RIP Stewart Reuben on February 4, 2025
I just received my copy of How Good Is Your PLO?, Googled him looking for something else, and saw he had passed at 85, apparently in Jamaica on a holiday cruise.
He was an excellent writer; his book on NL/PL coauthored with Bob Ciaffone (d 2022) was considered the gold standard, and he was certainly a pioneer in popularizing PLO.
He played very high stakes PLO cash games, definitely played looser preflop OOP than any amateur should.
He was also a FIDE 2270 and was a longtime international chess tournament organiser in the UK. In 1963 he played a series of private ten game blitz matches v Fischer; he managed one draw with White and claimed he was winning the K&P endgame.
EDIT: LOL, just played it on Stockfish and it’s a stone draw, but still a great accomplishment.
No survivors were mentioned.
3 Replies
I have that book he wrote with Ciaffone. Don't really remember if it was good advice or not, but I remember it being an entertaining read at least. I'll pull it out.
RiP
His How Good Is Your PLO is very informative and entertaining, but he sure loved low card starting hands.
Hanging out in Jamaica has to be a top 10 way to go out. RIP
