March Babies: A Chess Zodiac
The march of the calendar is unstoppable. As we prepare to leave winter for the renewal of spring, it's time to ponder important dates. For instance, all true Willy Shakespeare fans know that it's time to trot out a soothsayer to warn Julius Caesar (Act 1, Scene 2) about the Ides of March (the 15th) when an emperor encountered the same fate as many a chessboard king.
Meanwhile, it's March Madness time for the college basketball fanatics beginning with Selection Sunday on March 16th and the First Four bringing the action on March 18th. Between those two auspicious days we find St Patrick's Day on the 17th, a fine time for the denizens of Chicago to see their River dyed green...and drink some green beer.
Maybe your birthday, or that of someone you know, is lucky enough to share a date with the famous events already mentioned.
But let's put all the above events aside and focus on our chess corner. We're chess aficionados and generally more concerned with the Masters of the 64 squares! After all, I'd rather learn that I, or a relative or friend, shared a birthday with a chess champion or famous chess author. Inside, you can explore which chess celebrities were born on all 31 days of March.
But forget about all that. Here are the abiding questions:
What do the biographies of the chess personalities born on a given day say about the chess potential of those born that same day in March?
What might Wikipedia and other sources be saying about you and chess in the future? Will someone credit you for starting them on the path to World CC?
Like any good zodiac, it often admits to multiple interpretations. What? Did you expect more than pseudo-science? And for now, you'll have to draw your own inferences from the information provided. The lucre, and stunning lack thereof, received to date from these blogs hardly pays for me to walk over to the faucet and fill up my glass of water. Let alone to provide my keen insights into how people are influenced by those with whom they share a random day of birth.
In the course of exploring this written monument to chess players, you'll find images of photos, stamps, YouTube videos, paintings, book covers, or sketches of various chess luminaries, along with bios that range from short and pithy to chess-boy extremes, and a smattering of quotes culled from various sources. In some cases, you'll also find links to websites players maintain and their handle on various social media, including your fave, chess.com.
Scroll through the entire list or just click on a specific day, World CC, particularly famous player, or chess couple. And after looking at the biography of the birthday personality or personalities on a given day you should find a link that returns you here so you can select another day of the month. If you want. Enjoy!
Links to March Birth Dates
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
Links to March Classical World CCs (not blitz, rapid, Fischer Random, bughouse, 3-check, etc.)
Fischer, Topalov, Chen, Smyslov
Links to Other March GM Notables
Schlechter, Maroczy, Larsen, Tarrasch, Winawer, Geller, Ivanchuk, Korchnoi
Links to March Chess Couples
Fischer, Fier, Chen, Seirawan, Rapport, Malakhato, Vijayalakshmi
Looking for birthdays in other months?
October Babies: A Chess Zodiac
November Babies: A Chess Zodiac
December Babies: A Chess Zodiac
January Babies: A Chess Zodiac
February Babies: A Chess Zodiac
Sources for this information included chess.com, wikipedia.com, ChessBase, FIDE, individuals' websites, YouTube.com, news articles, books, and other sources including A-Z Quotes | Quotes for All Occasions. Plus, my faulty memories. I mixed, matched, cut, and pasted so much that separation is implausible. Particularly with quotes which are found in a thousand repositories, not to mention book covers, t-shirts, and the rantings of chess coaches of whom I've had more than a few thanks to Chess University and @AttilaTurzo (my primary instructor).
Harold "Harry" Golombek OBE (1 March 1911 – 7 January 1995) was a British IM, honorary GM, chess arbiter, writer, and a wartime codebreaker who worked on solving Enigma. A member of the English team in nine Olympiads he was also the first British player to qualify for an Interzonal. ChessMetrics calculates his peak rating at 2543 in December 1951 but places him as high as #71 globally in April and May 1946.
Golombek was the chess correspondent for The Times for forty years and he was the editor of the British Chess Magazine in the 1960s and 70s. He wrote at least fifteen chess books, including four that covered the World CCs of 1948, 1954, 1957, and 1972. I’m a bit surprised he did not write about the 1963 World CC given that he served as Arbiter for that Petrosian – Botvinnik match. Golombek also authored game collections of famous players including Capablanca and Reti. He even managed to write Golombek’s Encyclopedia of Chess!
A lifetime of chess achievements eventually led to his appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). Humorously, that acronym means “overcome by events” in the U.S. Ah, the power and danger of acronyms.
Maria Manakova, 1 March 1974, is a Russian-born Serbian WGM and one-time Serbian Women’s CC. Her peak ELO is 2395, reached in April 2001, a year after she competed in the Women’s World CC only to be knocked out in the second round.
Apparently, she earned some notoriety by appearing on the cover of a 2004 Russian magazine cloaked partially in a fur. Oh, and she made some comments to the media that garnered a lot of attention.
She plays rarely on chess.com as @mariamanakova. The most recent games I found were in July 2024.
Mads Andersen, 1 March 1995, is a Danish GM and 3-time Danish CC. With a peak rating of 2618 in December 2024, he has hovered just above or below the 2600 waterline since September 2017. He lost ten rating points in January 2025 to fall to 2584.
#36 chess.com Hall of Fame: Carl Schlechter
Carl (Karl) Schlechter (2 March 1874 – 27 December 1918) was a leading Austro-Hungarian master (the Austro-Hungarian Empire Coat of Arms is shown in the middle of the image above). Though nicknamed the “Viennese drawing master”, over his life the records show him with 401W-530D-141L. That works out to a 13.1% losing rate, quite a small number. ChessMetrics lists him with a 2764 peak rating in January 1911 and with a peak ranking of #2 globally in 3 different months between December 1906 and February 1907.
Schlechter is perhaps best known negatively for turning a specific winning game into a drawn game into a lost game. Why was that game particularly important? Well, had he won it would have left Carl with a 2W-8D-0L score against Lasker after the tenth and final game of their ten-game 1910 World CC match. Instead, the final score was one win each and eight draws, allowing Lasker to retain his title.
To gain a World CC’s perspective on this strong player, Lasker wrote of Schlechter: "He knows every part of the game, opening, middle and particularly the ending. All adjectives apply to his style; it is bold and cautious, straightforward and trappy, complicated and simple, hard to define, and withal personal.” [Carl Schlechter! Life and Times of the Austrian Chess Wizard by Warren Goldman (Yorklyn, 1994)].
Multiple Schlechter variations are found, including in Bird’s Opening, the French, the Slav, and the Danish Gambit. In the chess writing world he is best known for his efforts producing the eighth and final edition of the famous Handbuch des Schachspiels openings treatise. A twelve-part effort published between 1912 and 1916 it totaled 1,040 pages, You can read more about Carl Schlechter at @kahns blog A Century of Chess: Carl Schlechter (1900-1909).
Chess.com Hall Of Fame # 45: Geza Maroczy
Géza Maróczy (3 March 1870 – 29 May 1951) was a Hungarian GM, awarded the title in the initial FIDE tranche of 1950. ChessMetrics estimates his peak rating at 2820 in May 1906 and places him #1 worldwide for thirty different months between October 1904 and March 1907. No surprise given that between 1902 - 08 he participated in thirteen tournaments, garnering five firsts and five seconds. Terms for a World CC match with Lasker were putatively agreed to in 1906 but never finalized.
He retired from chess in 1908 and briefly returned to the board in 1924 as a member of the gold-winning Hungarian team in the 1927 Olympiad.
The Maróczy Bind is named after him, a formation with pawns on e4 and c4 that reduces White’s attacking chances but also inhibits Black’s counterplay.
You can read more about him in GM Julio Becerra’s 2010 blog The Art of Defense and @RookMindSet’s Geza Maroczy's Strange Legacy.
Lucas van Foreest, 3 March 2001, is a Dutch GM, one-time Dutch CC, and World Rapid and Blitz U18 CC. With a peak rating of 2589 in August 2022 his ELO currently stands at 2530 after going up four points in January 2025 (UPDATE in March).
He has been a second to elite players such as Anish Giri and his brother Jorden. Chess is clearly in the family bloodlines as his great-grand-grandfather and great-great-granduncle were three-time Dutch CCs and his brother Jorden won the Dutch CC in 2016. Meanwhile, Lucas’ sister Machteld shared second place at the Dutch Girls’ U20 CC when she was nine, and became the first girl to ever win the Dutch U12 CC. At age fifteen she won the Dutch Women’s CC.
He can be found on chess.com as @jlucasvf but I found no games since September 2024.
Timur Gareyev (Gareev), March 3, 1988, is an Uzbekistani and American GM with a peak rating of 2682 in February 2013 and a peak world rank of #67 in June 2013. He tied for first in the 2007 Uzbekistani CC and supported that country in two Olympiads. At one point in time Timur was famed for his simultaneous blindfold exhibitions, setting and resetting world records.
That all changed when a darker side emerged. In 2023 he was permanently banned from appearing at, attending, or participating in any U.S. Chess Federation or affiliated events. @YEAT discussed the whys and wherefores of the ban in his 2023 post Timur Gareyev's Allegations. @sleepyporcyy provided a more recent take on this situation in her 2024 post Chess Players Who Ruined Their Careers - Chess.com.
Chess.com Hall Of Fame - 29: Bent Larsen
Jørgen Bent Larsen, the Great Dane, (4 March 1935 – 9 September 2010) was a Danish GM, six-time Danish CC, and reached the Candidates round four times, reaching the semifinal three times. His peak rating of 2660 and peak ranking of #4 in the world were both achieved in 1971. ChessMetrics, with their 21st century statistical approach, places his peak rating at 2755 in February 1971 and deemed him #3 globally for eight of the nine months from November 1970 until July 1971.
