Celebrate Legendary Lives That The Chess World Lost In 2021

All deaths create losses—for families, friends, fans, and communities. In the chess world this year, several notable stars who died, some unexpectedly, will be particularly missed. Of those no longer with us, how well do you remember their lives?

• Evgeny Sveshnikov
• Carol Jarecki
• Shri K. Viswanathan
• Lubomir Kavalek
• Yury Dokhoian
• Istvan Csom
• Yrjo Rantanen
• Gildardo Garcia

Evgeny Sveshnikov

Russian-Latvian GM Evgeny Sveshnikov, one of the best players in the 1970s, died in Moscow in August at the age of 71. He made significant contributions to chess theory, particularly the openings, and one is named for him. So strongly he felt about the importance of openings, he remarked: “An opening should result in an endgame.” (See my post earlier this year about his opening principles.)

An opening should result in an endgame.
—Evgeny Sveshnikov

The initial moves of 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5, now mostly known as the Sveshnikov Variation of the Sicilian, became synonymous with him because he used it frequently and wrote a book about it. The following game in 1976 with Sveshnikov playing as Black illustrates the opening. Although this game ended in a draw, both sides of the board have dynamic potential.

The variation has become a standard part of the repertoire of the world’s best players. For example, World Champion GM Magnus Carlsen played the Sveshnikov four times in his 2018 title match against GM Fabiano Caruana.

When FIDE awarded him the title of grandmaster in 1977, he was ranked among the top 25 players in the world. A much sought-after coach, Sveshnikov worked with GM Anatoly Karpov, a former world champion, and GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, a former women’s world champion.

Sveshnikov learned to play chess from his father, a physical education teacher. His success as a player and coach is amazing considering that initially solved chess problems as a child only to distract himself from chronic tooth pain. In his later years, he remained an active player and won the world championship for players older than 65 at a tournament in Italy in 2017.

(For more on his life, see the obituary in The New York Times here and the obituary on Chess.com here.)

Carol Jarecki

The first woman to serve as the chief arbiter for a match in the cycle for a world championship died in June at the age of 86. Carol Jarecki, a trailblazer in many respects, established a new role for women in chess when she oversaw the quarterfinal match between GM Anatoly Karpov and GM Johann Hjartarson in Seattle in 1989. Later in 1995, she was the chief arbiter of the world championship match between GM Garry Kasparov and GM Viswanathan Anand.

In addition to being an arbiter, Jarecki was also a tournament director. She directed or was the deputy director of more than 100 prestigious national and international tournaments. They include the women’s division of the 40th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul in 2012, the Women’s World Chess Championship in 2013, and six U.S. Chess Championships, the final one in 2017. Her last directing job was the 2020 World Amateur Team. In addition, she directed several important human vs. machine encounters, including the match in 1997 that Kasparov lost to Deep Blue.

Her noteworthy achievements in chess direction and organization led to her becoming an honorary member of FIDE. However, even more fascinating is that she won more than $1 million with her late husband Richard in casinos throughout Europe in the late 1960s and early ‘70s by analyzing defects in how roulette wheels were spinning. (For more on her life, see the obituary in The New York Times here.) 

Shri K. Viswanathan

Shri K. Viswanathan, the father of five-time world champion GM Viswanathan Anand passed away in April at age 92. Although Anand learned to play chess from his mother when he was six years old, his father was an incredible supporter for his pursuit of the world championship.

Anand’s wife Aruna described the father-son relationship this way: “A simple man, he made sure his son had the right values. He took great pride in his achievements.” She also added: “He was a great support to Anand. He witnessed all of Anand’s world championship victories.”

In a conventionally arranged-marriage match, Anand’s father with his mother picked out his bride. The couple was married in 1996, the year when Anand’s father proclaimed: ‘I’m willing to lay a bet. Vishy will never be a world champion.”

Vishy will never be a world champion.
—Shri K. Viswanathan

However, in his autobiography, Anand explains that he knew his father’s statement was “made in the way of creating shock value rather than with any real intent…. I accepted it as something that I could laugh over later rather than take literally,” as he relates his father’s need “to do some tough talking with his kids once in a while.”

Lubomir Kavalek

Czech-American GM Lubomir Kavalek, a former number-10 in the world, died in January at the age of 77. Inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 2001, he was one of the first and most elite players to flee the Soviet bloc for the West.

When Kavalek was playing in a tournament in Poland in August 1968, Soviet tanks rolled into his native Czechoslovakia to put down political dissent. He immediately left his home country. After staying in West Germany, he emigrated to the United States in 1970 with help from the U.S. Chess Federation.

Kavalek started playing chess at age 11, and his chess potential was presaged by winning the Czechoslovak championship in 1962 and becoming the country’s youngest champion at age 19. He won the title again in 1968 just before fleeing the country.

A three-time U.S. national champion, Kavalek was a second of GM Bobby Fischer for his world championship match in 1972 in Reykjavik. Kavalek’s victory over GM Boris Spassky in 1976 at the Manila interzonal tournament is one of his top wins.

(For more on Kavalek's life, see the obituary in The New York Times here and the obituary on Chess.com here.) 

Jonathan Penrose

English GM Jonathan Penrose, who won the British Chess Championship 10 times between 1958 and 1969, died in November at the age of 88. Born into a family where everyone played chess, he learned the game when he was four.

