985. He is a three-time U.S. chess champion, winning in 1987 (with Joel Benjamin), 1995, and 1998. He also tied for first in 2002, but Larry Christiansen won the playoff. He is also a chess writer, most famous for his work in writing the 13th, 14th, and 15th editions of the important chess opening treatise Modern Chess Openings.^[1] He was born in Fresno, California.

Nick de Firmian
De Firmian at the 27th Chess Olympiad, 1986
Full name	Nicholas Ernest de Firmian
Country	United States
Born	(1957-07-26) July 26, 1957 (age 67) Fresno, California, U.S.
Title	Grandmaster (1985)
FIDE rating	2445 (July 2025)
Peak rating	2610 (January 1999)
Peak ranking	No. 25 (July 1989)

Chess career

De Firmian has represented the United States at several Interzonals and played on the United States Olympiad teams of 1980, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1996, 1998, and 2000.^[2] De Firmian earned the International Master title in 1979 and the GM title in 1985. Beginning in the 1990s, he lived for many years in Denmark. He currently resides in California.

He won the 1983 Canadian Open Chess Championship. In 1986, he won the World Open and the first prize of $21,000, at that time a record for a Swiss system tournament. De Firmian was a founding member of Prochess, a grandmaster advocacy group dedicated to promoting chess in the United States. He has a degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley.^[3]

De Firmian is a noted expert on chess openings and in 1990 he revised Modern Chess Openings, 13th edition (MCO-13). In 1999 he wrote the 14th edition of Modern Chess Openings (MCO-14), which, along with Nunn's Chess Openings (NCO), is considered an outstanding single volume opening reference in English. He also helped prepare the chess opening book for the IBM Deep Blue team for its successful 1997 match with Garry Kasparov.^[3]

In 2000, de Firmian tied for first place at the U.S. Masters Chess Championship.

In 2006 he revised and expanded the classic 1921 book Chess Fundamentals, by José Capablanca. The edition was harshly criticized by chess historian Edward Winter, who claimed that de Firmian "destroyed" the book by changing Capablanca's writing and removing games from previous editions to include new games not played by Capablanca.^[4] De Firmian also wrote the 15th edition of MCO, published in April 2008.

c. 2012, de Firmian began a scholastic chess program with the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco.^[5]

Publications

• Nick de Firmian; Korn, Walter (1990). Modern Chess Openings (13 ed.). A. & C. Black.
• Nick de Firmian (1999). Modern Chess Openings (14 ed.). Random House. ISBN 0-8129-3084-3.
• Nick de Firmian; Fedorowicz, John (2004). The English Attack. Sterling. ISBN 978-0-945806-14-1.
• José Capablanca and Nick de Firmian (2006) [1921]. Chess Fundamentals (Completely Revised and Updated for the 21st Century). Random House. ISBN 0-8129-3681-7.
• Nick de Firmian (2008). Modern Chess Openings (15 ed.). Random House.

Notable games

de Firmian vs. Nikolic, 1985

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Position after 26...Nb4

In de Firmian–Predrag Nikolić, 1985, de Firmian conducts an attack which ends with a complex mating combination. After 27.Nef6+! White gains an overwhelming material advantage even if Black avoids immediate checkmate with precise defense.^[6]