Which of the chess players died a champion. The mystery of the death of a chess genius. At the peak of my career

In 1946, he, at that time an outcast in Portugal, was to meet in a match for the world chess crown with the champion of the USSR Mikhail Botvinnik. But the meeting, which the chess world was looking forward to, never took place. Alexander Alekhine died suddenly. His death is still considered mysterious.

A chess genius was born in Moscow in 1892 in a wealthy noble family. His father was the leader of the nobility of the Voronezh province, and his mother was the daughter of a textile manufacturer. In 1911, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where Alekhin graduated from the Imperial Institute of Jurisprudence and was assigned to the Ministry of Justice. Alekhin learned to play chess as a child, and thanks to his phenomenal memory, he immediately achieved brilliant success. Already at the age of 13, he won the first prize in the correspondence tournament.

In 1914, he took third place at the international tournament in St. Petersburg, losing only to the great Lasker and Capablanca. When the First World War began, Alekhine was interned in Mannheim, Germany, where an international tournament was held. But he was soon released, and he managed to return to Russia.

Due to heart disease, the chess player was not taken into the army, but Alekhine nevertheless went to the front as a volunteer, as an authorized representative of the Red Cross. For saving the wounded on the battlefield, he was awarded two St. George medals. Was twice shell-shocked.

After the October Revolution, Alekhin lost all his property and ended up in Odessa, where he was arrested on charges of having links with the White Guards and sentenced to death. However, he was released as a well-known chess player at the special request of the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine, Rakovsky, who turned out to be a great chess lover. For some time Alekhin worked as an investigator in the Moscow wanted list, where he dealt with the search for foreigners who disappeared during the revolution and the Civil War, and worked in the apparatus of the Comintern as a translator. In 1920 Alekhine won the All-Russian Chess Championship. Passed the tournament path without defeat: nine wins and six draws. This competition is considered the first official championship of the RSFSR, and the USSR championships are also counted from it.

Alekhine even became a candidate member of the party.

In May 1921, the chess player boarded a train to go on a trip abroad. Legally, with the permission of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, he left the USSR for Riga, and then for Berlin and Paris, not yet knowing that he would never return...

Abroad, Alekhine travels around the world, plays a lot. He becomes an unsurpassed master of the simultaneous game on several boards, in New York he sets a world record for playing blindly on 26 boards at once. According to the memoirs of his contemporaries, Alekhin was a versatile educated and charming conversationalist, he spoke six languages. Grandmaster Grigory Levenfish recalled: “Alekhine had a phenomenal chess memory... He could completely restore a game played many years ago. But no less surprising was his distraction. Many times he left a valuable cigarette case with a large emerald clasp at the club. Two days later we came to the club, sat down at the board. A waiter would appear and, as if nothing had happened, handed Alekhine a cigarette case. Alekhine politely thanked.

The master also had his own quirks. Alekhine was a great lover of cats. His Siamese cat Chess (translated from English means "Chess") was constantly present at the competitions as a talisman. During the first match with Euwe, Alekhine made the cat sniff the board before each game.

He was one of the few chess players for whom the game became a profession. It was Alekhine that Vladimir Nabokov had in mind when he created the image of a chess genius in his "chess" novel:

He found deep pleasure in this, there was no need to deal with visible, audible, tangible figures, which, with their elaborate carvings, their wooden materiality, always interfered with him, always seemed to him a rough, earthly shell of charming, invisible chess forces. Playing blind, he felt these diverse forces in their original purity.

At that time he did not see either the steep mane of the knight, or the shiny heads of the pawns, but he clearly felt that this or that imaginary square was occupied by a certain concentrated force, so that the movement of the piece seemed to him like a discharge, like a blow, like lightning, and everything was chess. the field trembled with tension, and he dominated this tension, here collecting, there releasing electric force ... ".

The dream of the world chess crown becomes the goal of Alekhine's life. In those years, the legendary Jose Raul Capablanca was the world champion. Candidates tournaments have not yet been held - the applicant himself had to send a personal challenge to the reigning champion, in which fee conditions were stipulated. The conditions of the arrogant Capablanca turned out to be onerous: the applicant was obliged to provide a prize fund of $10,000, of which 20% automatically went to the Cuban as the reigning champion; the remaining amount was divided between the winner and the loser in the ratio of 60 to 40. In addition, the Russian “had the honor” to pay other expenses associated with the match. Alekhin with great difficulty managed to raise the necessary money, and in 1927 the Argentine government considered the duel of two geniuses a prestigious affair and helped organize the confrontation.

