A Look Back At Some Blogs On Neglected Post-war Soviet Grandmasters.

simaginfan

Nov 5, 2023, 7:00 AM | 26

A blog for my dear friend @Terlito - a thank you for all his help and support.

A few days ago the inimitable Douglass Griffin posted an article about a neglected Soviet Grandmaster, Alexei Suetin. A wonderful piece of work.

https://dgriffinchess.wordpress.com/2023/11/03/aleksei-suetin/

Terje commented that it was nice to see such players being remembered.

I recalled that a long time ago I had done a small blog on him.

https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/four-games-of-aleksei-suetin-grandmaster-and-theoretician By coincidence I had thought of that blog shortly before, following a game from the world seniors championships, where John Nunn had used Suetin's idea of a3 in the Ruy Lopez. A relevant game from my blog.

Griffin on Twitter.

Griffin highlights an incredible game which I have spent a lot of time with - it gets 3 full pages, and admiring comments - in Shereshevsky's Endgame Strategy. Have fun with this one!

Looking back through my blogs I realised that I had written about a lot of such neglected post-war Soviet players. As I get new readers all the time I thought I would quickly post some bits from those blogs and the links - given at the end of this blog. It was enjoyable for me to go back through them. The first one which came to mind looking at the Suetin - Gufeld game was this one. I did two blogs on the incredible Mikhail Umansky.

You have never heard of him!? Well, you are not a correspondence player! If you only have time to look at one of the blogs listed below, go look at that one. Seriously. The man was from another planet. I have planet Chucky and planet Umansky. With the world championship at stake he produced this game, and I happily admit to it being beyond my comprehension.

O.K. A few examples from my blogs - no organisation here - as they come out of the folder.

Krogius. Sept 1971. Griffin.

If anyone ever finds a picture of Panov smiling, please let me know!

Posted that one for our adopted stray warrior, who I spent half the night curled up with while the fireworks exploded last night.

Alexandr Zaitsev. via Griffin.

Another Dragon type game from another Alexandr who also played correspondence chess.

I have posted quite a lot on one of my favourite players back when I was growing up as a chess player back in the 1970's. Viktor Kupreichik.

You can google my blogs on him and have hours of fun in his chess world - he made Tal and Nehzmetdinov look soft. So he gets two games.

What a beautiful final move!

Yerevan 1982. via Griffin.

One whose career was also pre-war. Vladas Mikenas.

Tal - Mikenas. 1962.

And, of course, I am Simaginfan, so a number of blogs featuring the wonderful Vladimir Simagin.

Ivanovo 1947.

I won't include all the links, but a google of Simaginfan Simagin will find them. I will give one game here, because the loser is a player who I have mentioned countless times, and is in one of my favourite old chess pictures.

The links - There are others, but nobody is going to go through all these!!

https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/aivars-gipslis-some-games-and-pictures
https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/semyon-furman-more-than-just-a-trainer

via Griffin on twitter. or X. Whatever!

A Look Back At Some Blogs On Neglected Post-war Soviet Grandmasters.

simaginfan’s Blog