Lars Edmond Britt – Hall of Fame Class of 2021

Lars Britt is a significant individual in the history of Alabama chess, particularly in the documentation and recording of Alabama chess history from the mid-1970s to the turn of the century.  He attended Murphy High School in Mobile, Alabama, and promoted chess for much of his adult life.  He directed the historic Mobile-Baldwin County Chess League for some 20+ years and directed over 100 tournaments.  He served as chief editor of the Alabama Chess Federation’s quarterly published Alabama Chess Antics from 1978 to 1988, before the era of desktop publishing.  He had a peak rating in the 1800s.

The Mobile-Baldwin County Chess League has been in continual existence since the 1970-71 school year (now 50 years!), in which local high schools have met and competed for the league title at numerous league matches held throughout the school year.  Lars played for Murphy in the first year of the league.  It wasn’t long until he took over the direction of the league, in the mid-1970s.  Under his direction, the league thrived and grew and produced many of the state’s strong chess players and the first Alabama representatives at the Denker Tournament of High School Champions.  During that era, Mobile was the center of scholastic chess in the state, and Lars also directed over a dozen of the State Scholastic Team Championship tournaments.  The results of the league and State tournament were routinely documented and reported by Lars as editor of the Antics, including photos of the winners (often on the cover) and taken during play.  (These old Antics have thankfully been scanned and preserved in PDF form for viewing today on the ACF webpage.)

In addition to editing and publishing the Antics, Lars wrote and submitted articles on chess happenings to the Mobile Press Register regularly for years (archived on microfiche).  But the labor of the Antics included typing up the articles, formatting, copying, stapling, addressing, stamping, and mailing them to the tune of some 250 copies, four or five times a year for over a decade.  The pages within included tournament results, ads for coming tournaments, photos with captions, and annotated games submitted by players.  A truly rich archive of Alabama chess history.  Lars also worked in the arts, and this skill came out in the flair of creativity expressed in the Antics.

The late ‘70s and the 1980s was a time of colorful characters on the Mobile chess scene, and nicknames for players became common.  Lars became known as “Blazing Diagonals” after a game in which Lars’ bishops blazed away on the diagonals of his opponent.  (This game was published in the Antics.)

Lars passed away in August of 2016.  In tribute to Lars, and in recognition of all the tremendous work he did on behalf of the Mobile-Baldwin County Chess League, the league members voted unanimously to name an award in his honor.  The top Varsity 1^st Board player wins The Paul Morphy Award (as Mr. Morphy attended Spring Hill College in Mobile) and the top Middle School 1^st Board player wins The Lars Britt Memorial Award.  One person said it well:  that Lars gave much of himself so that others could enjoy playing chess.

 

Too see one of Lars’ best games, click here: https://alabamachess.org/magazine/lars-edmond-britt/

Highlights