No year ends without at least one of my chess heroes failing to finish it. Usually, they have been long retired. But this was not the case with Walter Shawn Browne. He died in June at the age of 66, at a friend’s home, just three days after he had finished competing in the 50th National Open at Las Vegas, where he had tied for ninth place. In fact neither his sudden death, nor its venue, should have surprised anyone.

For the six-times US chess champion was also a formidable competitor at the poker table, where his winnings were his main source of income: whenever possible he would often play chess and poker tournaments at the same time. And pool, too — also for high stakes — when he was younger. All these pursuits were carried out with ferocious intensity, based on Browne’s conviction that, with enough hard work, he could be the best at any of them.

In recent years, even a stroke did not stop him playing poker for long — although it left his speech somewhat impaired. It was not so surprising that he should have died suddenly. The blessing was that it was in his sleep, although perhaps the amazing Browne, who had the appearance of a Western movie gun-slinger, would have preferred to have expired while engaged in mortal mental combat.

Despite his peripatetic existence — he criss-crossed America countless times, usually on his motorbike, giving simultaneous chess displays, taking on all comers — the narrow-eyed, moustachioed Browne had remained married to the same woman since 1973. But his Argentine-born wife, Dr Raquel Browne, was a clinical psychologist — and she understood him very well.

In a joint interview they did for Sports Illustrated in 1976, she said of her husband: “The energy this guy has is crazy. The other players are so quiet, so passive. But Shawn, the way he walks, plunk, plunk, plunk, nobody can keep up with him. I am like a Japanese woman, chasing behind him. He is very pushy, he talks very loud. He is alive. He says ‘I am here! I am Walter Browne!’ He is a special case.”

Browne himself was certainly convinced of that. He dropped out of New York’s Erasmus high school (the same as that attended by his slightly older chess hero, Bobby Fischer), stating afterwards that “school is for the masses, not the geniuses”. And in that Sports Illustrated interview, he declared: “I’ve got the talent. All I need to do is persevere. And I will, because I’m concentrating all my energies on becoming world champion. I have this drive to win at all costs short of physical violence. I got this aggression that never quits, this feeling of terrific power. I’m not bragging. I really feel as if I can beat anyone at anything.”