Capablanca at that time was reputed to be invincible. But Alekhine believed in himself.

Before the match, the Russian grandmaster said: "I can't imagine how I can win six games against Capablanca, but even less how Capablanca will be able to win six games against me!" Few believed in Alekhine's victory, but there was a sensation: 6:3 - this was the result of a grueling match.

Alekhine was hailed as a chess genius who brought the theoretical preparation for games to unprecedented heights, invented new openings and became famous for his attacking style of play.

The Russian emigration rejoiced. The emigrant writer Boris Zaitsev enthusiastically wrote: “This gloomy morning has been colored for us by your victory. Hooray!

You are now not a Russian Queen, but a Russian King. You can only move one cell, but from now on your step is "royal". Russia has won in your person. Your example should be a refreshment, an encouragement to every Russian, in whatever field he may work.

May God give you strength, health, prosperity to your art.”

But the triumph turned into problems. The newspapers replicated the words, allegedly spoken by Alekhine: "The myth of the invincibility of the Bolsheviks will be dispelled, as the myth of the invincibility of Capablanca was dispelled." He always tried to refrain from political statements, and therefore, most likely, this fatal phrase was attributed to him. Nevertheless, the reaction in Moscow was angry. A devastating article by the head of the Supreme Tribunal of the USSR Nikolai Krylenko appeared in the Chess Bulletin magazine: “After Alekhine’s speech in the Russian Club, everything is over with citizen Alekhine - he is our enemy, and from now on we must interpret him only as an enemy.” The world champion could no longer return to his homeland.

But the years passed, chess in the USSR became more and more popular, a real chess fever flared up. Young masters were gaining strength, in the first place - Mikhail Botvinnik. Alekhin rejoiced at the success of the Russian chess school and still hoped to return to Russia. In 1935, the world champion sent a letter to his homeland: “Not only as a long-term chess worker, but also as a person who understood the enormous significance of what has been achieved in the USSR in all areas of cultural life, I send sincere greetings to the chess players of the USSR on the occasion of the 18th anniversary of the October Revolution. Alekhine.

But soon the Second World War broke out. Alekhine was in Argentina, where the Chess Olympiad was taking place, and called for a boycott of the German team. As captain of the French team, he refused to play with the German team, and the whole team followed suit. In 1940, Alekhine volunteered for the French army and served as an interpreter, and after the end of hostilities against Germany, he settled in the south of the country occupied by the Germans.

In France, Alekhine found himself with his wife, Grace Wishard, an American of Jewish origin.

The grandmaster was hinted that if he did not compete, then Grace would have problems. And what it could mean at that time, it was not difficult to guess. Alekhine had to perform at tournaments under the flag with a swastika, play with German officers, give chess lessons to the Governor-General of Poland Hans Frank.

In the spring of 1941, an article entitled "Jewish and Aryan Chess" was published in the Pariser Zeitung newspaper. Alekhine was again unlucky. The editors, to please the invaders, distorted his words, turning the cautious chess player into a fanatical "Shah Fuhrer". As a result, after the collapse of the Third Reich, European chess players accused Alekhine of collaborationism and declared a boycott against him.

“I played chess in Germany,” Alekhin later justified, “only because it was our only livelihood and, moreover, the price I paid for the freedom of my wife ...”.

He tried to return to the world chess orbit, but all attempts were severely suppressed by his colleagues. The great chess player had to settle in Portugal, in quiet Estoril.

He yearned for his homeland more sharply than before, but the path to the Soviet Union was closed. However, in February 1946, the British embassy unexpectedly handed him a letter from the USSR from Mikhail Botvinnik: “I regret that the war prevented our match in 1939. I again challenge you to the match for the world championship. If you agree, I am waiting for your response, in which I ask you to indicate your opinion about the time and place of the match.

It is clear that in those days Botvinnik himself could not write such a letter to an emigrant abroad - it was a special decision of the Soviet authorities. On March 23, FIDE agreed to a sensational match, but the very next day it became known that Alekhine had died unexpectedly. His ashes were later transported to Paris, where they were buried in a Russian cemetery with an inscription on the grave: "Alexander Alekhine - the genius of chess in Russia and France." He became the only world champion to die undefeated.

