Happy 90th birthday to World's Oldest Grandmaster - Yuri Averbakh

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012


Hello everyone,


Join us in wishing the oldest chess grandmaster of our times - Yuri Averbakh. He just celebrted his 90th birthday on February 8.

According to the wikipedia listing, his first major success was first place in the Moscow Championship of 1949, ahead of players such as Andor Lilienthal, Yakov Estrin and Vladimir Simagin. He became an International Grandmaster in 1952. In 1954 he won the USSR Chess Championship ahead of players including Mark Taimanov, Viktor Korchnoi, Tigran Petrosian, Efim Geller and Salo Flohr. In the 1956 Championship he came equal first with Taimanov and Boris Spassky in the main event, finishing second after the playoff. Later Averbakh's daughter, Jane, would marry Taimanov. Averbakh's other major tournament victories included Vienna 1961 and Moscow 1962. He qualified for the 1953 Candidates' Tournament (the last stage to determine the challenger to the World Chess Champion), finishing joint tenth of the fifteen participants. He also qualified for the 1958 Interzonal at Portorož, by finishing in fourth place at the 1958 USSR Championship at Riga. At Portorož, he wound up in a tie for seventh through eleventh places, half a point short of advancing to the Candidates' Tournament.

From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
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Also see her personal blog at
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There are six types of chess players and Fischer was the strongest, says Yuri Averbakh in enchanting biography

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011


Hi everyone,


Here is a nice review of Yuri Averbakh's biography - Centre-Stage and Behind the Scenes’’ (New in Chess, 2011) from The Boston Globe by Harold Dondis and Patrick Wolff. 

At 89, Yuri Averbakh is one of the oldest living Grandmasters and a symbol of moderate and studious chess players of world achievement. He has now published an autobiography, “Centre-Stage and Behind the Scenes’’ (New in Chess, 2011), and for chess history buffs this memoir is required reading.


Averbakh has been a prominent tournament winner, an accomplished analyst of end games and openings (some of which bear his name), an author, a journalist, a leader in the USSR chess federation, and an adviser and second to world champions and candidates. His biography supplies an interesting picture of Soviet dominance in the world chess scene that was only interrupted by Bobby Fischer.

An hour spent with Averbakh shows why he has been such a survivor and a central figure in Russian chess. He was born in the provincial town of Kaluga of Russian-Jewish parents but moved to Moscow at the age of 3. His interest in chess began at the age of 13 during a time when the Soviet government stressed chess as a symbol of accomplishment. Averbakh’s chess success was gradual - he had to choose between his education and chess - and did not come until his late 20s, at which time he won the Moscow championship. In his 40s he enjoyed further successes, even qualifying for the 1953 Candidates’ Tournament, the winner of which would play Mikhail Botvinnik for the world championship.


Averbakh says he stumbled into journalism by writing a few chess commentaries. He became editor of 64, the leading Soviet chess magazine, and later a second to world champion Tigran Petrosian and a counselor to other great players. What is impressive about Averbakh is his moderate and likable personality, choosing to accommodate rather than engage in strife.


What will be of special interest to Americans is his description of the Soviet attempts to defeat Bobby Fischer. Fischer had always insisted that the Russians via an agreement among Tigran Petrosian, Efim Geller, and Paul Keres fixed the Candidates Tournament at Curacao in 1962. Averbakh denies it, saying only that Petrosian and Geller had been friends for years and naturally would play short draws.

Averbakh concludes that Fischer was the strongest player in the world. Averbakh also provides a philosophical classification of chess players. 

He muses there are six types. 

# First, the killers, those who try to knock out their opponents. Fischer and Alexander Alekhine are in this group. 

#  Second, the fighters: Garry Kasparov and Mikhail Tal. 

#  Third, the sportsmen: Max Euwe and Vasily Smyslov, both gentlemen. 

#  Fourth, the players attracted to any kind of game: Anatoly Karpov and Petrosian. 

# Fifth, the artists: Nicolas Rossolimo and Vladimir Simagin. 

# Sixth, the explorers: Aron Nimzowitsch and Reuben Fine. This is a nice way to give a veteran’s view of the personalities of champions in this worldwide game.

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From Alexandra Kosteniuk's

www.chessblog.com

Also see her personal blog at

www.chessqueen.com