Sam Loyd (1841-1911), American chess player and puzzle author. At his peak Loyd was ranked as the 15th best chess player in the world. He authored many chess problems as well as hundreds of other mathematical puzzles. Loyd claimed to have invented the Game of Fifteen, a sliding puzzle of 15 tiles in a 4x4 grid that had to be placed in sequential order from a random starting position, that was very popular in the US during 1880. However, it has been proved the game was invented prior to Loyds first mention of it.