In emigre circles, they were convinced that the world champion had become a victim of NKVD agents. It is curious that in those years the chairman of the All-Union Chess Section was NKVD Colonel Boris Weinstein, who fiercely hated the "White Guard" Alekhine.

However, why did the NKVD have to arrange a reprisal against the world champion, if the USSR itself decided to initiate his match with Botvinnik?

Alekhine was found dead in the Park Hotel in the town of Estoril near Lisbon. There were crockery left on the table in his room, indicating that he had dinner with someone. A posthumous photograph of the great chess player appeared in the newspapers. He sits dead in an armchair, for some reason in a coat, and next to him is a chessboard with placed pieces - until the last minute the master was thinking about his favorite game...

According to the official version, the world champion suffocated, allegedly choking on a piece of meat while eating. However, other versions of death immediately appeared. Why did he have dinner without taking off his coat? If he has eaten, why are the plates empty? Is this photo staged at all? Alekhine's son from his first wife leaned towards the version of his father's murder. The doctors who performed the autopsy later admitted that they wrote what they were told, but in fact Alekhine was killed on the eve of the day when his body was discovered. True, one of the doctors spoke about a gunshot wound, and the other about poisoning. It is also known that the Portuguese Catholic priest refused to participate in the burial of Alekhine, since traces of violent death were clearly visible on the face of the deceased.

Mikhail Botvinnik did not believe in the official version either. In an article dedicated to Alekhine's centenary, "A Genius Remains a Man", published in the journal "64 - Chess Review", Botvinnik wrote: "There was a rumor that he died in the street. About 15 years ago, B. Podtserob sent me an article from a German magazine - it was reported that the Portuguese police assumed that the champion had poisoned himself. But if this is so, why, after he took the poison, did he have to have dinner or go for a walk?

In 2009, a sensational article by a certain Boris Smolensky was published in one of the Russian-language newspapers in Chicago.

He said that an employee of the restaurant in Estoril, where Alekhine dined, allegedly confessed to his relatives before his death that in March 1946 he received a large sum of money from two people who spoke with a strong foreign accent for putting some kind of that powder.

What really happened in distant Portugal? Alas, the mystery of the great chess player's death will probably never be revealed. The version of the involvement of the "insidious NKVD" in it, as we have already written, does not stand up to criticism.

However, there is another version of his death. As if the American intelligence services were involved in the death of Alekhine. In the United States, they feared that Botvinnik would win, and the world chess crown would float away to the USSR, with which the Cold War was already flaring up at that time.

Alexander Alekhine, whose 65th death anniversary we celebrate this year, is rightly considered a chess legend. Not only is he the only world chess champion to have passed away with this title, but he also has the most turbulent and tortuous biography of all the world's chess celebrities. In this regard, I would like to say a few words about the events of the last period of his life, which are usually hushed up or misinterpreted, namely, his relations with Nazi Germany.

Born in 1892 into a Moscow noble-merchant family, Alekhine entered the world chess elite at the age of 21, taking third place at the St. Petersburg tournament in 1914 after Emmanuel Lasker and José Raul Capablanca. The Bolshevik Revolution nearly ended his career at its peak. In the autumn of 1918, he moved from Soviet Moscow to Odessa, occupied by the Germans. After the capture of Odessa by the Reds in April 1919, Alekhin was arrested by the Cheka and sentenced to death. He was saved from certain death only by the intervention of one of the Bolshevik bosses, who was fond of chess. Released and returned to Moscow, Alekhine was arrested there in 1920 for the second time by the Cheka on suspicion of being an employee of Denikin's counterintelligence. Once again freed and determined not to tempt fate again, Alekhine in 1921, with the help of his wife, a Swiss journalist, managed to escape from Soviet Russia to Latvia. From there he went to Germany, from which a few months later he moved to France, where he settled, having received French citizenship in 1925.

In 1927, Alekhine won a world title match against the considered invincible Jose Raul Capablanca and then dominated the competition for several years, winning the biggest tournaments of his time by a wide margin. Twice (in 1929 and 1933) Alekhine defended the title in matches against Efim Bogolyubov, in 1935 he lost the match to Max Euwe, but two years later he won the rematch and held the title of world champion until his death.

