Happy Birthday Ralf Lau

Ralf Lau was born in Bremen on Oct-19-1959. He was awarded the GM title in 1986 and in tournaments he was 1st= at Budapest 1985, 2nd= at New York 1985, 2nd= at Solingen 1986 and 1st at Budapest 1986. He also played on the German Olympiad teams of 1984, 1986 and 1988. Lau was West German champion in 1987.

The following game was played on October 26th, 1983 in the 4th Round of the Mitropa Cup, a team event held in Lienz, Austria. His opponent, Armand Bastian, is from Luxembourg.

The second game I am featuring was played at the Elekes Memorial Tournament which was held at Budapest in June of 1985. This tournament was held for many years in memory of Dr. Dezső Elekes, who was an excellent statistician and chess player. He was a successful member of the Hungarian team that won the world correspondence championship in 1952, where he gained 5.5 points in 6 games. Lau's Opponent in this even was none other than the great Wolfgang Uhlmann, who was an eight time champion of East Germany.

Our third game was played in September, 1986 at Solingen, an event in which Lau finished second. He faced his opponent, Nigel Short, in the 4th round of that event.

The fourth game being featured was against GM Vasilios Kotronias of Greece. It was played at Budapest in May, 1988.

The final game was played in the 8th Round of the 1993 Ostend Open (Belgium). His Opponent was Uzbekistan Champion GM Alexei Barsov.