He played in multiple Olympiads, winning a gold-medal on board one at the 1956 Moscow Olympiad, including a draw with the World CC, Botvinnik. He played board one in all six Olympiads in which he participated and added two individual bronze medals to go with his gold.
Like Arjun Erigaisi, and unlike most players then and now, Bent entered an unusual number of open Swiss-style tournaments, performing incredibly well. An incredibly imaginative, even unorthodox, player he reached the semifinals of the Candidates four times but never got to compete for the World CC.
One of very few GMs to play Bird’s Opening, he assayed 1.b3 so often that the opening is now referred to as either Larsen’s Opening or the Nimzo-Larsen Attack. Additionally, he explored ways for Black to seek activity in Philidor’s Defense and was the first top player to successfully use the Grand Prix Attack against the Sicilian. There is also a line in the Caro that is jointly named for Larsen and Bronstein, accepting a doubled f-pawn (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Nxf6+ gxf6).
You can read more about Larsen at Bent Larsen, A Giant-Killer! (Some Victories Against Great Players) by @ kamalakanta.
Curt von Bardeleben (4 March 1861 – 31 January 1924) was a German master, journalist, and a member of the nobility. ChessMetrics evaluates this “amateur” player (his stated profession was lawyer) at a peak of 2710 in March 1897 and as high as #4 globally in December 1888 and January 1889.
Although a member of the nobility, Curt had fiscal responsibility issues and in Edward Lasker’s book Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters, Lasker describes him thusly,
He always wore a black cut-away suit of dubious vintage. Apparently, he could never spare enough money to buy a new suit, although I learned one day that at fairly regular intervals he received comparatively large sums – from one to several thousand marks – through the simple expedient of marrying, and shortly after, divorcing, some lady who craved the distinction of his noble name and was willing to pay for it. Unfortunately, when he received his reward, it was usually far exceeded by the amount of the debts he had accumulated since his last divorce. Evil tongues had it that the number of the ladies involved in these brief marital interludes had grown so alarmingly that they could easily have made up a Sultan's harem.⠀⠀⠀⠀
It is unknown if von Bardeleben fell or jumped from the window, leading to his demise, but his life and death may have inspired Nabokov for his main character in The Defense, later captured on film in The Luzhin Defence.
You can read more about Curt in chess.com posts such as @AstroTheoretical_Physics June 2024 post Chess Players Who Battled Depression or from @fabelhaft updated post from February 2020 Curt von Bardeleben.
Anton Kovalyov (4 March 1992) is a Ukrainian-born Canadian GM. His peak rating of 2664 in November 2017 coincided with his peak world rank at #80. I found no FIDE-rated games for him after May 2019 when his rating stood at 2631.He has competed in multiple Olympiads and won silver on board 2 in 2016 with a performance rating of 2852.
In 2017 Kovalyov was at the center of a clothing confrontation when the TD called out his attire as inappropriate. The ensuing brouhaha earned international coverage as the TD apparently shouting that Kovalyov was dressed like a gypsy, which Anton took as a racial slur. He exited the playing hall, forfeiting his third-round match in the Chess World Cup and the Canadian Chess Federation filed a complaint about the TD. You can read more about the incident at @MikeKlein’s Key Players Respond To Kovalyov Incident. In an earlier round Kovalyov had defeated Anand to send the former World CC crashing out of the event.
Anton has a master’s degree in computer science and is pursuing a PhD in Electrical Engineering.
Anita Gara, 4 March 1983, is a Hungarian WGM and IM, and six-time Hungarian Women’s CC who competed in the 2018 Women’s World CC event. Her peak rating was 2405 in January 2005, and she continues to play FIDE events regularly, but her rating has gradually eroded to 2334 as of February 2025. She has competed in eight Olympiads, taking home a bronze medal on board five in 2016. She cites her best individual game as a draw against Aronian in 2018.
She offers coaching services, and her contact information can be found on chess.com under @Angiechess83. I found no games for her on the site since August 2020. Her sister Ticia Gara (25 October 1984) is a WGM with a peak rating of 2385.
#34 chess.com Hall of Fame: Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch (5 March 1862 – 17 February 1934) was a German master, M.D., and one of the most influential theoreticians of the late 19th and early 20th century known in Germany as Praeceptor Germaniae for his efforts to make chess concepts accessible to the average player. ChessMetrics estimates his peak rating at 2824 in June 1895 and lists him at #2 globally for 111 different months between October 1890 and November 1906.
However, he was no match for Lasker whose scores against top competition were better than Tarrasch could achieve. When matched in the 1908 World CC, Lasker won with 8W-5D-3L (see @kahns A Century of Chess: Lasker-Tarrasch 1908). Tarrasch lost even more resoundingly in a 1916 match with Lasker winning five games and only one draw between them.
Tarrasch formalized many of Steinitz’s dictums (e.g., control of the center, the value of space, the advantage of the bishop pair) but emphasized dynamic play and piece mobility far more than Steinitz. Though the hypermodernists, particularly Nimzowitsch, ridiculed Tarrasch for what they perceived as his dogmatic style, he in fact played far more flexibly than they were inclined to acknowledge.
Several openings and variations are attributed to him, notably the Tarrasch Defense and the Tarrasch variations in the French Defense and the Ruy Lopez (more commonly known as the Open Defense to the Ruy Lopez). The Tarrasch Rule states that rooks belong behind passed pawns in endgames.
His two most well-known books were Three Hundred Chess Games and The Game of Chess, but his edition of St. Petersburg 1914 certainly merits mention. The latter was his last and most successful book. He also edited two chess magazines.
You can read more about Tarrasch in @simaginfan’s My Favourite Annotators. Part Eight. Siegbert Tarrasch or @DonMcKim’s Siegbert Tarrasch or @kahns A Century of Chess: Siegbert Tarrasch (1920-29) or @AstroTheoretical_Physics Most Important Players in Chess History. Even IM Jeremy Silman took time to blog about Tarrasch: The Great Siegbert Tarrasch: Puzzles And Games—clearly this Tarrasch guy is influential!!
Some of Tarrasch’s most famous quotes were:
I have always a slight feeling of pity for the man who has no knowledge of chess, just as I would pity for the man who has no knowledge of love. Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy.
When you don’t know what to do, wait for your opponent to get an idea — it’s sure to be wrong!
It is not enough to be a good player... you must also play well.
When you see a good move, sit on your hands and see if you can find a better one.
Tempo is the soul of chess.
Before the endgame, the Gods have placed the middle game.
First-class players lose to second-class players because second-class players sometimes play a first-class game.
Every move creates a weakness.
He who fears an Isolated Queen's Pawn should give up Chess.
One doesn't have to play well, it's enough to play better than your opponent.
Up to this point White has been following well-known analysis. But now he makes a fatal error: he begins to use his own head.⠀⠀⠀⠀
Vladislav Mikhailovich Artemiev (Russian: Владисла́в Миха́йлович Арте́мьев), born 5 March 1998, is a Russian GM and the 2019 European CC. With a peak rating of 2761 in June 2019, placing him at #10 globally, he still holds down a 2691 rating for the #39 spot as of February 2025. A two-time Russian CC, he also holds two Russian Rapid CC and four Russian Blitz CC titles. He placed second in the 2016 World Junior CC. He has represented Russia in various team events including the 2019 World Team CC where the team took gold, and he had a 2839 performance rating.
Artemiev plays infrequently on chess.com as @Sibelephant with his most recent games taking place on 8 October 2024. His bullet rating is 3202 and blitz is 3071. He appears to have a second account as @vartemiev, but there are no games since January 2018.
Maxim Sergeevich Matlakov (Максим Сергеевич Матлаков), 5 March 1991, is a Russian GM and former European Individual CC. He won bronze in the World Youth U12 and U14 CCs, and gold in the 2009 U18 championship. In 2017 he was part of the silver medal winning Russian team in the World Team CC. Matlakov’s peak rating of 2738 in November 2017 ranked him #23 globally. He fell out of the 2700 super-GM club in December 2019 but maintains a regular playing schedule and was rated 2623 as of February 2025.
He plays in spurts on chess.com as @BillieKimbah. Matlakov was one of 43 elite Russian players to sign the open letter to Putin protesting the invasion of Ukraine.
Vladimir Borisovich Tukmakov (Ukrainian: Володимир Борисович Тукмаков, romanized: Volodymyr Borysovych Tukmakov), 5 March 1946, is a Ukrainian GM, FIDE Senor Trainer, author, and one-time Ukrainian CC. FIDE lists his peak rating at 2610 in January 1998. A more meaningful evaluation of his strength is provided by Chessmetrics placing him at 2711 in November 1986 and #12 in the world. In his only Olympiad the Soviet team won the team gold, while in three European Team CCs he collected three team and two individual gold medals. I found no FIDE-rated games for him since October 2013.
The author of six books (e.g., Profession: Chessplayer - Grandmaster at Work), Tukmakov is also a long-time coach. Anish Giri has worked with Tukmakov since 2014.
Maurice Ashley, March 6, 1966, is a Jamaican and American GM, commentator, educator, innovator, and motivational speaker who was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 2016. With a peak rating of 2504 in July 2001 his rating had slipped to 2440 as of April 2014. I found no FIDE-rated games for him since, nor has he played on chess.com (@GMAshley) since September 2022.
In 2003 he and Susan Polgar were named GMs of the Year by the U.S. Chess Federation. In 2013 Ashley was a prime mover in the planning of the Millionaire Chess Open, with the inaugural event taking place in Las Vegas in October 2014.