Alekhine with his Siamese cat Chess

Upon Alekhine's return to Paris after the victory over Capablanca in 1927, a banquet was held in his honor at the Russian Club. The next day, some emigre newspapers published articles citing Alekhine's speech, who wished that "... the myth of the invincibility of the Bolsheviks was dispelled, as the myth of the invincibility of Capablanca was dispelled." Soon, an article by Nikolai Krylenko appeared in the Chess Bulletin magazine, which said: “After Alekhine’s speech in the Russian Club, everything is over with citizen Alekhine - he is our enemy, and from now on we must interpret him only as an enemy.” However, relations between Alekhine and the Soviet authorities were not completely interrupted - the question of his possible arrival at the tournament in Moscow or the match with the leading USSR chess player Mikhail Botvinnik was periodically discussed. An agreement with the latter was reached in 1938, but the events that broke out soon canceled the plans of the parties.

Alekhine in the late 1930s

In 1939, Alexander Alekhin's elder brother Alexei was shot in the USSR. About the fate of his sister, who also remained in Soviet Russia, Alekhin could not get any information. When World War II began on September 1, 1939, Alekhine was in Argentina, where he participated in the Chess Olympiad as part of the French team. In January 1940, he returned to France and, after the German attack on it, volunteered for the French army as an interpreter. After the end of hostilities, he left the territory occupied by the Germans and settled in the south of France. At this moment, Alekhine's cooperation with the German authorities begins. In an interview given somewhat later to the Spanish press, he mentioned the simulcasts he gave in Paris in the winter of 1940-1941 for the benefit of the German army.

At the beginning of 1941, Alekhine wrote a series of articles under the general title "Jewish and Aryan Chess", which were published from March to July in the German newspapers published in France and the Netherlands - "Pariser Zeitung" and "Die Deutsche Zeitung in den Niederlanden", and then reprinted in the Deutsche Schachzeitung. This series of articles was subtitled "Based on Chess Experience, Psychological Study of World Chess Champion Dr. Alekhine Showing Lack of Conceptual Strength and Courage in Jews." Their main idea was to oppose the offensive Aryan style of play to the defensive Jewish one, based on waiting for the opponent's mistakes. Here are some excerpts from them:

What is Jewish chess really and what is the concept of Jewish chess? This question is easy to answer: 1. Material gain by all means. 2. Adaptation. Adaptation taken to the extreme, which seeks to eliminate the slightest possibility of potential danger and pushes through the idea (if one can use the word "idea" here) of protection as such. With this idea, which in any kind of struggle is tantamount to suicide, Jewish chess dug its own grave in the light of the real future.

Are Jews a nation especially talented at chess? With thirty years of experience behind me, I dare to answer this question as follows: yes, the Jews have the highest ability to use their mind and practical acumen in chess. But a Jew who was a true chess artist never existed.

During the return match with Euwe in 1937, the collective chess Jewry was aroused again. Most of the Jewish masters mentioned in this review were present as reporters, trainers and seconds on Euwe's side. By the beginning of the second match, I could no longer deceive myself: I was fighting not with Euwe, but with the united chess Jewry, and my decisive victory (10:4) was a triumph over the Jewish conspiracy.

Alekhine cited, among others, Chigorin, Bogolyubov and Capablanca as examples of Aryan chess players, and Steinitz and Lasker as examples of Jewish ones. After the war, Alekhine claimed that the articles were distorted by German editors, but there is evidence that in 1956, texts written by his own hand were found in the things of his wife Grace Wieshard. In addition, Alekhine's authorship is confirmed by two interviews given by him to the Spanish press in September 1941 before leaving for Munich for the European Chess Tournament. In one of them, he stated that his series of articles is the first ever attempt to consider chess from a racial point of view. In another, he mentioned his intention to give a series of lectures on Aryan and Jewish chess. When asked about the chess players most honored by him, he, in particular, replied: "I will especially note the greatness of Capablanca, who was called upon to overthrow the Jew Lasker from the world chess throne."

An excerpt from the article

At the Munich European Chess Tournament in September 1941, in which Alekhine participated as a representative of Vichy France, his table was decorated with a flag with a swastika. In Munich, Alekhine shared second and third place with Erik Lundin. In October 1941, he shared first place with Paul Schmidt in the 2nd General Government Chess Championship in Krakow-Warsaw, and in December he won the championship in Madrid. In June 1942 Alekhine won the chess tournament in Salzburg, in September 1942 the European chess championship in Munich. In October 1942, Alekhine won the 3rd General Government Chess Championship in Warsaw-Lublin-Krakow, and in December of the same year shared first place with Klaus Junge in the tournament in Prague. In March 1943, he shared first place with Efim Bogolyubov in a tournament in Warsaw, in April he won in Prague, and in June he shared first place with Paul Keres in Salzburg.

