The following events in chess occurred in the year 1969.
Provisional FIDE top 10 by Elo rating - 1969
United States 2720
Soviet Union 2690 Soviet Union 2680 Soviet Union 2660 Soviet Union 2650
Denmark 2630 Soviet Union 2620
Hungary 2620 Soviet Union 2610 Soviet Union 2610
Mikhail Tal was a Soviet and Latvian chess player and the eighth World Chess Champion. He is considered a creative genius and is widely regarded as one of the most influential players in chess history. Tal played in an attacking and daring combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability. Vladislav Zubok said of him, "Every game for him was as inimitable and invaluable as a poem".
Leonid Zakharovych Stein was a Soviet chess Grandmaster from Ukraine. He won three USSR Chess Championships in the 1960s, and was among the world's top ten players during that era.
Jørgen Bent Larsen was a Danish chess grandmaster and author. Known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play, he was the second-strongest non-Soviet player, behind only Bobby Fischer, for much of the 1960s and 1970s. He is considered to be the strongest player born in Denmark and the strongest from Scandinavia until the emergence of Magnus Carlsen.
Wolfgang Unzicker was one of the strongest German chess Grandmasters from 1945 to about 1970. He decided against making chess his profession, choosing law instead. Unzicker was at times the world's strongest amateur chess player, and World Champion Anatoly Karpov called him the "world champion of amateurs".
Efim Petrovich Geller was a Soviet chess player and world-class grandmaster at his peak. He won the Soviet Championship twice and was a Candidate for the World Championship on six occasions. He won four Ukrainian SSR Championship titles and shared first in the 1991 World Seniors' Championship, winning the title outright in 1992. His wife Oksana was a ballet dancer while his son Alexander was also a chess master. Geller was coach to World Champions Boris Spassky and Anatoly Karpov. He was also an author.
Lajos Portisch is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster, whose positional style earned him the nickname, the "Hungarian Botvinnik". One of the strongest non-Soviet players from the early 1960s into the late 1980s, he participated in twelve consecutive Interzonals from 1962 through 1993, qualifying for the World Chess Championship Candidates Cycle a total of eight times. Portisch set several all-time records in Chess Olympiads. In Hungarian Chess Championships, he either shared the title or won it outright a total of eight times. He won many strong international tournaments during his career. In 2004, Portisch was awarded the title of 'Nemzet Sportolója', Hungary's highest national sports achievement award.
Ratmir Dmitrievich Kholmov was a Russian chess Grandmaster. He won many international tournaments in Eastern Europe during his career, and tied for the Soviet Championship title in 1963, but lost the playoff. Kholmov was not well known in the West, since he never competed there during his career peak, being confined to events in socialist countries. His chess results were impressive, so this may have been for security reasons, as Kholmov had been a wartime sailor. But he was one of the strongest Soviet players from the mid-1950s well into the 1970s, and was ranked as high as No. 8 in the world by Chessmetrics.com from August 1960 to March 1961. Kholmov stayed active in competitive chess right to the end of his life, and maintained a high standard of play past the age of 80.
Borislav Ivkov was a Serbian chess Grandmaster. He was a World championship candidate in 1965, and played in four more Interzonal tournaments, in 1967, 1970, 1973, and 1979.
At the World Chess Championship 1963, Tigran Petrosian narrowly qualified to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik for the World Chess Championship, and then won the match to become the ninth World Chess Champion. The cycle is particularly remembered for the controversy surrounding the Candidates' Tournament at Curaçao in 1962, which resulted in FIDE changing the format of the Candidates Tournament to a series of knockout matches.
Evgeni Andreyevich Vasiukov was a Russian chess player, one of the strongest in the world during his peak. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1961. During his career, he won the Moscow Championship on six occasions and scored numerous victories in international tournaments, such as Belgrade Open 1961, Moscow International 1961, East Berlin 1962, Reykjavik 1968, and Manila 1974. He was rarely at his best in Soviet Championship Finals, which were among the very toughest events in the world, and never made the Soviet team for an Olympiad or a European Team Championship. Vasiukov won the World Senior Chess Championship in 1995.
Events in chess in 1962:
Events in chess in 1970;
Events in chess in 1971;
Events in chess in 1972;
Events in chess in 1973:
Events in chess in 1974;
Events in chess in 1975;
Events in chess in 1976;
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi was a Soviet and Swiss chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. He is considered one of the strongest players never to have become World Chess Champion.
The major chess events of 1981 were the final match of the Candidates Tournament and the second Karpov–Korchnoi World Chess Championship match.
| Outline | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equipment | |||||||||
| History | |||||||||
| Rules | |||||||||
| Terms | |||||||||
| Tactics | |||||||||
| Strategy | |||||||||
| Openings |
| ||||||||
| Endgames | |||||||||
| Tournaments |
| ||||||||
| Art and media | |||||||||
| Related | |||||||||
