A short blog post dedicated to the Yuri Balashov, with some brief biographical information and a selection of his games, with translations of his annotations from the Soviet chess press. This game [ v. Biyiasas, Lone Pine 1977] is typical of Balashov’s style. His moves are not especially exciting or ingenious – just consistently strong.…
A blog post dedicated to the outstanding Soviet theoretician Viacheslav Ragozin. Featuring brief biographical details and translations of his annotations to a selection of his games. An earlier blog post on this site was dedicated to two magnificent games by Ragozin with the defence that today bears his name. Indeed, his name has become so…
A brief blog post dedicated to the third World Champion’s win v. two leading Soviet masters in a 1936 exhibition game, with a translation of the contemporary annotations to it by one of the players. A few days after winning the 3rd Moscow International, José Raúl Capablanca was in Leningrad, where he played an exhibition…
A short blog post dedicated to the tournament book of the 10th USSR Championship, which was won by Grigory Levenfish. The 10th USSR Championship took place in Tbilisi in 1937. The last championship had taken place more than two years previously; the intervening period had seen the organisation of major international events in the Soviet…
A blog post devoted to the little-known international tournament held 40 years ago in the city of Minsk. Exactly 40 years ago, final preparations were under way for the first-ever international tournament to be held in the capital of the Belorussian Republic. The invitees were: From the Soviet Union: grandmaster & Soviet Champion Lev Psakhis…
A blog post dedicated to the world’s oldest living grandmaster, Yuri Averbakh, on the occasion of his centenary. Yuri Lvovich Averbakh – a key figure in the Soviet chess movement during the second half of the 20th century – was born on 8th February 1922, in the city of Kaluga, where his father was employed…
A short blog post featuring translations of Sergey Dolmatov’s annotations to some of his games from the Soviet chess press, and some brief biographical information on the famous grandmaster and trainer. Sergei Viktorovich Dolmatov was born in the town of Kiselyovsk, in the Kemerovo region of Western Siberia, on 20th February 1959. At the time…
A short blog post featuring a selection of games and some brief biographical information on the outstanding Soviet (later German) grandmaster Artur Jussupow. Artur Mayakovich Jussupow (or, as it was customarily spelled in the days before he became a German citizen, ‘Yusupov’) was born in Moscow on 13th February 1960. He learned to play chess…
A blog post dedicated to the first of Karpov’s Candidates’ matches on the his path to the World Championship. The draw for the 1974 Candidates’ matches paired Anatoly Karpov with Lev Polugaevsky at the Quarter-final stage. Karpov had qualified by confidently sharing 1st-2nd place in the Leningrad Interzonal the previous summer. Lev Polugaevsky had a…
A short blog post dedicated to Grigory Levenfish’s book on the event in which he became Soviet champion for the first time. The outstanding Soviet grandmaster Grigory Levenfish was a prolific writer and also a renowned analyst. His work on rook endgames, co-authored with Vasily Smyslov, is regarded as one of the most important endgame…
A blog post dedicated to some less well-known games by the outstanding Estonian grandmaster Paul Keres. Paul Keres (b. 1916, Narva; d. 1975, Helsinki) needs little introduction. Already before World War Two he was co-winner of the great AVRO tournament of 1938, and he went on to win three Soviet Championships (1947, 1950 & 1951)…
A blog post devoted to games played by Mikhail Botvinnik during the final part of his long career. The 6th World Champion, Mikhail Moiseevich Botvinnik (1911-1995) lost the title for the final time against Tigran Petrosian in 1963, and retired from over-the-board play in 1970. During that seven-year period he played some magnificent chess. For…
A blog post dedicated to Mikhail Botvinnik’s book on the first of his three World Championship matches against Vasily Smyslov. Vasily Smyslov qualified for the 1954 match against Mikhail Botvinnik by convincingly winning the great Candidates’ Tournament held at Zürich and Neuheusen in the autumn of 1953. He went through that marathon event losing only…
A blog post containing translations of Anatoly Karpov’s annotations to some of his finest games during period 1969-1984. A number of collections of Anatoly Karpov’s games were published in the Soviet press in one form or another. On this blog, a number of pages have appeared featuring Karpov’s annotations to some of his finest games…
A blog post devoted to Anatoly Karpov’s historic match-win against Boris Spassky in the 1974 Candidates semi-final. I was present as a reporter during the match in Leningrad, and I witnessed how impressively Karpov defeated the ex-World Champion. His wins in this match were awe-inspiring. Jan Timman, ‘Timman’s Titans’ (New in Chess, 2016) The semi-finals…
Soviet Chess History 