With a peak rating of 2504 in July 2001, he has focused more on teaching, coaching, and commentating than pursuit of a profession as a full-time chess player. Two of his teams, the Raging Rooks of Harlem and the Dark Knights, both won national CCs.
As an author he has written multiple monographs, such as The End of the Draw Offer?, and also written multiple books for beginners and children as well as more personal offerings. I’ve always found his commentary to be very insightful during multiple U.S. CC events. I must admit, I did not happen to catch his work during the Kasparov – Anand World CC match of 1995.
His sister, Alicia Ashley, is a former world boxing champion and his brother is a former world kickboxing champion.
#43 chess.com Hall of Fame: Szymon Winawer
Szymon Abramowicz Winawer (March 6, 1838 – November 29, 1919) was a Polish master and one-time German CC. ChessMetrics estimates his peak rating at 2708 in April 1883 and places him #2 globally in 12 different months between July 1878 and May 1880. In his first international tournament, Paris 1867, he finished in second place, tied with Steinitz. He tied with Steinitz again at Vienna 1882, the world’s strongest tournament up to that time, but this time the tie was for first!
Shortly after he took a long break from chess, returning in the late 1890s only to find he had been surpassed by a younger generation.
His most famous opening variation is the French Winawer, but he is also associated with the Winawer Attack and of the Ruy Lopez and the Slav Winawer Countergambit, which he introduced in a game against Frank Marshall.
You can read more about this interesting top player at @simaginfan’s April 2020 Szymon Winawer. Some Games and a Puzzling Picture. or his May 2023 post A New Book On Winawer. A Quick Look. If you’d just like to know more about the Winawer French, I’ll point you towards GM @BryanSmith’s December 2014 post The French Winawer: A History. Bryan is from Alaska. No, we are not related, to the best of my knowledge.
Alexander Mikhailovich Chernin (Russian: Александр Михайлович Чернин) born 6 March 1960, is a Soviet-born Hungarian GM, FIDE Senior Trainer, and author. He was a silver medalist in the 1979 World Junior CC behind Yasser Seirawan. A one-time Soviet CC he earned both team and individual gold medals at the inaugural World Team CC in 1985. He switched to the Hungarian Federation in 1992 and has represented them in multiple events. His peak rating of 2645 in January 1998 came four years after his peak world rank of #19. I found no FIDE rated games for him after June 2014 when his rating stood at 2614.
A noted expert in the Pirc Defense, in 2001 he co-authored Pirc Alert! with Lev Alburt, forming the basis of my opening repertoire for most of that decade. I've moved on from that opening but harbor some good memories and memorable discussions with a few NMs who didn't think much of the opening for Black when faced with the Four Pawns Attack.
Georgi Petrov Tringov (7 March 1937 – 2 July 2000) was a Bulgarian GM and one-time Bulgarian CC. He played for his country in five World Student Team CCs, earning three individual golds to go with two team silvers and one gold. He played for Bulgaria in twelve Olympiads, twice winning individual gold, once on board two and once on board three.
His peak ELO of 2495 was achieved in January 1977, and he was ranked #83 globally in July 1971. As usual with those who may have seen their best years impacted by FIDE’s late arrival to a rating system, ChessMetrics probably offers a better assessment of his true strength. By their measurements his peak rating was 2636 in November 1978 and his peak rank was #39 on the October and November 1962 lists.
#38 chess.com Hall of Fame: Efim Geller
Efim Petrovich Geller (Russian: Ефим Петрович Геллер; Ukrainian: Юхим Петрович Геллер; 8 March 1925 – 17 November 1998) was a Soviet GM, two-time Soviet CC, six-time Ukrainian CC, six-time Candidate for the World CC, and two-time World Seniors CC. In the 1972 Candidates Tournament he missed playing for the World CC, tying for second place with Paul Keres with both of them finishing a half point behind Petrosian. Representing the Soviet team in seven Olympiads, he earned three individual golds and three individual silvers. His lifetime Olympiad record saw him scoring at a 75.7% rate with 46W-23D-7L.
FIDE lists his peak rating and ranking at 2620 and #8 respectively in January 1976. Considering that was only six years after FIDE adopted a rating system and almost fifty years into Geller’s career, we’ll look to ChessMetrics for a better estimate of his true strength. On that site we find his peak rating at 2765 in August 1963 while he reached #2 globally from May – July 1963.
A noted openings expert, he was one of several players who catapulted the KID to prominence among the elite. He also introduced the fascinating Geller Gambit against the Slav, an opening I have spent a lot of time studying. As an author his books The Application of Chess Theory and a self-annotated collection of his games both were well received.
Geller seconded multiple World CCs: Petrosian, Spassky, and Karpov. One wonders if his doctorate in physical education served him well in that role!
You can read more about Geller at IM Silman’s Efim Geller, Killer On The Chessboard or Efim Geller vs Bobby Fischer or @kamalakanta’s Geller Teaches the Kids (Fischer, Karpov, Beliavsky, Psakhis!) How Chess Can Be Played. Or you can look at GM @JRLOK's video Greatest Chess Minds: Efim Geller with Grandmaster Dzindzichashvili providing commentary.
David Arturovich Paravyan (Russian: Давид Артурович Паравян; born 8 March 1998) is a Russian GM with a peak rating of 2660 in September 2021, placing him 78th globally. He played some FIDE rated games in December 2024 and gained a single rating point to stand at 2621 entering January 2025. He can be found on chess.com as @dropstoneDP where he plays quite regularly and maintains a blitz rating of 3135 and a bullet rating of 3000 as of 7 February 2025.
#3 chess.com Hall of Fame: Bobby Fischer
Robert (Bobby) James Fischer (March 9, 1943 – January 17, 2008) was an American GM, the 11th World CC, and eight-time U.S. CC. In 1964 he won the U.S. CC with an unmatched 11-0 score. That career highlight was exceeded when he won 20 games in a row across the end of the Interzonal and three Candidates matches before losing to Petrosian in the second game of their match.
The 1972 World CC match swirled with controversy, nearly failed to reach the starting gate, and almost capsized after Bobby forfeited the second game. Of course, that was preceded by a first game in which Fischer allowed his bishop to be trapped in pursuit of an h-pawn. Although computers now prove the position was holdable, that certainly was not the assessment of chess analysts worldwide at the time.
Down 2-0, and never having defeated Spassky in classical chess, Bobby nonetheless took over and eventually snatched the crown from the Soviet hegemon that had produced a pantheon of World CCs beginning in the 1940s and continuing uninterrupted until this match. Fischer forfeited his title to Karpov in 1975 for a variety of reasons I suspect will never be fully understood.
Because he only played under FIDE’s new ELO system for a few years after its introduction in 1970, his FIDE peak rating is listed as 2785…that rating placed him #1 globally by 125 points compared to the #2 player, Boris Spassky! ChessMetrics may offer a more meaningful measure of his peak strength, listing his peak rating at 2895 on the October 1971 rating list. Bobby spent 109 months as the #1 player in the world between February 1964 and July 1974.
There was a rematch against Spassky in 1993 that he won by 10W-15D-5L. The overall quality was high, but it was apparent Bobby was playing in the style of an older generation. That said, in his heyday he made numerous contributions to the Najdorf Sicilian, establishing the viability of the Poisoned Pawn variation amongst other contributions, and the KID. He also contributed numerous ideas on the White side of the Sozin Attack in the Sicilian, one of my favorite lines at one time. There is also a variation in the Nimzo-Indian named after him.
As an author, his book My 60 Memorable Games is considered essential reading by all serious chess players. Fischer also wrote columns for the Boy’s Life magazine, later collected into a book, and Chess Life. Other books included Bobby Fischer’s Games of Chess. Some of his most interesting articles included: "A Bust to the King's Gambit" in American Chess Quarterly; "The Russians Have Fixed World Chess" in Sports Illustrated; and "The Ten Greatest Masters in History" in Chessworld.
Some of Fischer’s most famous chess quotes were:
I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves.
Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent's mind.
A strong memory, concentration, imagination, and a strong will is required to become a great Chess player.
I don't recommend trying to cram a lot of long opening-move variations into your head. The main idea behind any opening is to get a strong pawn center and give your pieces a lot of scope so that you cramp your opponent's position and can attack weaknesses in his game.
Your body has to be in top condition. Your Chess deteriorates as your body does. You can't separate body from mind.
Every chess game is like taking a five-hour final exam.
Chess is a matter of delicate judgement, knowing when to punch and how to duck.
Don't even mention losing to me. I can't stand to think of it.
Capablanca was among the greatest of chess players, but not because of his endgame. His trick was to keep his openings simple and then play with such brilliance in the middlegame that the game was decided - even though his opponent didn't always know it - before they arrived at the ending.
Blitz chess kills your ideas.
I love chess, and I didn't invent Fischerandom chess to destroy chess. I invented Fischerandom chess to keep chess going. Because I consider the old chess is dying, it really is dead. A lot of people have come up with other rules of chess-type games, with 10x8 boards, new pieces, and all kinds of things. I'm really not interested in that. I want to keep the old chess flavor. I want to keep the old chess game. But just making a change so the starting positions are mixed, so it's not degenerated down to memorization and prearrangement like it is today.
Fischer made other lasting contributions as well. Perhaps most famous is Fischer Random chess, aka Chess960. Bobby also patented a modified clock that added the time increment we are now used to seeing in top-flight competition and online.
