Dan Meinking (1960-2012)

Dan Meinking 1960   –   2012

25th November, 2012 With a deep regret I have to inform, that a famous composer, Dan Meinking, has died yesterday from the heart attack. Dan was well known in the world of chess and won multiple Cincinnati and Dayton Chess championships in the early 1980’s. He was awarded the title of “FIDE Master of Chess Composition” in 2009 by the International Chess Composition Union. He was an avid game designer and his Alpha Sleuth and Lexmaze puzzles published in “Brain Games” games books.  Visitation will be held at Good Shepherd Church on Kemper Road on Tuesday Nov. 27, 2012 at 9:00 AM with Mass to follow at 10:00 AM.

For many composers Dan was also a very good friend. I’d like to quote some comments about Dan Meinking:

“Needless to say, this is a huge shock to all of us and an enormous loss to our small chess problem community. I am planning to have a tribute to Dan in SG61.” (Mike Prcic)

“I’m very shocked indeed… Dan and I exchanged hundreds of emails this year, as he helped me a lot in the writing of my recent SG article, and he was the Director of the last chessproblem.ca thematic tourney, co-organized by Cornel and I. Bad bad news, can’t trust it.” (Dupont Nicolas)

“For me, Dan was more than a gifted problem composer… he was a great teacher (who helped introduce me to the art of problem composition), a mentor, and a good friend (always… for many years… no matter what).  He will be missed, beyond words.” (Kevin Begley)

“I was lucky to closely communicate and collaborate with Dan for more than a year and had opportunity to value his great talent and remarkable personality.” (Valery Liskovets)

“Shocking and totally unexpected news. Words fall short of expressing my sorrow – we have lost a great problemist, a great person and a great friend. May he rest in peace, he will always be remembered.” (Cornel Pacurar)

“For our small chess problem community enormous loss.” (Bosko Miloseski)

“This is TERRIBLE. I had very enjoyable correspondence with Dan. He was a really fine problemist and man.” (Ian Shanahan)

“He was a really fine problemist and man. For our small chess problem community enormous loss.May he rest in peace, he will always be remembered.” (Микола Чернявський)

“I’ll always remember Dan from our group of Problemists on the ICC chess server. He’d gather several people into a room and we’d shoot the breeze and look at problems for hours. He loved collaborating on compositions and seeing promising ideas come to fruition.” (Ryan McCracken)

You can see Dan Meinking’s Chess Problem Collection here.

Daniel E. MEINKING’s Obituary on The Cincinnati Enquirer.