When he defeated then-World Champion GM Mikhail Tal at the Leipzig 1960 Olympiad, he became the first British player to beat a reigning world champion since Joseph Henry Blackburne defeated Emanuel Lasker in 1899. This victory was his most famous and featured the positional pawn sacrifice e4-e5, ...d6xe5, f4-f5! in the Benoni that has become known as the Penrose Sacrifice.

Because of poor health, Penrose stopped playing over the board in the mid-1970s and took up correspondence chess. He became the number one in the world and also earned the grandmaster of correspondence chess title in 1983.

Awarded the honorary grandmaster title by FIDE in 1993, he did not achieve it during his active playing career because he had chosen to remain an amateur and focus on being a psychology lecturer instead of pursuing international tournaments.

For his services to chess, Penrose received the Order of the British Empire in 1971. (For more on his life, see the obituary in The Guardian here and the obituary on Chess.com here.) 

Yury Dokhoian

Russian GM Yury Dokhoian, described by Kasparov as “not only a student of the game itself and a skilled analyst and writer…” but “also an astute analyst of the psychology and habits of other players,” died in July at the age of 56 from Covid-19.

Dokhoian was one of the world’s most successful chess coaches. For a decade, beginning in 1994, he was the Kasparov’s coach. About his second, Kasparov wrote on his website: “Working, walking, eating, talking, it was a true relationship. I spent more time with him than anyone else before my retirement in 2005. Yury knew when and how to speak to me—and when not to—to put me in the necessary frame of mind depending on the situation. He gave me more than chess preparation; he gave me stability and confidence.”

Kasparov also wrote that Dokhoian “elevated not only my chess and my results, but the entire field of chess preparation at the highest level. My opponents didn’t only have to contend with me at the board, but with the fabled ‘Kasparov-Dokhoian Laboratory,’ well before elite players relied almost entirely on computer analysis."

After Kasparov retired from chess, Dokhoian continued to coach other elite players and Russian national teams. In 2009, Dokhoian began working with GM Sergey Karjakin and assisted him in his match in 2016 for the world championship, a match that Karjakin lost to Carlsen but had led three-quarters of the way through. More recently, Dokhoian was the coach of GM Andrey Esipenko, who in 2021 became the youngest player to defeat Carlsen in a tournament game.

Dokhoian had learned to play chess from his father as a child. His family moved from southern Siberia to Moscow so that he could study at a chess school there. He won or shared first place in eight international tournaments from 1986 to 1993. FIDE awarded Dokhoian the grandmaster title in 1988, but he stopped playing professionally when he began coaching Kasparov. (For more on Dokhoian’s life, see the obituary in The New York Times here.)

Istvan Csom

GM Istvan Csom, who passed away in July at age 81, was the Hungarian champion in 1972 and 1973. He represented Hungary in seven Olympiads from 1968 to 1988, when he played 191 games for his country. He was a member of the victorious team in 1978 that sensationally won gold ahead of the heavily favored Soviet team in Buenos Aires, the only time from 1952 to 1990 that the Soviet failed to win gold.

He also supported GM Lajos Portisch, who rose to world number-two at his peak, as a second for many years. Beginning in 1991, Csom was also active as an international arbiter. In an interview in 2015, he expressed pessimism about the future of chess and concern with the growth and embrace of chess engines: "Kids interested in chess today are no longer interested in what reason they would take a certain step, but in what the computer responds to!”

Kids interested in chess today are no longer interested in what reason they would take a certain step.
—Istvan Csom

Csom received the Maroczy Prize for his lifetime achievements from the Hungarian Chess Federation and the Order of Merit of the Hungarian State. During his career, he defeated many top grandmasters. His defeat of Tal in 1984 is noteworthy.

On his passing, FIDE proclaimed Csom “an icon of Hungarian chess” because of his legendary fighting spirit and fair play. (See the FIDE statement here and reflections by @simaginfan on his Chess.com blog here.)

The countries—Finland and Colombia—of the final two chess legends who died in 2021 show the broad appeal that chess has around the world.

Yrjo Rantanen

GM Yrjo Rantanen, one of the top Finnish players in the 1970s and 1980s, died in January at the age of 70. He became the second Finnish grandmaster after GM Heikki Westerinen.

After learning to play chess at the age of six from his father, Rantanen rose to be the Finnish national champion twice and represented Finland nine times at Olympiads where he won three medals. He also represented Finland in several Nordic Chess Cups.

He continued to be an active player into his sixties and competed in the World Senior Teams Championships such as in 2017 just after his 67th birthday. One of his memorable games was in 1979 at the Keres Memorial that he lost to Tal. 

Gildardo Garcia

Another player who was his country’s second grandmaster was GM Gildardo Garcia of Colombia, who also died in January. He was 66. He won the Colombian national championship 10 times—initially in 1977 and as late as 2006 when he was 50), the same year that he represented Colombia in the Olympiad.

The following game is one of his wins in 1974 in San Juan, Puerto Rico when he won the inaugural Pan American Junior Chess Championship when he was 20. 

Finally, other grandmasters who died in 2021 include Bosko Abramovic, Gabor Kallai, Roman Hernandez Onna, Dmitry Kayumov, Stanimir Nikolic, Nikola Spiridonov, and Marek Vokac.

What other chess personalities who died this year were important and meaningful for you? Please add how they inspired you in the comments section.