WIM Miyoko Watai, 8 January 1905, was ruled Fischer’s widow by an Icelandic court. Combine her peak rating of 2050 in January 2007 with his peak ChessMetrics rating and they achieve a chess couple power rating of 4945, still a bit short of the combined 5000 rating numerous couples have achieved.
In the end Robert James Fischer’s legend was tainted by his actions and words over the last thirty years of his life. Oddly enough, that may have contributed to his legend. Fame and infamy intertwined in a tale whose end leaves one only with questions.
Natalia Andreevna Pogonina (Russian: Ната́лья Андре́евна Пого́нина; born March 9, 1985) is a Russian WGM, two-time Russian Women’s CC, and was the runner-up in the 2015 Women’s World CC. She earned team golds in three Olympiads and one European Women’s Team CCs. Her peak rating was 2508 in July 2014. As @Natalia_Pogonina she has not played on chess.com since 2015. She used to blog regularly but her most recent was in 2016 How does an amateur beat a top GM?.
Grigory Yakovlevich Levenfish (Russian: Григо́рий Я́ковлевич Левенфи́ш; 19 March 1889 – 9 February 1961) was a Soviet GM, two-time Soviet CC, and author. Unfortunately, he never found favor with Soviet authorities, hampering his growth as a chess player. ChessMetrics suggests his peak rating was 2677 in February 1939 and he was #9 globally in April and May 1938. His best individual performance rating was 2730 in a drawn 13-game match against Botvinnik in 1938.
An opening theorist, the Levenish Attack in the Sicilian is named for him. As an author he wrote several beginners’ books and edited a collaborative opening book as well as an autobiography, plus one of the first books on rook endings that I ever owned
Sarasadat Khadem al-Sharieh (Persian: سارا سادات خادمالشریعه; born 10 March 1997), also known as Sara Khadem (سارا خادم), is an Iranian-Spanish IM and WGM. Winner of the World U12 Girls CC, she later won the World U16 Girls Blitz CC. In 2014 she placed second in the World Junior Girls CC. A one-time Iranian Women’s CC she sports a peak rating of 2494 in February 2025, receding slightly to 2458 as of November 2024.
In January 2023 Iran issued an arrest warrant against her for failure to wear a hijab during the December 2022 World Rapid and Blitz CCs. She has moved to Spain and obtained citizenship.
Josef Kupper (10 March 1932 – 5 June 2017) was a Swiss IM and three-time Swiss CC. He played for the Swiss team in four Olympiads and earned an individual silver medal on first board in the 1954 event. Listed with a FIDE ELO of 2380 in July 1971, ChessMetrics offers his peak rating as 2571 in April 1960 and ranks him at #77 in January of that year.
Joel Lawrence Benjamin, 11 March 1964, is an American GM, U.S. Junior CC, U.S. Open CC, three-time U.S. CC, and two-time co-winner of the U.S. Masters CC. With a peak ELO of 2620 in July 1993 his peak world ranking was 6 years earlier, at #29 in July 1987.
A GM consultant for the Deep Blue team that defeated Kasparov in 1998, Joel later played a match against Leela that he won! He has also written several books. Among them are American Grandmaster: Four Decades of Chess Adventures, Unorthodox Openings (a notable feature of his playing style!), and Chessboard Combat: The Give and Take of Chess Tactics.
Voted Grandmaster of the Year in 1998 by the U.S. Federation, he was inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame in 2008. He maintains an infrequent presence on chess.com as @gmjoel with a game as recently as December 2024.
Alexandr Hilário Takeda Sakai dos Santos Fier (born 11 March 1988) is a Brazilian GM and five-time Brazilian CC who won most recently in December 2024. He has competed in six FIDE World Cups and represented Brazil at multiple team events including Olympiads and the World Team CC. With a peak rating of 2653 in November 2009, he reached #76 globally. His rating stood at 2547 entering February 2025.
He is a streamer who plays blitz and 960 regularly on chess.com as @A-Fier.
Alexandr Fier and Nino Maisuradze
He is married to WGM Nino Maisuradze (born 13 June 1982) who has a peak rating of 2349. Combining their peak ratings they just squeak into the ELO 5000+ combined couples club at 5002.
Zaven Andriasian (sometimes transliterated as Andriasyan; Armenian: Զավեն Անդրիասյան), born 11 March 1989, is an Armenian GM, former World Junior CC, and opening books author. With a peak rating of 2645 in March 2011 his rating has subsided to 2547. The two books I found for him were Winning with the Najdorf Sicilian. An Uncompromising Repertoire for Black and The English Attack against the Taimanov Sicilian. A Guide for White, both written about a decade ago. He is one of the pool of GMs supporting ChessMood (GM Avetik is the founder) and offers coaching services.
I found no games for him after 2020 on chess.com where he plays as @Zaven_ChessMood.
Sébastien Feller, 11 March 1991, is a French GM and the French Blitz CC in 2010. His peak ELO was 2668 in September 2011, reaching #77 globally.
He played for the French team in the 2010 Olympiad and won the gold medal on board five. However, he and two other members of the team were accused of cheating, a charge that played out over the entire decade. In 2012, FIDE’s Ethics Commission sanctioned all three and Sébastien was suspended for almost three years. Then, in 2019, a French Tribunal sentenced him to a suspended sentence of six months in prison. You can read more about this incident at @the-turtlepro’s The Most Famous Chess Cheating Incidents, @PeterDoggers French cheating: Disciplinary Committee says guilty and the followup Sebastien Feller Can Play Chess Again - Page 2.
Sébastien returned to active play in June 2015 after serving his suspension. The most recent FIDE-rated games I found for him were in March 2024 which saw a slight drop in his rating to 2546.
There is still a presence for him on chess.com as @HustleStandard but I found no games since 2020 when he played multiple bullet games over a period of months.
Teimour Boris oghlu Radjabov (also spelled Teymur Rajabov; Azerbaijani: Teymur Boris oğlu Rəcəbov), born 12 March 1987, is an Azerbaijani GM. His peak rating was 2793 in November 2012, and he reached #4 globally in July 2012. In November 2023 and May 2024 he had some bad results that shaved a total of 41 points off his rating to drop him to 2704. He dropped out of the 2700-rated super-GM club in November 2024 and currently his ELO sits at 2698.
He has competed in three Candidates tournaments with a best finish of third place in 2022. In the 43rd Olympiad he earned a bronze medal on board two. Teimour won the World Youth U12 CC and has placed second in both a World Blitz CC and World Rapid CC.
He plays regularly on chess.com as @TRadjabov. Though he maintains a blog, I found only one post and that was an announcement regarding his chess academy in 2020.
Yuri Sergeyevich Balashov (Russian: Ю́рий Серге́евич Балашо́в; born 12 March 1949) is a Russian GM who FIDE listed with a peak rating of 2600 in January 1979, good enough for #11 in the world. Using ChessMetrics normalized rating system finds him with a peak rating of 2715 in July 1977, still placing him at #11 globally.
In 2014 he tied for first with three others in the World Senior 65+ CC but took silver on tiebreaks. Balashov repeated that tiebreaker heartbreaker in 2018, tying for first with Vlastimil Jansa on points but receiving silver. A member of the Russian team for three World Student Team CCs he earned one individual gold on second board. He also shared in a team gold at the 1980 Olympiad, scoring 7-1/2 of 10 as first board reserve.
Balashov set aside much of his playing career assisting Karpov at World CC matches and serving as second at other events.
Polina Sergeevna Shuvalova (Russian: Полина Сергеевна Шувалова; born 12 March 2001) is a Russian IM and WGM with a peak rating of 2516 in December 2021. She remains above the 2500 GM-waterline at 2508 as of February 2025 but only has one GM norm. A World Girls U20 CC she is also a two-time U18 CC.
She plays regularly in Titled Tuesday events, playing as @Flawless_Fighter. In October 2023 Shuvalova won chess.com’s I'M Not A GM Speed Chess Championship, defeating Levy Rozman in the final.
Zhu Chen (simplified Chinese: 诸宸; traditional Chinese: 諸宸; pinyin: Zhū Chén, Arabic: زو تشن; born March 13, 1976) is a Chinese-born Qatari GM, former Women’s World CC, and three-time Chinese National Women’s CC. She was the first Chinese player to win an international chess event, claiming the World Girls U12 CC in 1988, and later twice winning the World Junior Girls CC. Her peak rating was 2548 in January 2008, and I found no FIDE-rated standard time control games for her after September 2017 when she was rated 2423.
She is online occasionally at chess.com as @ZhuChenChess but I found no games after 3 October 2024 when she would have been found playing bughouse. Hers is a very tranquil pfp!
Zhu Chen and Mohamad Al-Modiahki
Zhu Chen is married to Qatari GM Mohamad Al-Modiahki, 1 June 1974, with a peak rating of 2588. This chess power couple has a peak combined rating of 5130.
Lê Quang Liêm, 13 March 1991, is a Vietnamese GM with a peak rating of 2741 in August 2024 and a peak world rank of #14 in September 2024. He is a past victor of the Asia CC, won the World Youth U14 CC, and is a former World Blitz CC.
He currently lives in Missouri and serves as head coach of the renowned Webster University chess team which won the President’s Cup in all four years while he was playing Board One as a student and won the title again in 2023 with Liêm now serving as the coach.
He plays regularly on chess.com as @LiemLe with a bullet rating of 3121 and blitz rating of 3109. He participated in the Freestyle Friday event on 14 February which took place the day I wrote this bio, scoring 8W-0D-3L.
