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Rafael Vaganian
Rafael Artemovich Vaganian (, , ''Rafael Artemovich Vaganyan''; born 15 October 1951) is an Armenian chess player holding the title of grandmaster (GM). He was Soviet champion in 1989. Chess career Vaganian achieved his Grandmaster title in 1971, at the age of 19. This followed an excellent result at the Vrnjacka Banja tournament the same year, where he took first place ahead of Leonid Stein and Ljubomir Ljubojević. It was also the year that he finished fourth at the World Junior Chess Championship, a competition won by the Swiss player Werner Hug. His international tournament record includes victories at Kragujevac 1974, São Paulo 1977, Kirovakan 1978, Las Palmas 1979, Manila 1981, Hastings 1982/83, Biel 1985 (the Interzonal), Leningrad 1987, Toronto 1990 and Ter Apel 1992. At Moscow 1982 and Tallinn 1983, he shared first place with Mikhail Tal and at Næstved 1985 with Walter Browne and Bent Larsen. He won the Reggio Emilia chess tournament twice, on the occasio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armenia
Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, Nakhchivan to the south. Yerevan is the Capital city, capital, largest city and Economy of Armenia, financial center. The Armenian Highlands has been home to the Hayasa-Azzi, Shupria and Nairi. By at least 600 BC, an archaic form of Proto-Armenian language, Proto-Armenian, an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language, had diffused into the Armenian Highlands.Robert Drews (2017). ''Militarism and the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe''. Routledge. . p. 228: "The vernacular of the Great Kingdom of Biainili was quite certainly Armenian. The Armenian language was obviously the region's vernacular in the fifth century BC, when Persian commanders and Greek writers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by the World Chess Federation FIDE from the 1950s to the 1990s. They were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle and were held after the Zonal tournaments, and before the Candidates Tournament. Since 2005, the Chess World Cup has filled a similar role. Zonal tournaments In the first year of the cycle, every FIDE member nation would hold a national championship, with the top players qualifying for the Zonal tournament. The world was divided into distinct zones, with the Soviet Union, the United States and Canada each being designated a zone, thus qualifiers from these three zones went directly to the Interzonal. Smaller countries would be grouped into a zone with many countries. For example, all of South America and Central America combined originally formed one zone. Interzonal tournaments The top players in each Zonal tournament would meet in the Interzonal tournament, which would typically have between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in FIDE Online Chess Olympiad 2020, 2020 and FIDE Online Chess Olympiad 2021, 2021, with a rapid time control that affected players' online ratings. The use of the name "Chess Olympiad" for FIDE's team championship is of historical origin and is not connected to the Olympic Games. Birth of the Olympiad The first Olympiad was unofficial. For the 1924 Summer Olympics, 1924 Olympics an attempt was made to include chess in the Olympic Games but this failed because of problems with distinguishing between amateur and professional players. While the 1924 Summer Olympics was taking place in Paris, the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad also took place in Paris. FIDE was formed on Sunday, July 20, 1924, the closing day of the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad. FIDE ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Senior Chess Championship
The World Senior Chess Championship is an annual chess tournament established in 1991 by FIDE, the World Chess Federation. The 2024 tournament took place in Porto Santo, Portugal from November 16–29, 2024. Overview Originally, the minimum age was 60 years for men, and 50 for women. Since 2014, the Senior Championship is split in two different age categories, 50+ and 65+, with separate open and women-only tournaments. Participants must reach the age of 50 or 65 years by December 31 of the year of the event. There is a category for players 75+ which provides special prizes. The championship is organized as an eleven-round Swiss system tournament. It is an open tournament, and each FIDE member federation may send as many players as desired. The separate women's tournament is held only if there are enough participants (at least 10 women from four different FIDE zones). The winners of the open tournaments (both age categories) are awarded the title of Grandmaster if they do not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elo Rating
The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess or esports. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American chess master and physics professor. The Elo system was invented as an improved Chess rating system, chess-rating system over the previously used Harkness rating system, Harkness system, but is also used as a rating system in association football, association football (soccer), American football, baseball, basketball, pool (cue sports), pool, various board games and esports, and, more recently, Large language model, large language models. The difference in the ratings between two players serves as a predictor of the outcome of a match. Two players with equal ratings who play against each other are expected to score an equal number of wins. A player whose rating is 100 points greater than their opponent's is expected to score 64%; if the difference is 200 points, then the expected score for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeroflot Open
The Aeroflot Open is an annual open chess tournament organised through the joint efforts of the Chess Federation of Russia and the Russian Ministry of Sport with the sponsorship from the Russian flag carrier, Aeroflot. It is played in Moscow, holding both the international open tournament and the Russian Youth Cup "Aeroflot Open - Children". Aeroflot Open was established in 2002 as Swiss system tournament with nine rounds, and the winner is invited to the Dortmund chess tournament held later in the same year, a tradition begun in 2003. In 2013, it was converted into a rapid and blitz event. The first event had around 80 grandmasters, while in the second event 150 grandmasters participated. Beside the main tournament (A Group), there are also B and C-class tournaments. The 2025 edition of this tournament was held from 1 - 6 March 2025, at The Carlton Moscow in Moscow, Russia. It was won by Ian Nepomniachtchi Ian Alexandrovich Nepomniachtchi ( rus, Ян Алекса́нд� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lajos Portisch
