Obituary: WGM Elena Akhmylovskaya
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012
Hi everyone,
On November 18th the famous American, former Soviet, WGM Elena Akhmylovskaya passed away after a long illness. WGM Elena Akhmylovskaya was Champion of the Soviet Union (1980), three-fold Champion of USA (1990, 1993, 1994). In 1986 Akhmylovskaya played a Championship match but lost to the reigning Champion Maya Chiburdanidze. After Olympiad in 1988 she got married to US team captain John Donaldson and moved to United States. In 2010 she was awarded the title of FIDE Instructor. (info: Fide). Our deepest condolences and prayers.
Labels: elena akhmylovskaya, obituary
R.I.P. Chess Legend Svetozar Gligorić is No More
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012
Hi everyone,
This is sad news that the legendary chess Grandmaster Svetozar Gligorić is no more. He passed away in Belgrade on Tuesday. He would have turned 90 in February 2013. Svetozar Gligorić (Serbian: Светозар Глигорић, 2 February 1923 — 14 August 2012) was a Serbian and Yugoslavian chess grandmaster. He won the championship of Yugoslavia a record twelve times, and is considered the best player ever from Serbia. In 1958, he was declared the best sportsperson of Yugoslavia.
A tribute in Chess-News states: Most recently, at the age of 88 years Gligoric released his first musical album. He had said at the presentation that music was his first love and he had decided to learn to play the piano in old age.
During the 1950s and 1960s, he was one of the top ten players in the world, also among the world's most popular, owing to his globe-trotting tournament schedule and a particularly engaging personality that is reflected in the title of his autobiography, 'I Play Against Pieces' (i.e., with no hostility to the opponent, or 'playing differently for "psychological" reasons against different players; playing the board not the man). As a tribute to the legend replay this fantastic game with Chess King that GM Svetozar Gligorić played against Petrosian in 1970.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
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Labels: obituary, svetozar gligorić, yugoslavia
Creator of Belle chess playing machine dies at 76
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012Hi everyone,Joseph Henry Condon, an experimental physicist and engineer, died on January 2 at the age of 76. He, in partnership with Ken Thompson, created Belle, a pioneering combination of computer and special hardware that played championship quality chess.
One of the major collaboration between Joe and Ken Thompson was the creation of the chess-playing machine named Belle. Joe designed custom hardware while Ken designed the software. The hardware evaluated board position, did piece move generation, and used a cache memory for previously evaluated board positions. Belle’s hardware could evaluate millions of board positions and generate all legal chess moves every second. The control software kept track of how many moves ahead the hardware was evaluating and selected the best current move. Belle was very compact and easily portable and was taken to many chess tournaments where it achieved a master rating. Belle won the world computer chess championship in 1980 and the U.S. computer chess championships in 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982, and 1986.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com
Labels: belle, chess computer, Joseph Henry Condon, obituary
R.I.P. - WIM Sona Pertlova passes away at 23
Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011
Hello everyone,
We are sad to inform you that the young 23-year-old WIM Sona Pertlova of Czech Olympiad Team 2008 is no more. She passed away on Sunday due to cancer. We pray for peace and may the Lord giver her family strength to bear with this loss. A nice combination of beauty and brains, this chess lover was also a very good athlete. Her illness started in 2008 and played the Dresden Olympiad before chemotherapy. She made the best individual result among Czech players on the European Team Championship achieving a WGM norm. But the cancer came back. In the September of 2010 she became paralysed during the tournament in Rijeka and the prediction of the doctors didn’t give much hope.
For us you smile forever Sona
"Sona kept her friendliness and optimism even after these bad news and she has been fond of chess all that time in hospital until her last days. It’s very sad she left us so soon," wrote David Navara on his blog.
A very nice tribute on www.chessdom.com says "Sona stays in our hearts as an extraordinary example of a fighter – over the chessboard and with all the problems a life may bring. Sona, we’ll miss you!"
We express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Sona Pertlova.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's Labels: chess blog, obituary, sona pertlova
U.S. chess legend Larry Evans is no more
Chess news and chess trivia blog (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2010
 Grandmaster Larry Evans
Hi Everyone,
It is sad to know that Grandmaster and chess journalist Larry Evans passed away on Monday, November 15th at Washoe Hospital in Reno, Nevada (USA).
Larry Evans was born in Manhattan on March 22, 1932. Already at the age of 14 he tied for fourth-fifth place in the Marshall Chess Club championship. The next year he won it outright, becoming the youngest Marshall champion up until that time. He also finished equal second in the U.S. Junior Championship, which led to an article in the September 1947 issue of Chess Review.
R.I.P.
You can read an obituary at www.chessvibes.com.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's Also see her personal blog at
Labels: larry evans, obituary
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