David Neil Laurence Levy, 14 March 1945, is a Scottish IM and Scottish CC and chess author whose fame is largely based on his work with computer chess and AI. FIDE cites a peak rating of 2360 in July 1971 but ChessMetrics provides a more balanced estimate of 2498 in November 1969. This latter data point is particularly relevant given Levy retired from active play in 1972, a mere two years after FIDE introduced their first rating system.
He became famous for his 1968 bet that no program would be able to beat him by 1978, a decade later. Levy and two others organized the first World Computer CC in 1974. Then, in 1978, he won the bet by winning a six-game match against Chess 4.7 but expressed the realization that computers were improving faster than he had expected. Beginning in 1986 he served as President of the International Computer Games Association (ICGA) for 25 total years, with a gap from 1993 to 1998.
Since 2007 Levy has courted controversy with his frank views on the future of sexbots and erotic chatbots, which he sees as the wave of the future…okay, whatever. In 2011 Levy became embroiled in the 2011 Rybka controversy surrounding the question of computer code provenance. In the estimation of Levy and the ICGA (given his roles Levy largely constituted the ICGA, imo) banned Rybka from events after determining that the author of Rybka had plagiarized two other programs, Crafty and Fruit. Others were highly critical of the ICGA’s decision, investigation, methods, and panel members. I didn't find any final resolution on the controversial decision.
Éric Prié, 14 March 1962, is a French GM, former French CC, and French Federation trainer. His peak rating was 2532 in October 2007 and he was a member of the French team in three Olympiads. Prié was considered the top blindfold player in France and has given simuls against as many as sixteen opponents. The last game I found for him was in August 2023 when his rating had declined to 2353.
Among his students were Bacrot, Fressinet, MVL, and Marie Sebag. There is an opening named after him, one of those weird offshoots that begins 1.d4 d5 2.a3.
Prié is also a very skilled practitioner of the London System. I have almost a hundred games of his in my London DB. I’ve included one of his more interesting games below. I'm certain the overwhelming majority of comments are mine (so blame me for any errors), but it is possible a stray note from IM Lakdawala may have slipped in.
Sergey Fedorchuk (Ukrainian: Сергій Федорчук, romanized: Serhiy Fedorchuk; born 14 March 1981) is a Ukrainian GM with a peak rating of 2674 in November 2010 and peak world rank of #51 in April 2008. His rating stands at 2555 as of February 2025 after losing a single rating point in January.
John Emms, born 14 March 1967, is an English GM and chess author. He has one tie for first in the British CC. His rating peaked at 2586 in July 1999 and stands at 2409 as of February 2025.
He has written extensively about a variety of openings. He has also offered some volumes on various piece endgames, and some very puzzling tomes to test the abilities of those looking for amazing moves! I counted thirty books in his Wikipedia citations including: The Most Amazing Chess Moves of All Time; Dangerous Weapons: Anti-Sicilians; The Survival Guide to Competitive Chess; and The Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book.
#21 chess.com Hall of Fame: Veselin Topalov
Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov (Bulgarian: Весели́н Алексáндров Топа́лов; born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian GM, former FIDE World CC, World U14 CC, and winner of the 2005 Chess Oscar. Topalov competed in nine Olympiads, earning a Board One gold in 2014. He was the #1 ranked player globally for a total of 25 months over a period of about 4-1/2 years. His peak rating was 2816 in July 2015. He still fits in the super-GM category with a rating of 2717 as of February 2025.
The biggest controversy of Topalov’s career was dubbed “Toiletgate” because his team accused Kramnik of receiving computer assistance in visits to the private bathrooms that were initially installed for each player. Topalov lost his FIDE World CC to Kramnik in this championship only one year after gaining the title.
Topalov was on the losing end of a 1999 game that is deemed Kasparov’s Immortal Game.
Maxim Lagarde, 16 March 1994, is a French GM and one-time French CC. His peak rating was 2659 in February 2020 when he reached #82 globally. He won a tournament in Bordeaux, France this year and his ELO is currently 2604.
He plays regularly on chess.com as @Rikikits and I found one blog entry 20 October 2022, Armenia, A Small Country By Size, But Big For Chess! It offered no images beyond the thumbnail and was more a description of well-organized tournaments and grossly underrated Armenian players who cost him a lot of rating points! But he highlights the positives, so it wasn’t a bad blog at all…except for those word walls. Some interspersed pictures and commented games would have been quite welcome!
Oscar Roberto Panno (born 17 March 1935) is an Argentine GM and three-time Argentine CC who won the 2nd World Junior CC ahead of future luminaries such as Ivkov, Larsen, and Olafsson. Despite playing in five Interzonals, he only qualified for the Candidates once, finishing poorly in that stage. Panno played for the Argentine team in eleven Olympiads, earning one team silver and two team bronzes.
FIDE lists his peak rating at 2585 in July 1973, past his prime years, and #18 globally in January 1978. ChessMetrics offers a more useful estimate of his peak rating, listing it at 2680 in October 1955 and placing him at #14 globally the next month.
Intriguingly, this long-playing GM was apparently on chess.com as recently as 16 February 2025, though the last online game I found for @GMPanno was in 2018 with some blitz and daily games.
Paul van der Sterren (born 17 March 1956) is a Dutch GM, two-time Dutch CC, and author. He qualified for the Candidates in 1993 but lost to Kamsky in the first round with 1W-3L-3D. His peak rating was 2605 in January 1994 when he reached #45 globally.
One of the founding members of New in Chess, he contributed more than 150 opening surveys. He also published multiple books including the two-volume Fundamental Chess Openings and Your First Chess Lessons, as well as autobiographical material of his life as a chess professional.
Vasyl Mykhailovych Ivanchuk (Ukrainian: Василь Михайлович Іванчук; born March 18, 1969) is a Ukrainian GM and former World Blitz CC and World Rapid CC. With a peak rating of 2787 in October 2007, he has reached #2 globally in 1991, 1992, and 2007. February 2019 was the last time he was a member of the super-GM club, rated 2713 that month. He was rated 2619 in February 2025, having lost eleven rating points in December 2024.
He has played in fourteen Olympiads (twice for the USSR, twelve times for Ukraine) and snared thirteen team medals including four team golds, one team silver, and three team bronzes. Individually he won a board gold, silver, two bronzes, and one performance bronze (the third-highest performance rating of all Olympiad participants).
On the negative side, his inability to win the World CC is attributed by many observers to his poor nerves at the most critical moments. On the plus side, his chess peers consider Ivanchuk a genius because of his imaginative play.
Listen to these quotes from Anand:
He's someone who is very intelligent ... but you never know which mood he is going to be in. Some days he will treat you like his long-lost brother. The next day he ignores you completely.
The players have a word for him. They say he lives on "Planet Ivanchuk". [Laughs] ... I have seen him totally drunk and singing Ukrainian poetry and then the next day I have seen him give an impressive talk.
His playing style is unpredictable and highly original, making him more dangerous but sometimes leading to quick losses as well.
Chucky began playing checkers in 2016 and reached #1,089 in the World Draughts Federation’s DV in 2021.
If you’d like to read more about Ivanchuk there are innumerable online sources. But as a starting point I’ll direct you towards Ivanchuk: A Genius of Imaginative, Exciting Chess! by @kamalakanta.
Harold James Plaskett (born 18 March 1960) is a British GM and chess writer with a peak rating of 2529 in July 2000. He is the author of at least nine chess books including The English Defence, The Sicilian Taimanov, Can You Be a Tactical Chess Genius?, The Scandinavian Defence and The Queen's Bishop Attack Revealed.
Technically he has a presence on chess.com as @Parsifal7 but does not appear to have been online since March 2012, a month after he joined.
Of note, in 2006 he won £250K on the television show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
László Szabó, March 19, 1917 – August 8, 1998, was a Hungarian GM and nine-time Hungarian CC. He played in several Candidates tournaments, with his best finish being a tie for third in 1956, finishing behind Petrosian and Spassky.
Because he was well past his prime when FIDE instituted a rating system, their records underestimate his playing strength with a rating of 2565 in July 1973, though that was still good enough for #28 globally. ChessMetrics more accurately projects his peak rating at 2726 in December 1946, #2 globally. He represented Hungary in eleven Olympiads, earning team silver and bronze and individually securing two silver medals and a single bronze.
Eduard Yefimovich Gufeld (Russian: Эдуа́рд Ефи́мович Гу́фельд; 19 March 1936 – 23 September 2002) was a Soviet/American GM, coach, author, and founder of the FIDE Committee on Art and Exhibition. He won the Ukrainian Junior CC in 1954. His peak rating of 2570 in 1977 (#22 globally) is reflective of the fact FIDE did not have a rating system in place until 1970 and it took a while to stabilize. ChessMetrics places him at a peak rating of 2664 in March 1977.
Gufeld’s self-described “Mona Lisa” was a KID, Sämisch Variation in 1973, shown above. You can see if you can duplicate Gufeld’s scintillating play in a series of puzzles presented in GM@Gserper’s 2010 post Personal Mona Lisa. In case you don’t want to do that, I’ve included the game with some brief analysis by the players. That game is included in John Nunn’s collection of the hundred greatest games of all time, Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games.
Guefeld was a prolific author in his own right, penning over eighty chess books including Secrets of the Sicilian Dragon, Bobby Fischer: From Chess Genius to Legend, and Winning With the Torre Attack. Some other book covers are shown above.
Eric Schiller (March 20, 1955 – November 3, 2018) was an American FM, Trainer, IA, and author. In his role as an arbiter, Schiller served in the 2000 FIDE World CC. His peak rating was 2370 in July 1986.
Schiller was one of the most prolific authors of books on chess in the 20th century, producing more than 100, almost all manifestly directed at an amateur audience. Despite his PhD in Linguistics from the University of Chicago, his books were not well received by the chess cognoscenti.
