Andor (André, Andre, Andrei) Arnoldovich Lilienthal Reuben Fine, ''The World's Great Chess Games'', Dover Publications, 1983, p. 216. . (5 May 1911 – 8 May 2010) was a Hungarian and Soviet chess player. In his long career, he played against ten male and female world champions, beating

Emanuel Lasker Emanuel Lasker (; December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher. He was the second World Chess Champion, holding the title for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially ...

José Raúl Capablanca José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (19 November 1888 – 8 March 1942) was a Cuban chess player who was the third World Chess Championship, world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. A chess prodigy, he was widely renowned for his exceptional Chess ...

Alexander Alekhine Alexander Aleksandrovich Alekhine. He disliked when Russians sometimes pronounced the of as , , which he regarded as a Yiddish distortion of his name, and insisted that the correct Russian pronunciation was . (March 24, 1946) was a Russian ...

Max Euwe Machgielis "Max" Euwe (; May 20, 1901 – November 26, 1981) was a Dutch chess player, mathematician, author, and chess administrator. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion, a title he held from 1935 ...

Mikhail Botvinnik Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik (; ; – May 5, 1995) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster who held five world titles in three different reigns. The sixth World Chess Champion, he also worked as an electrical engineer and computer sci ...

Vasily Smyslov Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov (; 24 March 1921 – 27 March 2010) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster who was the seventh World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidates Tournament, Candidate for the World Chess Championship on ...

, and Vera Menchik.Slobodan Adzic
He Has Beaten Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine as well as Old Age!
ChessBase News, May 30, 2005. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living grandmaster (since surpassed by Yuri Averbakh), and the last surviving person from the original group of grandmasters awarded the title by

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

in 1950.

Biography

Lilienthal, of Jewish origin, was born in Moscow,

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, and moved to Hungary at the age of two. David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, ''The Oxford Companion to Chess'' (2nd ed. 1992), Oxford University Press, p. 226. . He played for Hungary in three

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 Onli ...

s: Folkestone 1933 (scoring +7−0=6 as the reserve, the fifth player on the team), Warsaw 1935 (scoring +11−0=8 on second board), and Stockholm 1937 (scoring +9−2=6 on , leading his team to the

silver medal A silver medal, in sports and other similar areas involving competition, is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, ...

). He won the individual

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...

for his board (reserve and second board, respectively) at the 1933 and 1935 Olympiads, and had the fourth-best result on first board in 1937. His total score in the Olympiads was 75.51%.Négyesi, p. 15. Lilienthal Torino

Emigrating to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in 1935, Lilienthal became a Soviet citizen in 1939. He played in the USSR Chess Championship eight times. His best result came in the 1940 championship, when he tied for first with

Igor Bondarevsky Igor Zakharovich Bondarevsky (; May 12, 1913 – June 14, 1979) was a Soviet Russian chess player, trainer, and chess author. He held the title of Grandmaster in both over-the-board and correspondence chess. Bondarevsky shared the 1940 Soviet t ...

, ahead of Smyslov,

Paul Keres Paul Keres (; 7 January 1916 – 5 June 1975) was an Estonian chess grandmaster and chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, and narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match on five ...

Isaac Boleslavsky Isaac Yefremovich Boleslavsky (, ; 9 June 1919 – 15 February 1977) was a Soviet chess grandmaster and writer. Early career Born in Zolotonosha in Ukraine to Jewish parents, Boleslavsky taught himself chess at age nine. In 1933, he became sch ...

, Botvinnik, and 14 other players. He qualified for the

Candidates Tournament The Candidates Tournament (or in some periods Candidates Matches) is a chess tournament organized by FIDE, chess's international governing body, since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship. The win ...

once, in 1948. From 1951 until 1960 he was

Tigran Petrosian Tigran Vardani Petrosian (; ; 17 June 1929 – 13 August 1984) was a Soviet-Armenian chess grandmaster and the ninth World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his almost-impenetrable defensive playing s ...

's trainer. Lilienthal began a friendship with Vasily Smyslov in 1938, and was Smyslov's in his world championship matches against Botvinnik. He retired from tournament play in 1965 and returned to Hungary in 1976. His last tournament was Zamárdi 1980, where he finished sixth in the B group, scoring +3−1=11. Lilienthal remained actively involved in the chess world into his ninth decade. He died on 8 May 2010, at the age of 99. It was reported that he had been ill for some time. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living grandmaster. According to

Boris Spassky Boris Vasilyevich Spassky (; January 30, 1937 – February 27, 2025) was a Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. Spassky played three world championship matches: he lost to Tigra ...

, Robert James Fischer approved only three chess players who could carry his coffin at his funeral: Andor Lilienthal,

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 c ...

, and Boris Spassky.

Notable games

Lilienthal was one of the few players with an even record against Capablanca. Lilienthal's "most celebrated victory" is his win commanding the white pieces against Capablanca at

Hastings Hastings ( ) is a seaside town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to th ...

1934–35: The game is famed, and Lilienthal relates, "wherever I went on an

exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibiti ...

tour, both in the

and elsewhere, chess players and fans always asked me to show them how I sacrificed the queen against the great Cuban." When

Bobby Fischer Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943January 17, 2008) was an American Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Chess Champi ...

noticed Lilienthal in the audience at his 1992 return match against

, Fischer greeted him with the remark "Pawn e5 takes f6."Négyesi, p. 5.

References

External links

* *
Lilienthal!
Collection of wins by Lilienthal against notable players. * Gorodin, Dmitry (2002)
Andor Lilienthal and His Contribution to the History of Modern Chess
Chesscafe.com. * Anzikeev, Vladimir
The Last of the Chess Mohicans
'' 64'', May 2006 * Winter, Edward
Chess Note 6569, A. Lilienthal
Photographs of Lilienthal from the collection of Edward Winter. Chesshistory.com.
Obituary

Chessbase: He played ten World Champions!
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lilienthal, Andor 1911 births 2010 deaths Hungarian chess players Jewish chess players Russian chess players Soviet chess players Chess Grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors Hungarian Jews Soviet Jews Russian Jews Hungarian emigrants to the Soviet Union Hungarian expatriates in the Soviet Union Hungarian expatriates in Russia Chess players from Moscow

Biography

Notable games

See also

References

External links