Lajos Portisch (born 4 April 1937) is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster, whose positional style earned him the nickname, the "Hungarian Botvinnik". One of the strongest players from the early 1960s into the late 1980s, he participated in twelve consecutive Interzonals from 1962 through 1993, qualifying for the World Chess Championship Candidates Cycle a total of eight times (1965, 1968, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1985, and 1988). Portisch set several all-time records in Chess Olympiads. In Hungarian Chess Championships, he either shared the title or won it outright a total of eight times (1958, 1959, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1971, 1975, and 1981). He won many strong international tournaments during his career. In 2004, Portisch was awarded the title of ' Nemzet Sportolója' (Sportsman of the Nation), Hungary's highest national sports achievement award. His main hobby is singing operatic arias; he has a fine baritone voice, a quality shared by Vasily Smyslov, a chess world champion and g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrei Sokolov
Andrei Yurievich Sokolov (; born 20 March 1963, in Vorkuta, Komi ASSR, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union) is a chess Grandmaster of Russian origin, now living in France. He was one of the leading players in the world in the late 1980s. Formative years He learned the game from his father Yuri, a Soviet Army officer and Candidate Master. At 6 years old, inspiration arrived in the form of a book of Alekhine's games. At age 12, he attended one of the many chess schools that existed in and around Moscow and he occasionally frequented the legendary Pioneer Palace. Some major preparation followed in the years 1975–1982, mainly under the tutelage of renowned coach, Vladimir Yurkov. Alexey Suetin attended the same sports club (Trud) and as senior Moscow coach, observed the youngster's progress closely. Sokolov won the minor championship of Moscow in 1981, but fared less well in the major Open Championship a short while later. He had yet to learn the subtleties of positional play, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USSR Chess Championship
The USSR Chess Championship was played from 1920 to 1991. Organized by the USSR Chess Federation, it was the strongest national chess championship ever held, with eight world chess champions and four world championship finalists among its winners. It was held as a round-robin tournament with the exception of the 35th and 58th championships, which were of the Swiss system. Most wins *Six titles: Mikhail Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal *Four titles: Tigran Petrosian, Viktor Korchnoi, Alexander Beliavsky *Three titles: Paul Keres, Leonid Stein, Anatoly Karpov List of winners : See also * Women's Soviet Chess Championship * Russian Chess Championship Publications * Mark Taimanov, Bernard Cafferty, Soviet Championships, London, Everyman Chess, 1998 () References Further reading *The Soviet Chess Championship 1920-1991 [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Odessa
ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-plans made at the end of World War II by a group of ''SS'' officers with the aim of facilitating secret escape routes, and any directly ensuing arrangements. The concept of the existence of an actual ODESSA organisation has circulated widely in fictional Spy fiction, spy novels and movies, including Frederick Forsyth's best-selling 1972 thriller ''The Odessa File''. The escape-routes have become known as "Ratlines (World War II), ratlines". Known goals of elements within the ''SS'' included allowing ''SS'' members to escape to Argentina or to the Middle East under false passports. Although an unknown number of wanted Nazis and war criminals escaped Germany and often Europe, most experts deny that an organisation called ODESSA ever existed. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reggio Emilia Chess Tournament
The Reggio Emilia chess tournament was an annual chess tournament held in Reggio Emilia, Italy. In Italian the tournament is called ''Torneo di Capodanno'' (New Year's tournament), as it used to start just after Christmas and end on the day of Epiphany (6 January). It was established as an annual event in 1958 by grandmaster Enrico Paoli. In 1982/83 the tournament attracted a new sponsor and by the 1990s the tournament had gained significant international reputation, climaxing in the 1991/1992 edition. This was the first Category 18 tournament ever played; it was won by the 22-year-old Viswanathan Anand ahead of Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and Vassily Ivanchuk. It was Italy's oldest and most renowned chess tournament. The tournament was usually played as a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. The announced 55th edition had to be canceled due to economic reasons. Winners : See also *Hastings International Chess Congress The Hastings International Chess Congress is an an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bent Larsen
Jørgen Bent Larsen (4 March 1935 – 9 September 2010) was a Danish chess Grandmaster (chess), grandmaster and author. Known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play, he was the second-strongest non-Soviet Union, Soviet player, behind only Bobby Fischer, for much of the 1960s and 1970s. He is considered to be the strongest player born in Denmark and the strongest from Scandinavia until the emergence of Magnus Carlsen. Larsen was a six-time Danish Chess Championship, Danish Champion and a Candidates Tournament, Candidate for the World Chess Championship on four occasions, reaching the semifinal three times. He had multiple wins over all seven World Champions who held the title from 1948 to 1985: Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer, and Anatoly Karpov, but lifetime negative scores against them. From the early 1970s onward, he divided his years between Las Palmas and Buenos Aires with his Argentine people, Argenti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