Alekhine gives a simultaneous game session in Munich in 1941.

In addition, Alekhine gave several simultaneous sessions for Wehrmacht officers. A great chess lover, Dr. Hans Frank, the governor-general of occupied Poland, with whom Alekhine also played several games, had a special patronage. In 1942-1943. his main place of residence was Prague. From the end of 1943, Alekhine lived mainly in Spain and Portugal, taking part in chess tournaments there as a representative of the Third Reich.

(It should be noted that the circumstances of the German period of Alekhine's life, as, indeed, of its other periods, are presented in an absolutely fantastic form in the Soviet biographical film about the great chess player "White Snow of Russia" (1980). In general, Alekhine played by Alexander Mikhailov looks like a weak-willed alcoholic who only dreams of returning to Soviet Russia (from which he actually barely escaped alive and in which his brother was killed) and cannot do this only because of his own cowardice and external circumstances. Alekhine was forced to play in Germany, either under pain of being shot, or for ration cards, so as not to starve to death.)

The end of the Second World War found Alekhine in Spain, from where he moved to the Portuguese Estoril in January 1946. In chess circles, a campaign of boycott and harassment unfolded against him for his cooperation with the Germans, but in February 1946 he received a challenge from Botvinnik for a match scheduled before the war and agreed. On March 23, 1946, the FIDE Executive Committee decided to hold the Alekhine-Botvinnik match in London in August of the same year, but the next morning Alekhine was found dead in his hotel room. According to the official medical report, he died of asphyxia caused by a piece of steak, while a number of newspapers listed angina pectoris or heart failure as the cause of death.

death scene

It is not surprising that a version immediately appeared that Alekhine was killed - by the French, who were avenging him for collaborationism, or by Soviet agents. The second assumption looks quite plausible. The possible defeat of the leading Soviet chess player, the Jew Botvinnik, from the anti-Soviet emigrant, anti-Semite and Nazi collaborator Alekhine would have caused significant damage to the prestige of the USSR. To prevent it, NKVD agents could poison the world champion, then staging death from natural causes. This version has many supporters, including the grandmaster's son, Alexander Alekhine the Younger. Even if the true cause of Alekhine's death never becomes known, the fact remains that the legendary chess player passed away undefeated.

MOSCOW, 1 December - R-Sport. Norwegian Magnus Carlsen defended his world chess title by beating challenger Russian grandmaster Sergei Karjakin in New York.

The first official match for the World Chess Championship took place in 1886. It is from this moment that it is customary to count the official title of "world chess champion".

The 1990s saw a split in the chess movement. In 1993, the current world champion Garry Kasparov and challenger Nigel Short (England) accused FIDE of corruption, left FIDE and founded the Professional Chess Association (PCHA).

For some time there were two world chess champions at the same time: according to FIDE and according to PCA. In 1996, the PCHA ceased to exist as a result of the loss of a sponsor, after which the PCHA champions began to be called "world champion in classical chess", and the title was transferred according to the system when the champion himself accepted the challenger's challenge and played a match with him.

Emanuel Lasker (1868 1941)- German chess player, second world champion (1894 1921), doctor of philosophy and mathematics. Lasker held his championship for a record-breaking 27 years in the history of chess. From 1907 to 1910, four contenders tried to challenge his championship title: Frank Marshall (1907), Siegbert Tarrasch (1908), David Janowski (1909, 1910) and Karl Schlechter (1910). Winner of international tournaments in New York (1893, 1924), St. Petersburg (1895-96, 1909, 1914), Nuremberg (1896), London (1899), Paris (1900) and others. In 1934-1936 he lived in the USSR, having emigrated from the Nazi Germany, and acted as a representative of the USSR at international tournaments. He spent the last years of his life in the USA.

José Raul Capablanca (1888 1942)- Cuban chess player, third world champion (1921 1927). The biggest successes of Capablanca: winning a match against world champion Emanuel Lasker, first prizes at international tournaments in San Sebastian (1911), London (1922), New York (1927), Moscow (1936) and together with Mikhail Botvinnik in Nottingham (1936). Since 1962, international tournaments in memory of Capablanca have been held in Cuba.

