Ratmir Kholmov was born in the small town of Shenkursk on the 13th of May, 1925. Due to his father’s work he travelled a lot from a young age. At the age of 12 he was left alone with his mother, and this was the time when he started playing chess....
The tournament at Nottingham in 1936 included fifteen players in a round robin requiring fourteen games. The competitors represented three generations. The standings are: 1-2 Capablanca and Botvinnik 10, 3-4-5 Fine, Reshevsky, Euwe 9.5, 6 Alekhine...
Aivars Gipslis is not a well known name among chess fans around the world, but was a remarkable person dedicated to our beautiful game. Born on February 8, 1937 in Latvia, he started playing chess at the age of twelve, which was normal by that tim...
The old World Champion Emanuel Lasker, who was born in 1868, was playing the merely mature Grigory Levenfish, who was born in 1889, at Moscow 1936. This event had 10 players who met in a double round robin. Lasker and Levenfish were playing in the...
Grandmaster in 4 years! Jorgen Bent Larsen was born in Thisted, Denmark, on March 4, 1935. He learned to play chess when he was 6 but did not begin to play seriously until he was 17. By age 19 he became an International Master, and two years late...
Alexander Ilyin-Zhenevsky (or Ilyin-Genevsky) born in St Petersburg on the 28th of November 1894 is considered the founding father of the Soviet Chess School! From the enthusiasm of Ilyin-Zhenevsky, the official attitude to the game was brought. H...
Viacheslav Ragozin, born October 8 1908 in St Petersburg, Russia, was a respectable Soviet chess Grandmaster and the second World Correspondence Chess Champion in the period 1956-1959; additionally, he was an International Arbiter of chess, chess ...
At Moscow 1935 twenty players engaged in a nineteen round event. At the end, Salo Flohr and Mikhail Botvinnik were on top with 13 points. Flohr was undefeated and had seven wins to Botvinnik’s nine, but Botvinnik had two losses. Emanuel Lasker was...
Eugene Znosko-Borovsky, born on 16 August 1884 in St. Petersburg Russia, was a multifaceted personality with different natural aptitudes: chess master, teacher, author besides music, dramatic and literary critic. In the latter two he achieved dist...
Emanuel Lasker was born in 1868 and won the World Championship in 1894. He held the title until 1921. He still holds the record as the longest reigning world champion. He stopped playing in tournaments in 1925. After nine years he returned at Zuri...
Boris Kostic, born on the 24th of February 1887 in Vrsac in what was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was a Serbian Grandmaster and one of the greatest travelers in chess history, traveling the globe in the days before the beginning of co...
One of Emanuel Lasker’s farewells to chess was at Moscow 1925. The aging former world champion (1894-1921) would not appear in tournaments for another nine years. The winner at Moscow was Efim Bogoljubow with 13 wins, 5 draws, and 2 losses (15.5/2...
Jackson Showalter, born on February 5, 1860 in Minerva, Kentucky, was the first officially-crowned Chess Champion of the United States! According to some sources he won the title five times! After being defeated in a match against Frank Marshall (...
Emanuel Lasker was born December 24, 1868 in Germany and died January 11, 1941 in New York. He was the World Champion for 27 years, from 1894-1921, while also being a mathematician and a philosopher. He dominated chess while champion and competed ...
Roberto Grau was born on the 18th of March 1900, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was a strong Argentine chess master and, above all, an exceptional and marvelous chess columnist and chess writer. It was his father, an amateur, who initiated him in...
Sultan Khan, born in 1905 in Mittha in the Punjab, India, was the strongest chess player from Asia in his time and is unofficially recognized as the first Asian Grandmaster. According to the Oxford Companion to Chess ‘The greatest natural player...
Peter Romanovsky was born on the 29th of July 1892 in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was the Soviet Champion in 1923 in Petrograd and in 1927 tied with Fedor Bogatyrchuk in Moscow. Years later these successes would cost Romanovsky the GM title! That ...
Frederick Yates, born on the 16th of January 1884 in England, was a respected Yorkshire neighbor. He started a career in accounting, but similar to others colleagues, abandoned it and became a professional chess player. Also he was a journalist. ...
The tournament at St. Petersburg in 1914 took place in two stages. The results of the first part, the preliminary, was reported at http://www.chess.com/article/view/tarrasch-sacs-two-bishops-and-nimzowitsch . The five players (with their scores) w...
Semyon Alapin, Chigorin's rival, was born on the 19th of November 1856 in Vilnius, Lithuania, later moving to St Petersburg. He was one of the strongest players in Russia in the late 19th century. He played chess throughout many years although wi...
Every year the best Russian chess players get to compete at the Russian Superfinal. A round robin featuring 12 world-class grandmasters is always an exciting event. To qualify for it, you either have to be in the Russian top-3 by rating, get a med...
James Mason was born on the 19th of November 1849 in Kilkenny, Ireland. His real name is unknown; it seems James Mason was adopted by his father to avoid prevalent anti-Irish prejudice when they arrived in New Orleans in early 1861. There he learn...
I. Opponents’ profiles. A standard dossier featuring one of your opponents should reflect his opening repertoire, as well as weaknesses and strengths. This information might prove extremely useful both during preparation for the game and over-the-...
Larry Melvyn Evans was born March 23, 1932 in New York, New York and died November 15, 2010 in Reno, Nevada. He won the US Championship in 1951, 1961, 1962, and 1968. In 1980 he was in a three way tie for first, but lost the playoff. Evans was kno...
