Emory Tate

Emory Tate

Personal information
Full name	Emory Andrew Tate Jr.
Born	December 27, 1958 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	October 17, 2015(2015-10-17) (aged 56) Milpitas, California, U.S.
Spouse	Eileen Ashleigh ​ ​ (m. 1985; div. 1997)​
Children	3, including Andrew and Tristan
Chess career
Country	United States
Title	International Master (2007)
Peak rating	2413 (FIDE, October 2006) 2508 (USCF, April 1997)
Military career
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Air Force
Rank	Sergeant

Emory Andrew Tate Jr. (December 27, 1958 – October 17, 2015) was an American chess player who held the FIDE title of International Master (IM).¹ He won the United States Armed Forces Chess Championship five times and the Indiana state championship six times. Over his career, he recorded roughly 80 tournament wins against grandmasters,² Tate earned a reputation as one of the most feared tacticians on the American tournament circuit.³ Grandmaster Maurice Ashley described him as "a trailblazer for African-American chess."⁴

Before devoting himself to chess professionally, Tate served in the United States Air Force, where he worked as a linguist and was fluent in Russian and Spanish.⁵ He reached a peak FIDE rating of 2413 in 2006 and received the International Master title in 2007.⁶ He was inducted into the Indiana State Chess Hall of Fame in 2005.² He is the father of internet personalities Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate.⁵

Tate died from a heart attack while playing chess at a tournament in California. ⁷

Emory Andrew Tate Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 27, 1958.⁸ He grew up in a family of nine children. His father, Emory Andrew Tate Sr., was an attorney, and his mother, Emma Cox Tate, ran a truck-leasing business.⁹ Tate Jr. learned to play chess as a child. Tate learned Spanish as an exchange student in Mexico. He was "chosen to participate in the Indiana University Honors Program in Foreign Language, Spanish Division during the summer of 1975" and spent two months living with a Mexican family.¹⁰ Tate graduated from Concord High School in Elkhart, Indiana, in 1976 and studied at Northwestern University.¹¹

He served in the United States Air Force as a sergeant, where he "excelled as a linguist", eventually operating as a linguist for the CIA, where he learned Russian.¹²¹³

He was discharged from the U.S. Air Force after he was diagnosed with several psychiatric conditions that "interfere with military service", including Narcissistic personality disorder.¹⁴

In 1993, Tate gave chess lessons to elementary school students in Goshen, Indiana, as part of a community school board program.¹⁵

Tate's highest FIDE rating was 2413 on the October 2006 rating list, which made him the 72nd highest-rated player in the United States and among the top 2000 active players in the world.¹⁶ His peak USCF rating was 2508 on December 30, 1996. He received the International Master title in 2007,¹⁷ after earning his third norm at the 2006 World Open.¹⁸ Although Tate earned his first IM norm in the late 1980s, the title came nearly two decades later, in part because he mainly competed in weekend Swiss events where norms were not available.¹⁹

His oldest son, Andrew, said: "I never saw him study chess books, ever. He also hated chess computers and never used them. He just sat down and played."¹³

Tate earned a reputation as a creative tactician on the U.S. chess circuit, where he won about 80 tournament games against grandmasters.³ Among his most celebrated victories was a win over Grandmaster Leonid Yudasin at the 1997 U.S. Masters, which was featured in Chess Life and annotated by International Master Jack Peters. Other well-known games included queen sacrifices in wins over Grandmaster Gennadi Sagalchik at the 1995 New York PCA event and Grandmaster Nick deFirmian at the 2001 New Jersey Open, as well as a victory over Grandmaster Sergey Kudrin at the 2001 World Open.²⁰

Tate won the United States Armed Forces Chess Championship five times, in 1983, 1984, 1987, 1988, and 1989, while serving in the Air Force.²¹²²²³ He won the Indiana state championship six times (1995, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2006, 2007) and was inducted into the Indiana State Chess Hall of Fame in 2005. He also won the Alabama state championship in 2010.²⁴ Fellow Air Force veteran and 2003 U.S. Armed Forces Chess Champion Leroy Hill said: "All the players had street names. Emory's was 'Extraterrestrial' because we thought his play was out of this world."¹³

Tate married Eileen Ashleigh, from the United Kingdom, in 1985.²⁵ Together, they had three children, two sons and a daughter. His two sons are social media personalities Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate. The couple divorced in 1997, and his ex-wife returned to Luton, England, with their children.²⁶

Tate died after suffering a heart attack during a tournament in Milpitas, California, on October 17, 2015, at the age of 56. After his death, a number of grandmasters and international masters wrote tributes to him.²⁷²⁸ In 2016, the Alabama Senate passed a resolution "celebrating [his] life and legacy".²⁹ Grandmaster Maurice Ashley described Tate as "a trailblazer for African-American chess".³⁰³¹ In 2017, The Chess Drum published a biography of Tate, Triple Exclam!!! The Life and Games of Emory Tate, Chess Warrior, written by Daaim Shabazz, with a foreword by Grandmaster Maurice Ashley and annotations contributed by grandmasters including Yasser Seirawan and Alejandro Ramirez.³²