Matthew Brown
By Phillip R Smith   
April 28, 2010
Matthew Brown (1985-2010)

Matthew Brown of Mountain View, California, formerly of Bolton, Massachusetts, died unexpectedly on March 25, 2010 in California. He was 24.

He was born July 14, 1985 and grew up in Bolton, where he attended local schools and participated in town sports.

He was coached in chess by USCF life member Dr. Imre Toth of Bolton, who encouraged him to compete in scholastic tournaments. His first rated tournament was the Fall Foliage Festival in November 1993 in Mendon, Mass. Following participation in the Central Mass. District Singles Championship, he became a finalist in the lower elementary section of the Barry Spiegel Cup (state championship) in East Boston in February 1994. Later that year, he took part in the elementary section of the 54th New England Open in Worcester, Mass. When he was in the fifth grade, Matt competed in the Harry Lyman Grade Championship, held in February 1996 in East Boston. His last USCF-rated tournament as a scholastic player was the 1996 Fall Foliage Festival in Andover, Mass.

He went on to become a brilliant student and excelled academically. He was a 2003 honors graduate of the Middlesex School in Concord, Mass. and a 2007 graduate of Stanford University in California, where he had majored in computer science and political science. After graduation, he worked as a software development engineer at Microsoft Corp.

Obituary submitted by George Mirijanian, Massachusetts Chess Association