Mikhail Chigorin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.

Mikhail Chigorin

Mikhail Chigorin
Full name	Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin
Country	Russian Empire
Born	12 November 1850 Gatchina, Russia
Died	January 25, 1908 (aged 57) Lublin, Poland

Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin (12 November 1850, Gatchina, Russia – 25 January 1908, Lublin, Poland) was a leading Russian chess player. He served as a major source of inspiration for the "Soviet school of chess," which dominated the chess world in the middle and latter parts of the 20th century.

1 Chess career
2 Style and demeanour
3 Later life
4 Legacy
5 In popular culture
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Chess career

Chigorin was born near to Saint Petersburg and moved to the city some time later. He became serious about chess uncommonly late in life; his schoolteacher taught him the moves at the age of 16, but he did not take to the game until around 1874, having first finished his studies before commencing a career as a government officer.

Once smitten with the game, he terminated his employment and started life as a chess professional. He played a series of matches with established masters Emanuel Schiffers (1878-1880) and Semyon Alapin (1880) and notched up a large plus score against each. It was not long after that he was regarded as the best player in the city and possibly the whole of Russia.

His first international tournament was Berlin 1881, where he was equal third with Szymon Winawer, behind Johannes Zukertort and Joseph Henry Blackburne. At the great London tournament of 1883, he finished fourth behind Zukertort, Wilhelm Steinitz and Blackburne.

He played two matches against Steinitz for the World Chess Championship; the first in 1889 he lost 10½–6½, and the second in 1892 he lost 12½–10½. His overall record against Steinitz was nevertheless respectable (+24-27=8). He also played a much publicised 'telegraph match' against Steinitz in 1890, devised to settle a theoretical argument. Chigorin had the slight advantage of choosing the openings in advance from a list supplied by Steinitz and duly won both games.

Towards the end of the century, his standing at home and abroad continued to rise, and he joined the ranks of the world's top four or five players. His reputation as a match player too, continued to grow. He drew an 1893 match with Siegbert Tarrasch in Saint Petersburg (+9-9=4) and in his lifetime, maintained a narrow plus score against the German (+14-13=8), who was a fearsome player in his own right. In other matches he had the measure of Richard Teichmann (+8-3=1) but struggled woefully against David Janowski (+4-17=4).

In all likelihood, his best performance occurred at the Hastings 1895 chess tournament, where he placed second, ahead of reigning world champion Emanuel Lasker, Tarrasch and former world champion Steinitz. All of the greatest players of the time participated in the event and Chigorin's outstanding result included winning his individual encounter with tournament victor, Harry Nelson Pillsbury. Pillsbury had great respect for Chigorin's ability and for good reason, as the Russian secured a marginal plus score against him (+8-7=6). Although Chigorin had a poor record against Lasker in serious play (+1-8=4), he was victorious with the black pieces in their first game of this tournament, which resulted in a classic two knights versus two bishops ending, where Lasker's bishops were better, but he underestimated Chigorin's strategy.[1].

In other major competitions, he was joint winner at Budapest 1896, and beat Rudolf Charousek (+3-1) in the playoff. At Cologne in 1898, he was equal second with Charousek and Wilhelm Cohn after Amos Burn. His 7th place finish at London 1899 was disappointing in comparison, but this was another tournament notable for its impressive list of participants. At Monte Carlo 1901, he placed equal third after Janowski and Carl Schlecter.

A highly skilled exponent of gambit lines, he won the King's Gambit-themed Vienna Tournament of 1903 and defeated Lasker (+2-1=3) in a sponsored Rice Gambit tournament in Brighton. The latter was however something of a hollow victory, as it was emerging that the Rice Gambit was unsound and so, playing the black side in each game gave him a distinct advantage. At Lodz 1906, in a four person event, he finished second to Akiba Rubinstein.

Alongside these international events, he also entered and won the first three All-Russia Tournaments of 1899, 1900/01 and 1903. These prestigious successes further cemented his reputation as Russia's best player. Upon losing the fourth such event in 1906, he challenged the winner Gersz Salwe to a match and came out the victor (+7=3-5).

[edit] Style and demeanour

His playing style featured a well honed tactical ability and an imaginative approach to the opening. He rejected many of the inflexible doctrines put forward by Tarrasch and Steinitz, but accepted Steinitz' teachings about the soundness of the defensive centre. Indeed, he went on to add to the development of the concept through the work he carried out with closed variations of the Ruy Lopez. He also pioneered some variations of the Slav Defence.

Although a large bearded man, Chigorin was also described as 'decidedly handsome'.

Frank Marshall once commented on the highly agitated state that would possess Chigorin when faced with difficult positions. Aside from the usual frantic foot-tapping and crossing of legs, he would occasionally become "a bundle of nerves", at which point his temperament could turn "quite fierce".

[edit] Later life

As an ambassador for Russian chess, Chigorin was a shining example; he gave many lectures, wrote magazine articles and chess columns and subsidised or otherwise supported a number of periodicals to keep them afloat despite low readership levels. He also founded a chess club in Saint Petersburg and tried for many years to establish a chess association, an attempt that finally succeeded just a few years after his death.

According to the Canadian International Master Lawrence Day, Chigorin travelled with the young Fedor Bohatirchuk to Russian events in the 1905-1907 period, helping to train him. After moving to Canada following World War II, Bohatirchuk then trained Day.

In 1907, Chigorin failed badly in a chess tournament and clearly not in good health, was treated by doctors in Carlsbad for an advanced and incurable case of diabetes. This prompted a prediction that he had only months to live, whereupon he returned to his estranged wife and daughter in Lublin and died the following January.

[edit] Legacy

Through his original talent, lively games and prolific teachings, many Russians regard Mikhail Chigorin as the founder of their 'School of Chess', later to become known as the Soviet School of Chess. Overshadowed to some extent in the 1920s by the exciting new theories of the hypermodern movement, Chigorin's influence nevertheless demands a prominent and permanent place in the Soviet chess hegemony of the 20th century.

Chigorin has several chess openings or variations of openings named after him, the two most important being the Chigorin Variation of the Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 O-O 9.h3 Na5) and the Chigorin Defence to the Queen's Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6). Whilst the former has remained popular through the 1900s, the latter struggled to attract a great many devotees until relatively recently. Igor Miladinovic has used the Chigorin Defence with great regularity, but its current revival owes much to the efforts of Alexander Morozevich, who has championed the opening both in play and in his book - The Chigorin Defence According To Morozevich (published 2007).

[edit] In popular culture

A famous Chigorin game played against Steinitz in 1892 is used as the base for the plot of The Squares of the City, a 1978 science-fiction novel by John Brunner.