Chess historian Edward Winter cited many of Schiller’s early books for poor spelling, fact-checking, and even plagiarism. GM Anthony Miles wrote of Schiller’s Unorthodox Chess Openings, “Pure crap.” That was the totality of the review. A Carsten Hansen review of a book on the Frankenstein–Dracula Variation of the Vienna Game simply stated that it was “by far the worst book that I have ever seen.”
Setting that aside momentarily, he did occasionally break out of hackdom. IM Jeremy Silman wrote of IM John Watson and FM Schiller’s book The Big Book of Busts that, “I am forced to swallow my bigoted view of Schiller's work (or does this just validate my opinion of Watson?) and admit that this is a great book.” Given that I am a fan of John’s work, I am inclined to go with Jerry Silman’s parenthetical portion of that statement.
Andrei Yurievich Sokolov (Russian: Андре́й Ю́рьевич Соколо́в), 20 March 1963, is a Russian-born French GM. The 1982 World Junior CC he also won the USSR CC in his initial attempt at age 21. The individual highlight of his career was reaching the final of the 1987 Candidates Tournament only to lose to Karpov. He earned two team gold medals at Olympiads as a member of the Soviet team and represented France twice.
With a peak rating of 2645 in January 1987, he reached #4 globally. He still plays actively with his rating increasing slightly in January 2025 to reach 2454. ChessMetrics calculates his normalized peak rating at 2743 in November 1986.
Bobby Cheng, 20 March 1997, is a New Zealand-Australian GM, one-time Australian Open CC, one-time Australian CC, and the World Junior U12 CC (in 2009). His peak rating was 2596 in December 2024.
He has not played on chess.com since July 2024 but when he does play, he can be found as @slackdaisical. Anybody with that username has to be just alright.
Azer Mirzoev (Azerbaijani: Azər Mirzəyev), born 20 March 1978, is an Azerbaijani GM with a peak rating of 2617 in November 2009. He plays regularly on chess.com as @azikom.
Igor Khenkin, born 21 March 1968, is a Russian-born German GM with a peak rating of 2670 in May 2012. He reached #35 in the world rankings in January 1999. He still plays regularly and was rated 2504 as of February 2025.
Soumya Swaminathan (born 21 March 1989) is an Indian IM and WGM who won the World Junior Girls’ CC, Indian Women’s CC, and Commonwealth Women’s CC. She has participated in three Women’s World Team CCs and two Olympiads. Her peak rating was 2428 in November 2018 but is 2253 as of February 2025.
She plays regularly on chess.com as @soumeow and streams at https://www.youtube.com/c/SoumyaSwaminathan64.
Soumya is also a lawyer.
Kenneth (Ken) Saul Rogoff (born March 22, 1953) is an American GM and PhD Economics. He placed third in the 1971 World Junior CC. FIDE lists his peak rating at 2520 in January 1977 with a peak rank of #61 in January 1980. ChessMetrics suggests his best rating was 2615 in May 1978; interestingly the peak world ranking they suggest is lower than the FIDE system, placing him at #72 on the May 1978 list.
Rogoff quite playing chess professionally at age eighteen to complete his education and find success in a far more lucrative career as an economist.
Andrey Evgenyevich Esipenko (Russian: Андрей Евгеньевич Есипенко; born 22 March 2002) is a Russian GM and former World U16 CC. His peak rating of 2723 was reached in March 2022, placing him #24 globally. As of February 2025, he stands at 2695 ELO, good enough for #34 in the world.
He plays regularly on chess.com as @Andreikka. Episenko was one of 43 elite Russian players to protest Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He maintains both a twitter and Instagram presence.
Edmar John Mednis (Latvian: Edmārs Džons Mednis; March 22, 1937 – February 13, 2002) was a Latvian-born, American GM and author who finished second behind Spassky in the 1955 World Junior CC. FIDE lists his peak rating at 2510 in January 1979, so we’ll once again defer to ChessMetrics for a more measured sense of his playing strength at his peak. ChessMetrics determined that his peak rating was 2584 in August 1986 but places his highest world ranking at #78 in November 1956.
Mednis became best known as a chess author, penning 26 books, hundreds of chess articles, and annotating many games for Chess Informant (the last in conjunction with Robert Byrne). His books covered the spectrum, from openings through the middle game, and into the endgame. Additionally, he authored books on the play of Karpov and others. The book title I have always considered among the most amusing is How to Beat Bobby Fischer, a compendium of all Fischer’s losses.
Despite his prodigious output Mednis, I do not consider him one of the most influential chess authors of all time because there is no great following of Mednis principles nor, to the best of my knowledge, did his books earn critical acclaim.
Some Mednis quotes of note include:
The key to ultimate success is the determination to progress day by day.
After a bad opening, there is hope for the middle game. After a bad middle game, there is hope for the endgame. But once you are in the endgame, the moment of truth has arrived.
In Chess, at least, the brave inherit the earth.
Your practical results will improve when you play what you know, like and have confidence in.
Bobby Fischer started off each game with a great advantage: after the opening he had used less time than his opponent and thus had more time available later on. The major reason why he never had serious time pressure was that his rapid opening play simply left sufficient time for the middlegame.
You must be able to handle a variety of move orders during the first 5-6 moves - otherwise you'll find yourself 'tricked' time and time again.
Give me a difficult positional game, I will play it. But totally won positions, I cannot stand them.
Larry Melvyn Evans (March 22, 1932 – November 15, 2010) was an American GM, author, and journalist. He won or shared five U.S. CCs and four U.S. Open CCs. FIDE lists his peak rating at 2631 in October 1978 and his peak ranking at #30 in January 1977. ChessMetrics suggests his peak rating was 2673 in August 1952, well before FIDE established a rating system. That would have placed him #19 globally.
He earned an individual gold on board six of the 1950 Olympiad then collected individual silver and bronze medals in 1958 and 1976 respectively. A member of eight U.S. Olympiad teams he also garnered a team gold and team silver during those eight events.
Evans was Fischer’s second during the Candidates matches leading up to the World CC match, but they disagreed and separated before the championship itself.
Evans wrote or co-authored more than twenty books. His first two books were written by age 18, David Bronstein's Best Games of Chess, 1944–1949 and the Vienna International Tournament, 1922. Strikes me that he was probably analyzing all those games and realized he had all the makings of a book in hand!
Perhaps his most important contribution was the tenth edition of Modern Chess Openings, co-authored with Walter Korn. Evans was also a prodigious journalist. He helped found American Chess Quarterly and edited Chess Digest for parts of two decades, along with penning a monthly Q&A column for Chess Life that I alternately enjoyed or found operating at too basic a level to hold my interest. Evans slipped into the same category of derision as Fred Reinfeld amongst my chess peers who all became NMs.
It was not just we up-and-comers who questioned Evans’ writings. IM John Watson disparages biases in Evans’ books and columns with "long histories of ignoring and distorting evidence" and "Evans' absurd arguments". (Watson, John. Chess and Politics.) Furthermore, chess historian Edward Winter noted factual errors and possible plagiarism. (Edward Winter, "The Facts About Larry Evans".) In one instance Evans acknowledged an error but defended it with "you must admit it makes a good story." Hardly a statement that offers reassurance as to the author’s integrity.
That said, folks such as NM Bruce Pandolfini and IM Anthony Saidy defended Evans, with Pandolfini particularly enamored of New Ideas in Chess.
As one should expect, Evans' offered a few memorable quotes:
Robert Fischer is a law unto himself.
In chess it is more important to frustrate your opponent's strategy than to be obsessed with your own.
While some are as loathe to trade a Bishop for a Knight as a Cadillac for a Chevrolet, others are prepared to do so without hesitation.
Vadim Volodymyrovych Malakhatko (Ukrainian: Вадим Володимирович Малахатько; 22 March 1977 – 5 June 2023) was a Ukrainian GM and member of the gold-medal team at the 2001 World Team CC and bronze medal team at the 2000 Olympiad. With a peak rating of 2633 in October 2008, he reached #98 globally.
He died at age 46 from a heart attack.
He was married to IM/WGM Anna Zozulia, herself a player with a peak rating of 2412 in October 2004. The widow and her husband would have formed quite the chess power couple at their peak with a combined peak rating of 5045.
Alexander Anatolyevich Donchenko (Russian: Александр Анатольевич Донченко; born 22 March 1998) is a German GM with a peak rating of 2684 in August 2023, placing him at #52 on the world’s Top 100 list. His rating still sits at 2632 as of February 2025.
He plays regularly on chess.com as @Alexander_Donchenko with a blitz rating of 2915 and bullet rating of 2825 on 25 February 2025.
His father, Anatoly Donchenko, is an IM.
My mom turned ninety today. Happy birthday, mom!
#20 chess.com Hall of Fame: Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi (Russian: Виктор Львович Корчной; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) GM and chess author. A four-time Soviet CC, World Senior CC, and two-time Swiss CC…that last achievement occurring at ages 78 and 80. Kortschnoj (one of several alternative spellings) occupied the same rarefied air as Paul Keres, players who were titans of the board but never quite wore the crown.
Born in 1931 this Soviet and Swiss GM played four matches, one unofficial, against Anatoly Karpov. Had he beaten Karpov in their 1974 Candidates match he would have been declared World CC when Fischer vacated the title. Then he lost World CC matches to Karpov in 1978 and 1981. He was still very strong at an advanced age, ranked among the top 100 players at age 75.
