Sam Loyd

Samuel Loyd was an American chess player, chess composer, puzzle author and recreational mathematician, born in Philadelphia in 1841 and raised in New York City. As a chess composer he authored a number of chess problems, often with interesting themes, and at his peak he was one of the best chess players in the United States, ranked 15th in the world according to chessmetrics.com. He played in the strong Paris 1867 chess tournament with little success. His Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles was published in 1914 after his death, and he was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame in 1987. Martin Gardner called him America's greatest puzzler, though Loyd is also known for self-promotion, and the fifteen puzzle that he claimed to have invented was actually the work of Noyes Chapman.