Alexander Alekhin (1892 1946)- Russian chess player, fourth world chess champion - from 1927 (after the victory over Capablanca) to 1935 and from 1937 (after the victory over Max Euwe) to 1946. In 1921 he emigrated to France. Alekhin is a representative of the Russian chess school of Alexander Petrov and Mikhail Chigorin. Brilliant combinational chess player, world record holder in blind play. Alekhine is the only chess player to die while serving as the reigning world champion.

Mahgilis (Max) Euwe (1901 1981)- Dutch chess player, fifth world chess champion (1935-1937). Defeated Alexander Alekhine, but then lost the rematch. International Grandmaster (1950) and International Arbiter (1951). Multiple champion of the Netherlands. Winner and prize-winner of a number of major international tournaments in 1923-1958. In 1940 1950s - one of the contenders for the title of world champion; in 1948 - a participant in the match of the tournament for the world championship, in 1953 - the tournament of applicants. In 1970-1978 he was President of the International Chess Federation (FIDE).

Mikhail Botvinnik (1911 1995)- Soviet chess player, sixth world chess champion, doctor of technical sciences. The first Grandmaster of the USSR (1935), International Grandmaster (1950), Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1945). World champion (1948 1957, 1958 1960 and 1961 1963). Six-time champion of the USSR (1931 1952). Author of valuable analyzes in the field of opening and endgame theory. He developed a method of preparing for competitions, which was used by several generations of chess players. Having completed sports performances in 1970, he dealt with the problems of artificial intelligence, worked on the Pioneer computer chess program, led the youth chess school of the Trud sports society, where future world champions Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik studied in different years.

Vasily Smyslov (1921-2010)- Soviet chess player, Grandmaster of the USSR (1941), Honored Master of Sports (1948), International Grandmaster (1950), seventh world chess champion in 1957-1958 (in world championship matches he met Mikhail Botvinnik three times: in 1954 - a draw , in 1957 - victory, in 1958 - defeat). Champion of the USSR (1949). Participant of the match-tournament for the world championship in 1948 (2nd place after Botvinnik). He played as part of the USSR national team at nine Chess Olympiads in 1952-1972 and at the European Championships in 1957-1973. Smyslov is the author of several books on chess, including the theory of openings and endgames: "A Beginner's Guide" (1951), "In Search of Harmony" (1979), "The Theory of Rook Endgames" (1985), "The Chronicle of Chess Creativity" (1993) and "My Etudes" (2001). He became the first laureate of the "Life for Chess" award named after the outstanding chess player of the 17th century, Gioachino Greco (established by the Italian Chess Association in 1988).

Mikhail Tal (1936 1992)- Soviet chess player, eighth world chess champion (1960 1961), international grandmaster (1957), honored master of sports (1960), six-time champion of the USSR (1957, 1958, 1967, 1972, 1974, 1978), winner of tournaments: interzonal (1958 ), applicants (1959), international - in Zurich (Switzerland, 1959), Bled (Slovenia, 1961), Hastings (Great Britain, 1964, 1974), Sarajevo and Palma (Mallorca Island, 1966) Tallinn (Estonia (1971, 1973), in memory of Mikhail Chigorin in Sochi (1973), etc. In 1960-1970 he was the editor of the magazine "Chess" (Riga)... He won the first unofficial world blitz championship in 1988, beating the reigning world champion Kasparov and ex-champion Karpov.

Tigran Petrosyan (1929-1984)- International grandmaster (1952), Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1960), ninth world chess champion (1963 1969), candidate of philosophical sciences. Champion of the USSR (1959, 1961, 1969, 1975). Editor of the monthly "Chess Moscow" (1963-1966), editor-in-chief of the weekly "64" (1968-1977).

Since 1987, youth team tournaments in memory of Petrosyan have been held in Moscow. In 1987, the "Spartak" chess club and public organizations of Armenia instituted a medal in memory of Tigran Petrosyan.

Boris Spassky (born 1937)- Soviet and French chess player, international grandmaster (1955), Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1965), champion of the USSR (1961, 1973), world champion among youths (1955), tenth world chess champion (1969 1972). Winner of over 20 major international tournaments. His championship match in 1972 with the American Robert Fischer caused an unprecedented stir and was seen as a confrontation between the Soviet and Western worlds. It was marked by a number of scandals and was on the verge of collapse, but nevertheless it was completed - with the victory of Fischer.