FIDE lists his peak rating at 2695 in January 1979 but already had him listed as the world’s #2 player as early as 1976. ChessMetrics estimates his peak ranking at 2814 in November 1978.
In six Olympiads Viktor earned six team golds to go with two individual golds, and two bronzes.
Korchnoi wrote several books with the most interesting titles being Persona non grata and The KGB Plays Chess: The Soviet Secret Police and the Fight for the World Chess Crown. He also wrote a three-volume series that began with his games as White, then covered his games as Black, and concluded with a biography. I own a combined version of the first two books that also came with a CD containing all the games as pgn files…which I promptly misplaced much to my dismay.
Korchnoi’s defection may have partially inspired the plot of the 1986 musical Chess. The song “One Night in Bangkok” has always been a favorite of mine.
A perennial contender for most quotable quotes, here are some of his better lines:
It is a gross overstatement, but in chess, it can be said I play against my opponent over the board and against myself on the clock.
The whole life with a wife is like an end game with two bishops of different colors.
I don't study; I create.
Every time I win a tournament I have to think that there is something wrong with modern chess.
The human element, the human flaw and the human nobility - those are the reasons that chess matches are won or lost.
As a rule, the more mistakes there are in a game, the more memorable it remains, because you have suffered and worried over each mistake at the board.
All obvious moves look dubious in analysis after the game.
Sometimes I even say that I have surpassed Lasker in using psychology. How? Well, sometimes I use psychology with a portion of risk. That is something else, something that Lasker wouldn't allow.
The aim was simple: to deprive Karpov of his favourite occupation - standing at the board, staring straight at his opponent. While I was wearing these glasses, all he could admire was his own reflection.
Those who think that it is easy to play chess are mistaken. During a game a player lives on his nerves, and at the same time he must be perfectly composed.
No Chess Grandmaster is normal; they only differ in the extent of their madness
Luben Spasov (Bulgarian: Любен Спасов; 23 March 1943 – 5 July 2023) was a Bulgarian chess Grandmaster (GM) (1977), World Senior S60 CC winner (2005), Bulgarian CC bronze medalist (1965, 1973), and European Team CC individual medalist (1977, 1980). FIDE lists his peak rating at 2490 in January 1976 placing him at #92 globally. ChessMetrics rebaselines our understanding of his actual strength by estimating his peak strength at 2621 in July 1977, #67 in the Top 100.
#14 chess.com Hall of Fame: Vasily Smyslov
Vassily Smyslov (24 March 1921 – 27 March 2010) was a Soviet and Russian GM and author. A two-time Soviet CC, he was the 7th World Chess Champion from 1957-58 after wresting the title from Botvinnik, only to lose the title a year later in the then FIDE-mandated rematch. This was after a drawn World CC match in 1954 allowed Botvinnik to retain the title as there were no sudden-death playoffs at that point. Smyslov also won the first-ever World Senior CC.
Smyslov’s 17 Olympiad medals is an all-time record and in five European Team CCs he earned five team and five individual gold medals. The peak ELO I found for him was 2620 in March 1970, shortly after FIDE established a rating system. I’ve never found an instance where ChessMetrics so obviously offers a better estimate of his peak strength. That site lists his peak rating at 2800 in September 1956 and placed him #1 globally for 59 different months between 1952 and 1958.
Karpov said of him, “What I remember most about [Smyslov] was his competitive spirit, but also his delicate sense of humour. It was always very tough playing against him, despite him being more than twice my age.” Kasparov fittingly dedicated a sizable portion of My Great Predecessors Part II to Smsylov.
Smyslov published five books, four of them based on his games and two books on endgames. He described My Best Games of Chess 1908 - 1923 by Alexander Alekhine as his constant reference.
Deservingly famous it is perhaps a lesser-known fact that he was an accomplished baritone singer who often performed in evening events at major tournaments, just as Taimanov often performed piano recitals at top events.
As one would expect of a Renaissance man, Smyslov offered memorable quotes, such as:
In chess, as in life, a man is his own most dangerous opponent.
No fantasy, however rich, no technique, however masterly, no penetration into the psychology of the opponent, however deep, can make a chess game a work of art, if these qualities do not lead to the main goal - the search for truth.
I have frequently stated that I regard chess as an art form, where creativity prevails over other factors.
Despite the development of chess theory, there is much that remains secret and unexplored in chess.
In my opinion, the style of a player should not be formed under the influence of any single great master.
My study of chess was accompanied by a strong attraction to music, and it was probably thanks to this that from childhood I became accustomed to thinking of chess as an art, for all the science and sport involved in it.
The Ruy Lopez occupied a constant place in my opening repertoire. In it is reflected the classical interpretation of the problem of the centre.
My fascination for studies proved highly beneficial, it assisted the development of my aesthetic understanding of chess, and improved my endgame play.
Yasser Seirawan (Arabic: ياسر سيروان; born March 24, 1960) is a Syrian-born American GM, four-time U.S. CC, and 1979 World Junior CC. FIDE lists his highest rating a 2658 in Nobember 2011 but placed him at #10 globablly over 20 years before that, in July 1990. ChessMetrics was completed in 2005 and estimates his peak rating at 2711 in September 1987, with a peak rank of #14 at that point.
Yasser served in a training role for Korchnoi in the 1981 World CC match against Karpov. Viktor had been impressed when Yasser defeated him in a game.
Yasser served as the chief editor of Inside Chess magazine for a dozen years before the magazine was sold. As far as books, he co-authored a Winning Chess series of seven books with none other than IM Jeremy Silman (one need look no further than who gets top billing on the books to arrive at the conclusion that the GM title is worth far more than an IM title). Other books Yasser wrote included Five Crowns: Kasparov-Karpov World Chess Championship 1990 New York – Lyon (co-authored with Jonathan Tisdall), No Regrets • Fischer–Spassky 1992 (with George Stefanovic), and Chess Duels: My Games with the World Champions.
Chess historian Edward Winter cites him as one of the top five Internet broadcasters.
He also invented a chess variant in collaboration with Bruce Harper, aka Seirawan chess or SHARPER chess. You can read my sardonic take on chess variants at 101 Reasons I Hate Chess #76 - 98: Variants.
This former Bachelor of the Month (Cosmopolitan magazine) has a few things to say about chess:
I think a player constantly improves his understanding of chess with experience.
Though most people love to look at the games of the great attacking masters, some of the most successful players in history have been the quiet positional players. They slowly grind you down by taking away your space, tying up your pieces, and leaving you with virtually nothing to do!
How come the little things bother you when you are in a bad position? They don't bother you in good positions.
Let the perfectionist play postal.
[Describing one competitive advantage of IBM's Deep Blue chess computer.] It has no fear.
Bobby is the most misunderstood, misquoted celebrity walking the face of this earth.
GM Yasser Seirwan and WFM Yvette Nagel
He is married to WFM Yvette Nagel who sports a peak rating of 2100 in 1993. This couple falls a bit short of the chess super-couples with a combined rating over 5000. The Seirawan’s peak combined rating falls a bit short at 4811.
George Henry Mackenzie was born in 1837 and joined the military as an ensign when nineteen years old. In 1861 he sold his commission and retired.
He took up chess while in the military and dominated American chess from 1865 through 1880. He won thirteen straight American tournaments and six matches, with one drawn match. He then started receiving invitations to Europe where he won the Fifth German CC in 1887 and the Fifth Scottish CC in 1888.
ChessMetrics estimates his peak rating at 2712 in October 1882 and places him at #3 globally for ten different months between March 1881 and October 1882.
Stavroula Tsolakidou (Greek: Σταυρούλα Τσολακίδου, born 24 March 2000) is a Greek IM and WGM with a peak rating of 2451 in December 2024. That had dropped infinitesimally to 2447 as of February 2025. She has won the World Girl’s U14, U16, and U18 CCs.
She plays regularly in Titled Tuesday events on chess.com as @SoLuckyThough.
Richárd Rapport, 25 March 1996, is a Hungarian GM, the youngest-ever Hungarian GM at the tender age of 13y11m6d. He has only won the Hungarian CC once, but that is almost certainly because he has been focused on bigger tournaments as his peak rating of 2776 and peak rank of #5 clearly make him a favorite for bigger, more lucrative titles competing against fellow Top Twenty players. That said, to date he has only made one Candidates tournament. His rating has fallen back a bit, but he remains among the super-GM elite with a 2713 rating as of March 2025.
Rapport is known for his unusual opening choices, frequently deploying the Nimzo-Larsen Attack to place an unusual set of problems before his opponents. However, GM Daniil Dubov notes that after 2017, "He transformed from a swashbuckling tactician into a subtle positional player." Well, he still maintains a reputation as someone who can surprise anyone on a given day.
I suspect Rapport finds Chess960 particularly suited to his history as an unorthodox player.
If you’d like to see ten of Rapport’s best games, I’ll recommend a visit to 10 Best Chess Games of Richard Rapport by The Chess Journal. They do not offer notes, but you can play through all ten games move-by-move.
Rapport was Ding Liren’s second in the latter’s two World CC matches.
He is married to Jovana Rapport (née Vojinović, Serbian Cyrillic: Јована Војиновић; born 18 February 1992). She is a Serbian WGM who achieved her IM norms by November 2015 but lacks the 2400 ELO required. With her peak rating of 2388 this chess power couple has a combined peak rating of 5164.
Constantin Lupulescu (born 25 March 1984) is a Romanian GM and five-time Romanian CC. With a peak rating of 2660 in April 2014 he reached #79 globally in September 2021. His rating stand at 2596 as of March 2025.
