Chess Centennial Grandmaster Yuri Averbakh dies at 100


“My problem with returning to work at the Institute ended in a death,” he wrote in his memoirs.

In 1955, then world champion Mikhail Botvinnik recruited Mr. Averbakh to play practice games with him. Over the next two years, the two played 25 matches against each other – roughly the same length as a world title match – and Mr Botvinnik only won a game or two more than Mr Averbakh, according to Mr. Averbakh.

Their business relationship ended after she agreed to play practice games with Mr. Averbakh. Michael Tal Before the 1959 Candidates’ Tournament in Yugoslavia. Mr Averbakh wrote that Mr Botvinnik saw this decision as a betrayal. Mr. Tal went on to win the Candidates’ Tournament and beat Mr Botvinnik the following year.

At the end of 1982, Smyslov, then 61 years old, qualified for the Candidates matches and asked Mr. Averbakh, whom he had known since childhood, to be his coach. Mr. Averbakh agreed and Mr. Smyslov won the quarter-finals and semi-finals before losing to future world champion Garry Kasparov in the final.

As his playing career waned in the early 1960s, Mr. Averbakh took on a backstage role at the Soviet chess establishment. It was a difficult task in which every appointment and bureaucratic decision was often subject to political intrigue and second-guessing. Still, despite claiming to be naive about politics, he managed to prosper in this second career for many years.

In 1962 he became editor of the two most prestigious Soviet chess magazines, Shakhmatny Bulletin and Shakhmaty v SSSR. He held them for 37 years, a record for longevity.

In 1972, Mr. Averbakh was appointed chairman of the Soviet Chess Federation, which occupied a privileged position in Soviet society. Considering that success in chess was crucial to proving the validity of communism, chess players were considered more elite athletes and were even sent to practice with the Olympic national teams. Mr. Averbakh described the scene at the Central Komsomol school in Veshnyako in 1963:

“It was an unforgettable sight. Pencil-thin basketball players, bent-legged weightlifters, gorillas and boxers with smashed noses and huge hands like cauliflower ears. There were exceptions, of course, but the overall impression was that they were the pathological, freaky types, which brought them into big sports. and it was what allowed them to achieve better results than normal people.”

Survived by her daughter (sources differ in identifying her as Jane or Evgenia). Information on other survivors was not available.



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