Robert James (Bobby) Fisher (1943-2008)- American chess player, international grandmaster (1958), eleventh world chess champion (1972 1975). Multiple US champion (1957-1970), winner of international tournaments in Argentina (1960), Monaco and Yugoslavia (1967), Israel and Yugoslavia (1968), Yugoslavia and Argentina (1970), interzonal tournaments in Sweden (1962) and Spain (1970). Led the US team at the 1960, 1962, 1966, and 1970 World Olympiads. At the same time, Fischer was known for his difficult nature. In 1975, after the organizers did not fulfill one of the conditions put forward by Fischer, he refused to take part in the match for the championship title with Anatoly Karpov and stopped participating in international tournaments. FIDE stripped Fischer of his world title in 1975. In 1992, he played a commercial match with Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia despite a US government ban. Fisher won over $3.3 million and was declared persona non grata in his country. He later moved permanently to Japan. In July 2004, he was arrested at Tokyo International Airport while trying to leave the country on a US passport that had been canceled by the US authorities. The Japanese authorities agreed to release Fischer after he renounced his American citizenship and became a citizen of Iceland, where chess is hugely popular. The international chess magazine "Chess Informant" recognized Fischer as "the best chess player of the 20th century", placing him above Garry Kasparov and Alexander Alekhine.

Anatoly Karpov (born 1951)- Soviet and Russian chess player, international grandmaster (1970), Honored Master of Sports (1974), twelfth world chess champion (1975-1985), three-time FIDE world champion (1993, 1996, 1998), two-time world champion as part of the USSR national team ( 1985, 1989), six-time winner of chess Olympiads as part of the USSR national team (1972, 1974, 1980, 1982, 1986, 1988), three-time USSR champion (1976, 1983, 1988). In 1975, FIDE declared Anatoly Karpov the world chess champion after the current world champion Robert Fischer withdrew from the match. Karpov turned out to be the only world champion in history who not only received the title without playing in a match or tournament for the world championship, but also did not play a single game with the previous champion at all.

In 1994, he set a record, the first in history to win in a hundred chess competitions (the previous record belonged to Alexander Alekhine - 78 tournaments won). Anatoly Karpov is a member of the Union of Journalists of the Russian Federation, is the author of 59 (of which 56 are on chess) books, collections and textbooks, published and translated into many languages ​​of the world. He was the chief editor of the magazine "64 - Chess Review" (1980-1992) and the encyclopedic dictionary "Chess" (1990).

Garry Kasparov (born 1963)- Soviet and Russian chess player, international grandmaster (1980), Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1985), world champion among youths (1980), champion of the USSR (1981, 1988), champion of Russia (2004). The thirteenth world champion in the history of chess (1985-1993). He was the initiator and founder of several chess organizations: the International Association of Grandmasters (1988), the Professional Chess Association (PSHA, 1993). Disagreeing with the policy pursued by FIDE, on February 27, 1993, Kasparov and Nigel Short, who won the Candidates cycle, announced that they would play their match without the participation of FIDE and under the auspices of a new body - the Professional Chess Association (PCA). FIDE as a result excluded Kasparov from their rating lists and annulled his title of world champion. Under the auspices of the PCA, Garry Kasparov won the title of world chess champion in a match against Short in 1993 and defended it in 1995 against Viswanathan Anand. In 2000, Kasparov lost a match to Vladimir Kramnik and lost the title of world chess champion. In 2005, Kasparov announced that he was leaving professional chess in order to

Chess is a board logic game with pieces on a 64 cell board. Each figure moves along certain cells-routes.

For the first time, chess is mentioned in records dating back to the 4th-5th centuries AD. They appeared in India. Chess came to our country straight from Persia around 820.

The title of world chess champion began to be played for the first time in 1886 and the first champion was Wilhelm Steinitz, a grandmaster from Austria. In the future, the official title was worn by about 20 more people.

But the only chess player who passed away with the rank of current world champion was Alexander Alekhine is a Russian grandmaster who also plays for France.
He became the fourth world champion in history. Alekhine was an extremely versatile chess player. He is best known for his attacking style of play and spectacular, deeply calculated combinations. He is considered the greatest chess player of the 20th century. This will be the correct answer to the question.

The rest of the champions from this list: Mikhail Tal, José Raul Capablanca, Wilhelm Steinz gave their titles to other chess players in their lost matches during their lifetime.