He has not played on chess.com since July 2024 but can be found as @LupulescuC, a very original username don’t you think😉.
Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi, 25 March 1979, is an Indian IM and WGM, the first woman from India to earn those titles! She has won the Indian Women’s CC six times, including five consecutive championships starting in 1998. Her first championship was before she turned eighteen! She is also a two-time Commonwealth Women’s CC.
A standout record in her portfolio is winning more Olympiad medals than any other Indian player in history, including two individual silver medals. Her prowess over the board led the Indian government to recognize her prowess by awarding her the 2001 Arjuna Award, the second-highest sporting honor in India. Her peak rating was 2485 in October 2005 and she has achieved one GM norm. Unfortunately, her current rating of 2332 places her some distance from achieving that GM feather in her hat as the capstone to a fabulous career.
She maintains a relatively active presence on chess.com as @SVijayalakshmi. When writing this on 2 March I found a bullet game the same day and on February 28th she played a number of 960 and bullet games.
She is married to GM Sriram Jha (b. 18 July 1976) who sports a peak rating of 2511. Sigh. Their combined peak rating of 4996 leaves them achingly shy of the chess power couples club that arbitrarily starts at 5000 combined ELO.
Daniel Abraham (Abe) Yanofsky (March 25, 1925 – March 5, 2000) was a Polish-born Canadian GM, IA, writer, lawyer, and politician. An eight-time Canadian CC (tied for the record with Maurice Fox), Yanofsky was Canada's first GM and the first British Commonwealth GM and even picked up a British CC during his stellar career. At age fourteen Yanofsky shocked a generation of players by making the highest score on board two in the 1939 Olympiad.
Like many top players who peaked before or shortly after FIDE finally got on the rating train in 1970, the FIDE records list him with a peak rating of 2460 in July 1971. Thank goodness and a keen mathematical model for ChessMetrics which assesses his peak strength at 2618 in December 1946, good enough for #31 globally.
Yanofsky achieved all the above despite not being a full-time chess professional. After serving in the Royal Canadian Navy in WWII he earned a law degree followed by further studies at Oxford. Starting in 1969 he served in various elected offices.
The editor of Candian Chess Chat for several years and chess columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press, he still found time to publish multiple chess books. The title I like best is Chess the Hard Way! After all, the easy way can’t be fun, right. Right? He is memorialized the best way possible for any chess player by the annual Abe Yanofsky Memorial Open.
Christopher (Chris) Geoffrey Ward (26 March 1968) is a British GM, coach, and author. A one-time British CC, his peak rating was 2531 in July 2003.
Chris is best known for his authorship of fourteen chess books. His best received books were about the Sicilian: Winning with the Dragon and Winning with the Dragon 2. He has also written about Morphy, the Nimzo-Indian, the Queen’s Gambit Declined, the Samisch KID, a series of three increasingly difficult puzzle books, and rook endgames.
Alberto David, 26 March 1970, is a Luxembourgish-Italian GM and three-time Italian CC. He was Luxembourg’s first GM, a title he did not earn until age 28 as he had been completing his philosophy studies before focusing on chess as a profession. His peak rating was 2631 in May 2010, but his sojourn above the 2600 mark lasted only two months and he slid to 2466 by March 2025.
He competed for Luxembourg in six Olympiads, scoring an individual silver in 2002 with a phenomenal score of 10W-3D-1L. He joined the Italian Chess Federation in 2012 and played board two for them in one Olympiad.
He has not played on chess.com since December 2021. He can be found @koktebel22.
David Navara, 27 March 1985, is a Czech GM and 13-time Czech CC, including nine national blitz titles. He has played on the Czech national team in multiple Olympiads, earning an individual gold in the 2012 event. His peak world rank was #13 in October 2006 but he did not achieve his peak ELO of 2751 until May 2015. As of March 2025 he is rated 2663, good enough for #60 globally.
He plays haphazardly on chess.com as @FormerProdigy. He does not accept friend requests because, in essence, he doesn’t want thousands of online friends whom he doesn’t know when he finds it difficult enough to make time for his real-life friends.
You can read more about some of Navara's challenges at David Navara Opens Up About His Chess Career, Challenges & Living With Asperger’s.
Boris Pavlovich Grachev (Russian: Борис Павлович Грачёв; born 27 March 1986) is a Russian GM with a peak rating of 2705 in March 2012 that placed him at #35 globally. As of March 2025, his rating stand at 2585, showing no FIDE-rated standard time control games since May 2023.
He maintains a presence on chess.com as @Guenplen but I found no games since April 2023…and those were the only two games he had played since November 2021.
Sergei Zhigalko (Belarusian: Сяргей Жыгалка, Syarheĭ Zhyhalka; born March 28, 1989) is a Belarusian GM, three-time Belarusian CC, and World Youth U14 CC. With a peak rating of 2696 in September 2011, he also saw a peak global rank that year of #49. He has not played a FIDE-rated standard game since December 2019.
His brother Andrey is also a GM.
Anatoly Yakovlevich Lein (Russian: Анатолий Яковлевич Лейн; March 28, 1931 – March 1, 2018) was a Soviet-born American GM with a peak FIDE rating of 2545 in July 1973, placing him at #38 globally. ChessMetrics offers a more nuanced estimate of his strength, estimating his peak playing strength at 2662 in February 1967, good enough for #26 in the world. Lein is enshrined in the World Chess Hall of Fame.
Wolfgang Uhlmann (29 March 1935 – 24 August 2020) was a German GM who won the East German CC eleven times and playing in one Candidates tournament. He participated in eleven Olympiads, snaring an individual gold on board one in 1964 and an individual bronze in 1966.
For those of you who have read a number of these bios of players whose peak years occurred before FIDE instituted a rating system in 1970, expect ChessMetrics to offer the best estimate of Uhlmann’s strength. While FIDE lists his peak at 2575 in January 1978 (good enough for #19 globally at age 42), ChessMetrics posits that his peak was 2696 in December 1970 and places him at #17 in July 1971.
Uhlmann was one of the world’s leading French Defense experts and wrote the book Ein Leben lang Französisch (Winning with the French) that analyzed sixty of his games and included victories over Fischer, Bronstein, and others. I have often wondered if he influenced IM John Watson who is the most famous late 20th century and early 21st century expert in the opening with multiple, highly enlightening tomes on the opening.
Here is an Uhlmann victory over Bronstein with some notes by yours truly.
Anastasia Mikhailovna Bodnaruk (Russian: Анастасия Михайловна Боднарук; born 30 March 1992) is a Russian IM and WGM and the 2023 Women’s World Rapid CC. She won an individual silver medal in the 2010 Olympiad on board four and earned a team gold medal in the 2015 Women’s European Team CC. Her peak rating was 2479 in June 2016. Her current rating has stagnated at 2333 since August 2024.
She often plays Titled Tuesday events as @Vesper2018.
Dragan Šolak (Serbian: Драган Шолак; born 30 March 1980) is a Turkish-Serbian GM with a peak rating of 2641 in November 2016 but his peak ranking was eight years earlier when he reached #95 globally in April 2008. His current rating is 2591 after losing seven rating points in July 2024.
He has not played on chess.com since June 2024 where he plays as @DraganSolak.
She was the youngest-ever woman GM until Hou Yifan reset the record and was the second female ever to cross the 2600 threshold. Her peak rating was 2623 in July 2009, and she still weighs in at 2528 ELO as of March 2025, having gained a few rating points in February.
In 2003 she received India’s Arjuna Award, in 2007 the Padma Shri Award, and in 2021 was named BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year.
Found on chess.com as @humpy1987, I found no games listed since July 2022.
András Adorján (born András Jocha; 31 March 1950 – 11 May 2023) was a Hungarian GM, three-time Hungarian CC, and author. He finished second to Karpov in the 1969 World Junior CC. FIDE lists his peak ELO at 2570 in January 1984 and peak rank at #20 somewhat later than year in July. ChessMetrics suggests his highest rating should have registered at 2675 in October 1984 but the site never places him higher than #33 in the world.
He played as a member of the Hungarian team in multiple Olympiads, including the 1978 team of Portisch, Ribli, and Sax that earned the team gold medal, breaking the streak of Soviet dominance that had capture the previous twelve team golds.
Adorján also served as a second to Kasparov and Leko in their preparations for World CC matches. His role may have been fostered because he was an acknowledged leading Grünfeld expert, an opening both Kasparov and Leko liked to play.
Later he focused on writing and gained renown for his books designed for the wielder of the black pieces: Black is OK, Black is Still OK, Black is OK Forever, and Black is Back! What's White's Advantage Anyway?. One reviewer compared his books to a collaboration between Botvinnik and Monty Python. With that thought and to close out the March bios…I’ll leave you with the below image!
Let's Wrap it Up!
I hope you enjoyed this blog. It continued to scratch my interest in historical and contemporary chess figures. To the extent time and my lack of diligence allowed, there are links to personal websites, chess.com usernames, and individual home pages. Along this journey, I also found some interesting games. Given all the material, I was only able to include a smattering of games, book images, and YouTube clips. I hope you found some of interest.
If there were any errors, please advise me and I'll correct those. And if there is some other information you would like included in every future chess player bio, I'll do what I can to oblige. Please note that at this point I do not intend to list up front all players who had a birthday in a given month. That would reduce the surprise factor, akin to your parents giving you a list of gifts you can expect well in advance of some special event. Plus, parents could just be messing with your head. Not that I've ever done that to my kids.
Rest assured that I will complete the entire twelve-month cycle of the Chess Zodiac...I'm too far along the path to quit even if the exertion sometimes gets to me! 🥵
