George Kramer (1929 - 2024)

Born May 15, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, George Mortimer Kramer began playing chess and competing at a young age. By 1945, he had won the New York State Chess Championship. In 1950, he traveled to Dubrovnik in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as a member of the US Olympiad team, earning bronze for his individual performance on the reserve board. The team finished fourth out of 16 competing federations, only a half-point behind third-place West Germany.

The following year, Kramer received a Bachelor of Science from Queen’s College, City University of New York, and acquired both a Master of Science and Doctorate of Philosophy in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955 and 1957, respectively. Before his graduate studies, Kramer married Vivian Kaplan and served for three years in the US Army.

Kramer, age 16, on the cover of Chess Review magazine

After acquiring his doctorate, Dr. Kramer became a renowned chemist and senior research associate with Exxonmobil Research, acquiring over 20 patents while publishing over 50 scholarly articles. He was also a recipient of the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to both chemistry and chess. A timeline of professional milestones courtesy of Marquis Who’s Who can be found here.

Throughout his career, Dr. Kramer continued competing as a chess player. He ranked as high as fourth in the country as of July 31, 1952. Around this time, he also contributed regularly to Chess Life magazine as an annotator. Dr. Kramer also competed in two U.S. Championships (1957, 1962).

The Kramer Variation of the King’s Indian Defense (ECO code E70) is indeed named after Dr. Kramer. The variation begins 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nge2, and was first employed by Dr. Kramer in 1946 in a victory over IM I.A. Horowitz. He also held GM Miguel Najdorf to a draw in this line in the Wertheim Memorial, also in New York, in 1951. The games are displayed below.

The variation is still seen at the top level today, and has been employed by GMs Carlsen, Caruana, and (on several occasions) Aronian. It is also a precursor to the Makogonov Variation (with 5. h3 and a later Ng1-e2) that remains one of the most theoretically challenging responses to the King’s Indian Defense today.

After finishing his graduate education, he won the New Jersey State championship three times (1964, 1967, 1969), as well as the Manhattan Club Championship (1951-52, 1973, 1974). He earned the title of Senior Master from US Chess before eventually announcing a decision to retire from competition in 1994. He still continued to play national events sporadically until the year 2000, including several US Open championships and US Amateur Team championships, as documented on his tournament history page. His last official rating was 2299.

Dr. Kramer (courtesy of the subject)

In 2022, Dr. Kramer received an Outstanding Player Achievement Award from US Chess. As quoted in the 2023 Annual Report: “I was surprised and delighted to receive your letter about my receiving a 2022 Outstanding Player Achievement Award from US Chess. Most of my adventures in chess began when I lost a game to Kupchik in an intraclub match between the Queens and Manhattan Chess Clubs before I entered high school. Subsequently I played for Brooklyn Tech and soon joined Robert and Donald Byrne in interscholastic matches with schools like the Bronx High School of Science, whose team featured Bisguier and Shipman. In the late 1940s the Tech team was rated as containing three of the top five players in the country.”

More of Dr. Kramer's highlights can be seen in this week's Wednesday Workout.