Lajos Portisch

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Lajos Portisch

Lajos Portisch (born April 4, 1937 in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary) is a Hungarian chess player, whose positional style earned him the nickname of the "Hungarian Botvinnik". One of the strongest non-Soviet grandmasters in the 1960s and 1970s, he participated in twelve straight Interzonals and qualified for the World Chess Championship candidates cycle five times. In these matches he was not very successful: he lost in the first round against Tal in 1965, Larsen in 1968 and Petrosian in 1974. In 1977 he advanced to the semifinals after beating Larsen, but he then lost to Spassky. He got his revenge in 1980, when he tied the quarterfinal match against Spassky 7-7 and advanced to the semifinals since he had more victories with black. There he lost to Robert Hubner.

Among his many successes, one could cite the tournament of Skopje/Ohrid in 1968, ahead of Geller and Polugaevsky and with a score of fourteen points out of a possible nineteen; Hastings 1971, Wijk aan Zee (ahead of Vassily Smyslov), Las Palmas and San Antonio in 1972 (tied with Karpov and Petrosian) and Wijk aan Zee 1975 (ahead of Hubner and Geller).

He also led the Hungarian chess team to the gold in the 23rd Chess Olympiad held in Buenos Aires with a personal score of ten points out of fourteen. This was the only Olympiad not to be won by the Soviet Union between 1952 and 1990. He participated in twenty Olympiads from 1956 until 2000, more than anyone else.

Here is his win against Karpov, who became world champion three years later, at San Antonio 1972:

Portisch-Karpov, San Antonio 1972 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 c5 5. Bd3 O-O 6. Nf3 d5 7. O-O dxc4 8. Bxc4 Nbd7 9. Qe2 cxd4 10. exd4 b6 11. d5 Bxc3 12. dxe6 Bb4 13. exd7 Qxd7 14. a3 Bd6 15. Rd1 Qc7 16. h3 Bb7 17. Be3 Rae8 18. Rac1 Qb8 19.Bb5 Re7 20. Bc6 Bxc6 21. Rxc6 Bc5 22. Rxf6 gxf6 23. Nd4 Bxd4 24. Rxd4 Qe5 25. Qf3 Kh8 26. Rd5 1-0