Remembering Lembit Oll

As my first blog post, I wanted to write about a little-known player from Estonia. While 4-time Candidates Tournament runner-up GM Paul Keres has key prominence in the chess history country which holds 1.3 million people as per a 2021 estimate, fewer know of GM Lembit Oll, who tragically passed away in 1999 at the young age of 33.

Hailing from the municipality of Kohtla-Jarve, Lembit Antsovich Oll was born on the 23rd of April, 1966. His talent came to the fore when he won the Estonian Championship at the age of 16. He was awarded the IM title in 1983 and the subsequent GM title in 1990.

I first came upon Oll while reading my first hard-copy chess book I bought with my own hard-earned money, The Mammoth Book of Chess written by FM Graham Burgess.  Oll played the Soviet GM Yuri Shabanov in 1988, at Uzhgorod, Ukraine. They reached this critical position in move 19.

The natural move would be to simplify the position by exchanging pieces. But Oll wasn’t planning on being natural, and he whips out a stunning sacrifice.

Oll recognizes he has 2 key advantages in the position; his space and advanced pawns on the queenside. Nd5 aims to ruthlessly cash in on this, at the possible expense of a knight.

After some desperate attempts by Black to hold the position, Oll finishes off his opponent with a clever mating sequence.

Naturally, I wanted to know more about such a dynamic player who, at that point, I had never heard of.

Here, Oll defeats his opponent's Winawer French in crushing style. A mistake in the opening is pounced on by Oll, and from move 14 he puts intense pressure on Black, culminating in a stunning rook sacrifice to expose the Black king.

Needless to say, he led a rather successful career. He represented his country 4 times in Chess Olympiads, twice at first board and twice at second board. His performance in 1992 was particularly excellent (+7 -1 =6), despite facing strong opponents such as Beliavsky, Akopian, Tisdall, Speelman, Adianto and Piket.

He also had a string of tournament victories around the world.

1989	Espoo, Talinn (zonal), Helsinski
1990	Terrassa
1991	Sydney
1992	Seville
1993	Vilnius, The Hague, Antwerp
1994	New York City (shared 1st)
1995	Helsinki, Riga (zonal)
1996	St. Petersburg
1997	Koge, Szeged (shared 1st), Hoogeven (shared 1st)

He would eventually reach his peak rating and ranking in 1998; ranked 25th in the world with a ratign of 2650. 

Despite all this success, Oll's home life suffered, and he fell into depression after his divorce and loss of child custody. He began taking anti-depressants and recieving mental health treatment. Sadly, he would never recover.

While the chess world mourns, he will never be forgotten. Rest in Peace, Lembit.