Alexander Nikolayevich Zaitsev (June 15, 1935 – October 31, 1971) was a leading
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
grandmaster. He was born in
Vladivostok
Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
.
Perhaps his finest achievement was a share of first place at the
1968 USSR Chess Championship in
Alma Ata
Almaty (; kk, Алматы; ), formerly known as Alma-Ata ( kk, Алма-Ата), is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of about 2 million. It was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to 1936 as an autonomous republic as part of ...
. He eventually took the silver medal after losing the play-off to co-winner
Lev Polugaevsky
Lev Abramovich Polugaevsky ( rus, Лев Абрамович Полугаевский, p=pəlʊɡɐˈjefskʲɪj; 20 November 1934 – 30 August 1995) was a Soviet chess player. He was awarded the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE i ...
. The Chessmetrics website, which provides estimated ratings and rankings for players, places him as 21st in the world in 1969.
Zaitsev had been born with a
clubfoot
Clubfoot is a birth defect where one or both feet are rotated inward and downward. Congenital clubfoot is the most common congenital malformation of the foot with an incidence of 1 per 1000 births. In approximately 50% of cases, clubfoot aff ...
. In 1971, he had an operation to correct the problem. Details are hard to come by, but Zaitsev died of complications from the surgery.
Legacy
His name is attached to the Zaitsev Gambit of the
Grünfeld Defence
The Grünfeld Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
:1. d4 Nf6
:2. c4 g6
:3. Nc3 d5
Black offers White the possibility of 4.cxd5, which may be followed by 4...Nxd5 and 5.e4, giving White an imposing central pawn duo. If Whi ...
(1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.h4).
References
External links
*
1935 births
1971 deaths
Chess grandmasters
Russian chess players
Soviet chess players
20th-century chess players
{{Russia-chess-bio-stub