{{Short description|American chess player (born 1944)}} {{redirect|Acers|the engineering society|ACerS||Acer (disambiguation)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2024}} {{Infobox chess player |image= Jude Acers.jpg |caption= Acers in 2005 |birthname = Jude Frazier Acers |country = United States |birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1944|4|6}} |birth_place = Long Beach, California, US |death_date = |death_place = |title = Candidate Master (2022) |peakrating = 2241 (January 2011) }}
'''Jude Frazier Acers'''<ref>[https://archive.today/20130411052134/http://judeacers.com/?page_id=9 Acers website]</ref> (born April 6, 1944, in Long Beach, California) is an American chess player.
== Early life == Acers spent much of his childhood in an orphanage. His father was a U.S. Marine and was away a lot and his mother struggled with mental illness. When he was five, he saw a book about chess and started playing. His father returned when he was an adolescent and took him from the North Carolina orphanage to New Orleans. His father was abusive, and committed Acers at the age of 14 to Louisiana's state mental institution in Mandeville. At 17, Acers was already rated as a master by the United States Chess Federation. The state of Louisiana provided funding for his bachelor's degree in Russian from Louisiana State University.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Chess King of Decatur Street|url=https://main.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/456-the-chess-king-of-decatur-street|access-date=2021-06-22|website=main.oxfordamerican.org|language=en-gb}}</ref>
==Career== Acers is best known for playing against all comers in a New Orleans downtown gazebo while wearing a red beret. A longtime resident of Louisiana, he claims to have been the first New Orleans native chess master of comparable strength since Paul Morphy.{{Citation needed|date=January 2009}}
[[File:Jude Acers at World Chess Table 2.jpg|left|thumb|Acers in the French Quarter in 2011]] He is also known for being a great showman, touring the country giving simultaneous chess exhibitions. He was twice the world record holder of having played the most opponents in a simultaneous exhibition. First against 117 opponents (1974, Lloyd Center, Portland, Oregon), then against 179 opponents (1976, Mid Island Plaza, Long Island, New York). The records were certified by the Guinness Book of World Records.
Acers barely survived Hurricane Katrina and lived in a displaced persons camp for some time. As the city recovered, he returned to New Orleans and resumed his customary chess table in the French Quarter.
===Playing strength=== In September 2007, Acers defeated Bill Hook in the first round of the World Senior Championship held in Gmunden, Austria. Acers' result at the 17th World Senior Chess Championship received a FIDE performance rating of 2289. His current Fide Rating is 2229.<ref>{{Cite web |date= |title=Acers, Jude |url=https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2034301 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220421205942/https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2034301 |archive-date=2022-04-21 |access-date= |website=ratings.fide.com}}</ref>
===Author/writer=== Acers has written or contributed to several chess books. Since 2008, he has been working on ''The Road'' which will be a book about his chess tours. He has annotated many American master-level games, along with Louis Ciamarra, for the Yugoslav-published series ''Chess Informant''.
==Books== ''The Italian Gambit (and) A Guiding Repertoire For White – E4!'' {{ISBN|1-55369-604-2}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{Commons category}} * {{FIDE}} * {{USCF|10478367}} * {{Chessgames.com player}} * [http://www.chess-results.com/tnr7385.aspx?art=9&lan=0&fed=USA&turdet=YES&flag=30&m=-1&wi=1000&snr=230 Jude Acers results at the World Senior Championship] * [http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2617 American chess icon hit by Katrina from Chessbase.com] * [http://b2l2.com/therell-be-no-need-for-me-to-cry/ The Amazing & Slightly Irregular Jude Acers by Derek Bridges] Extensive biographical portrait
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Acers, Jude}} Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century American chess players Category:American chess writers Category:American male non-fiction writers Category:Sportspeople from New Orleans Category:Chess Candidate Masters Category:Sportspeople from Long Beach, California