Celebrate Achievements Of Legendary Chess Players Who Died In 2022

Several notable chess stars passed away in 2022. They include the winner of the most tournaments in chess history, an endgame scholar, a pioneer in chess psychology, a noted chess psychologist, a Braille chess advocate, and distinguished coaches who contributed in many more ways than only coaching. Here are some of the legendary lives that the chess world lost this year.

• Winner of Most Chess Tournaments
• Endgame Scholar
• Noted Chess Psychologist
• Distinguished Coach
• Braille Chess Advocate
• Positional Chess Expert

Winner of Most Chess Tournaments: John Curdo

FM John Curdo is widely regarded as the winner of the most over-the-board chess tournaments. He won his 1,000th tournament in August 2018, and his record of tournament victories increased to 1,009, according to U.S. Chess Federation.

In the New England region of the United States, where Curdo was a constant presence at local events for eight decades, how he continued to win tournaments was a recurring news report such as this article in The Boston Globe in 2007. 

By August 2009, he had won 830 tournaments, which was then considered to be a world record by a wide margin. At that time, he was participating in 30 to 40 tournaments a year. To The Boston Globe, he remarked then: “Money is what gets me to do this. The tension, it’s like gambling.’’ By December 2011, he had won 865 tournaments, and he continued to add more victories through 2018.

Money is what gets me to do this [play in tournaments].
—John Curdo

Curdo won or tied for first place in the New England Open Championship seven times between 1958 and 1983. He also won or tied for first place in the Massachusetts Open Championship 17 times between 1948 and 1983. Although Curdo never attained the rank of grandmaster or international master, he was considered one of the strongest players in New England with victories over GMs such as Pal Benko and Robert Byrne, including this game from the U.S. Open in 1994. 

Curdo won the U.S. Senior Open in 1986 and 1988, and he also tied for first place in 1982 and 1987. In 2021, U.S. Chess Federation awarded him the Outstanding Player Award in recognition of his distinguished chess career, which included playing in 1,035 tournaments since 1991.

In 1979 at age 47, he became a full-time chess player and chess teacher. Although he had a Chess.com profile (@jacurdo), it was active only on the day that he joined in 2014 and he played no games. Curdo died in October at age 90. (For more on his life, see the obituary by U.S. Chess Federation here.)

Endgame Scholar: Yuri Averbakh

GM Yuri Averbakh, the oldest living and first centenarian grandmaster, started to play chess at the age of seven but wasn’t hooked on the game until he met the famous chess composer Nikolai Grigoriev in Moscow in 1935. Averbakh was inspired by Grigoriev’s lectures on pawn studies and reflected: “They made an enormous impression on me, and that was the first time I sensed that chess wasn't simply a game but was something more, that it was an art. And I also had the urge to master that field. That's how I got involved in chess."

Averbakh composed more than 100 endgame studies and completed the first systematic study of the endgame in history, published in five volumes. He reflected: "My investigative character forced me to make a serious study of the endgame, that phase of the game where individual pieces battle against each other."

My investigative character forced me to make a serious study of the endgame.
—Yuri Averbakh

He won the Moscow Championship in both 1949 and 1950. In 1952 he earned the grandmaster title, which he held for almost 70 years. In 1954, he became the champion of the USSR.

Averbakh chaired the Chess Federation of the USSR during 1972-1977, was a FIDE delegate for many years, and was one of the three arbiters at the 1984-85 match between Kasparov and GM Anatoly Karpov. He also was chief editor of Chess in the USSR and Chess Bulletin magazines and the Chess Moscow newspaper.

Averbakh attributed his longevity to physical exercise. He remarked: "A healthy lifestyle with plenty of physical exercises is very important." He died at age 100 in Moscow in May. (For more on his life, see the obituary in FIDE News here, in The New York Times here, and on Chess.com here. In addition, Chess.com commemorated his 100th birthday in the article here.) 

Noted Chess Psychologist: Nikolai Krogius

GM Nikolai Vladimirovich Krogius was a pioneer in chess psychology and a prolific author who explored the psychology of the chess game in his books and articles. He was also a former FIDE vice president, international arbiter, and coach.

He earned a doctorate in psychology and specialized in sports psychology. He taught from 1970 to 1980 at Saratov State University, in the southeastern European area of Russia, where he was a senior lecturer, associate professor, and later head of the psychology department.

Born in 1930, Krogius learned to play chess during World War II and reached his first USSR final in 1958. After achieving third-fourth place in 1963 and first place in 1964 in Sochi, he was awarded a grandmaster title. In the 1964 event, he fought GM Boris Spassky to a standstill in the following game.

From the late 1960s, he combined active tournament play with coaching, and he helped Spassky in his battles with GM Bobby Fischer, notably the Match of the Century in 1972, and with GM Tigran Petrosian in the title match in 1969. Krogius describes the Fischer-Spassky match from a personal perspective in his book published in 1972. (Alexey Zakharov, @Spektrowski, translates relevant sections on his blog here.)

By the mid-1970s, Krogius focused less on active tournament play and more on writing and other professional chess activities. He was captain of the USSR team in the USSR vs. Rest of the World match in 1984 and served as vice president of the USSR Chess Federation. Krogius passed away in New York at the age of 91 in July. (For more on his life, see the obituary in The New York Times here.)

Distinguished Chess Coach: Alexander Nikitin

IM Alexander Nikitin, one of the most distinguished chess coaches in history, is best known as GM Garry Kasparov’s lifelong coach and co-author. Nikitin became interested in chess when he was seven and found Emanuel Lasker’s Manual of Chess in his uncle’s library. Because its diagrams were initially so incomprehensible, he studied it from cover to cover.

