11 Facts About Sam Loyd

Samuel Loyd was an American chess player, chess composer, puzzle author, and recreational mathematician.

At his peak, Sam Loyd was one of the best chess players in the US, and he was ranked 15th in the world, according to chessmetrics.

Sam Loyd played in the strong Paris 1867 chess tournament with little success, placing near the bottom of the field.

Sam Loyd's son, named after his father, dropped the "Jr" from his name and started publishing reprints of his father's puzzles.

Sam Loyd was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame in 1987.

Sam Loyd is widely acknowledged as one of America's great puzzle writers and popularizers, often mentioned as the greatest.

Sam Loyd collaborated with puzzler Henry Dudeney for a while, but Dudeney broke off the correspondence and accused Loyd of stealing his puzzles and publishing them under his own name.

Sam Loyd claimed from 1891 until his death in 1911 that he invented the fifteen tiles in the box and one space puzzle.

Sam Loyd first claimed in 1891 that he had invented the puzzle, and he continued to do so until his death.

An enthusiast of Tangram puzzles, Sam Loyd popularized them with The Eighth Book Of Tan, a book of seven hundred unique Tangram designs and a fanciful history of the origin of the Tangram, claiming that the puzzle was invented 4,000 years ago by a god named Tan.

Sam Loyd patented rotary vanishing puzzles in 1896 and published versions named Get Off the Earth, Teddy and the Lion and The Disappearing Bicyclist.