He became one of the Soviet Union’s strongest juniors, completed the requirements for master in his first year (an amazing achievement), but did not want to become a professional chess player. After having a career as a radio engineer for 15 years after attending a technical university, his passion for chess took over again and he became the trainer of the national chess team for the State Committee for Sport in 1973 when fate introduced him by chance to Kasparov at a tournament.

Nikitin recalled: “I was amazed by Garry’s erudition in debuts and phenomenal memory, which was focused and tentative, like a blotter. He did not struggle to think through multi-variant combinations — for him, it was not a difficult task, but rather an entertaining game…. His manner of reading was supersonic and his astounding memory ensured a firm grasp of material.”

I was amazed by Garry’s erudition in debuts and phenomenal memory.
—Alexander Nikitin

Nikitin soon began to train Kasparov, stayed with him on the long path toward the world championship, and was his second in matches during 1983-1987. Nikitin’s book Beside Kasparov, Move by Move, Year by Year was published in 1998. He also helped Kasparov prepare one of the books in his series My Great Predecessors and Kasparov vs. Karpov.

On Nikitin’s death, Kasparov wrote: “He had my back at every step of my climb up the chess Olympus. As much as knowledge, he taught me to take chess, and myself, seriously.”

Kasparov also noted Nikitin’s chess philosophy about the queen and quoted him this way: “It’s the weakest piece, Garry! It always has to run when attacked!”

Nikitin’s other notable students include former French number-one GM Etienne Bacrot and Russian GM Dmitry Jakovenko, the 2012 European individual champion. Nikitin was awarded the title of merited coach of the USSR in 1986. In 2004, he was one of the first to receive the new title of FIDE senior trainer. He died at age 87 in June. (For more on his life, see the obituary in The (London) Times here.)

Braille Chess Advocate: Ludwig Beutelhoff

Ludwig Beutelhoff, a leader in the international and German Braille chess communities, attended schools for the visually impaired as a child and graduated from the German Institute for the Blind in Marburg before studying law.

For many years he was active in the German Blind and Visually Impaired Chess Federation (DBSB), and he chaired the federation from 1998 to 2011. He played in all DBSB championships in the 1970s and 1980s, and in 1980 he played in the Blind Chess Olympiad in the Netherlands. 

He was also president of the International Braille Chess Association, the world federation for blind chess, from 2005 to 2017 before becoming its honorary president. He had earlier served as first vice president from 1992 to 2004.

A member of the Homberg Chess Club for more than 40 years, he served as chairman for 10 years. He was also the editor of Marburger Schachzeitung, a chess newspaper published in Braille but that has since ceased to exist. Beutelhoff died in March at age 74.

Positional Chess Expert: Konstantin Landa

Konstantin Landa, who competed in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 and FIDE World Cup 2007, learned to play chess and even beat his father before turning six. As a child, he participated in training sessions at GM Mikhail Botvinnik's famous school.

In 1989 Landa was a runner-up in the Soviet Youth Championship and was a runner-up in the Russian Championship in 1992. When he moved to Germany in 1999, his chess career got a new start, and he participated in many open tournaments and national team championships annually. However, his most successful achievements are as a coach.

He considered GM Alexandra Kosteniuk to be his most successful student. He was her coach when she became the 12th women's world champion in 2008. He later coached GM Aleksandra Goryachkina in her world championship match against GM Ju Wenjun. (The tournament report is here.) His other coaching achievements include being the head coach of Iran, the UAE, the Kazakhstan women's team, the Indian juniors, and other teams, he earned the FIDE senior trainer title in 2011.

Because Landa was an information technology expert, he led early efforts by chess professionals concerned with the problem of cheating. He also served as a member of the FIDE Fair Play Commission. GM Emil Sutovsky, FIDE director-general, considered Landa an “excellent coach” and acknowledged his efforts to improve anti-cheating detection.

An expert on positional chess, he was co-author with GM Konstantin Sakaev of a two-volume manual on chess, which presented a complete set of instructions and tips for trainers and players. It has been translated into English as The Complete Manual of Positional Chess. As one example of contributing his knowledge to the chess community, he traveled to St. Louis in 2014 and presented a two-part lecture on how to improve the position of chess pieces. The following video contains extracts. 

Landa died in October at age 50. (For more on his life, see the obituary on Chess.com here.)  

Other Notable Players

Finally, other grandmasters who died in 2022 include the following:

• Miso Cebalo, a Croatian grandmaster who won the 19th World Senior Chess Championship in 2009, died in September at age 77.
• Iván Faragó, a Hungarian grandmaster who won the Hungarian championship in 1986, died in December at age 76.
• Borislav Ivkov, a Serbian grandmaster and a world championship candidate in 1965, died in February at age 88.
• Gilles Mirallès, a French grandmaster who won the French Chess Championship in 1986 and 1989, died in January at age 55.
• Igor Naumkin, a Russian grandmaster whose notable victories include a win over GM Mikhail Tal, but whose career was tarnished when he was suspended for rigging chess games (as reported by Chess.com here), died in July at age 56.
• Alex Sherzer, an American grandmaster who was the U.S. Junior Champion in 1991 and became a medical doctor, died in December at age 51.
• Mark Tseitlin, a Soviet-born Israeli grandmaster who was a four-time European seniors champion, died in January at age 78.

How well do you remember the last two years? Here are my recaps:

• 2021
• 2020

What other chess personalities who died this year were important and meaningful for you? Please add how they inspired you in the comments section.