Alexey Suetin
Encyclopedia
Alexey Stepanovich Suetin ' onMouseout='HidePop("67671")' href="/topics/Kirovohrad">Kirovohrad
– September 10, 2001 in Moscow
) was a Russia
n International Grandmaster
of chess
and author.
and a mechanical engineer by profession, he became an International Master in 1961 and a Grandmaster in 1965. His philosophy was always that "mastery is not enough; you must dare, take risks". It was an axiom that fashioned him into a tough and fiercely competitive player and appeared to bring him his fair share of success.
His first major success came in 1955, when as a member of the Soviet team at the World Student Team Championships, he scored 80% and took individual and team gold medals.
As an active tournament player in the 1960s and 1970s, he achieved many fine results, including sharing or winning outright first place at Sarajevo
1965, Copenhagen
1965, Titovo Uzice
1966, Hastings
1967/68, Havana
1969, Albena
1970, Kecskemet
1972, Brno
1975 (the inaugural Czech Open Championship – the title of Champion going to Vlastimil Hort
on tie-break), Lublin
1976, and Dubna
1979. Third place finishes at Debrecen
1961 and Berlin
(Lasker Memorial) 1968 were also noteworthy.
Suetin participated in seven USSR Championships
from 1958 to 1966, his best finishes being 4th–6th in 1963 (behind Stein
, Spassky
and Kholmov
) and 4th-6th in 1965 (behind Stein, Polugaevsky
and Taimanov
).
Until 1971, he served as a second and trainer to Tigran Petrosian
for many of his most important matches, including his world championship victory in 1963. He was for many years Moscow's senior coach, overseeing the development of promising new talents, including Vassily Ivanchuk and Andrei Sokolov
. Though less distinguished than before, his playing career stretched into the 1990s and beyond. He won the Hastings Challengers event of 1990/91, but was like Efim Geller
, a chain-smoker, and found it difficult to adjust to the 1990 FIDE directive that banned smoking in tournament halls.
A renowned commentator on the game, he was from 1965 the correspondent for Pravda
and his voice was often heard on Moscow radio and TV during the 1970s and 1980s.
As a veteran player, he won the World Senior Championship
in 1996.
He authored many chess books; principally those concerned with the middlegame or opening
. These include: Modern Chess Opening Theory, Three Steps To Chess Mastery (a treatise which combines his earlier works, The Chess Player's Laboratory and The Path To Mastery), Plan Like A Grandmaster, A Contemporary Approach To The Middle-game, French Defence, The Complete Grunfeld and The Complete Spanish. His last book, Chess through the prism of time, was published in Moscow in 1998.
Alexey Suetin was married to Woman Grandmaster Kira Zvorykina
and together they had a son Aleksandr, born 1951. They lived in Belarus for some years and frequently competed in the national championship
. Suetin was a six-time winner of the event and he and Zvorykina held the Men's and Women's titles concurrently in 1960.
He died aged 74 of a heart attack shortly after returning home from the Russian Senior Championship.
White builds pressure on Black's over-extended kingside, culminating in a deadly attack (33. ... Rxg7 34.Nf8+ and 35.Rxg7+).
Kirovohrad
Kirovohrad , formerly Yelisavetgrad, is a city in central Ukraine. It is located on the Inhul River. It is a motorway junction. Pop. 239,400 ....
– September 10, 2001 in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
) was a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n International Grandmaster
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
of chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
and author.
Biography
A resident of MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and a mechanical engineer by profession, he became an International Master in 1961 and a Grandmaster in 1965. His philosophy was always that "mastery is not enough; you must dare, take risks". It was an axiom that fashioned him into a tough and fiercely competitive player and appeared to bring him his fair share of success.
His first major success came in 1955, when as a member of the Soviet team at the World Student Team Championships, he scored 80% and took individual and team gold medals.
As an active tournament player in the 1960s and 1970s, he achieved many fine results, including sharing or winning outright first place at Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
1965, Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
1965, Titovo Uzice
Užice
Užice is a city and municipality in western Serbia, located at the banks of the Đetinja river. It is the administrative center of the Zlatibor District...
1966, Hastings
Hastings International Chess Congress
The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the...
1967/68, Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
1969, Albena
Albena
Albena is a major Black Sea resort in northeastern Bulgaria, situated 12 km from Balchik and 30 km from Varna. Albena is served by the international airport of Varna....
1970, Kecskemet
Kecskemét
Kecskemét is a city in the central part of Hungary. It is the 8th largest city of the country, and the county seat of Bács-Kiskun.Kecskemét lies halfway between the capital Budapest and the country's third-largest city, Szeged, 86 kilometres from both of them and almost equal distance from the two...
1972, Brno
Brno
Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...
1975 (the inaugural Czech Open Championship – the title of Champion going to Vlastimil Hort
Vlastimil Hort
Vlastimil Hort is a chess Grandmaster of Czech nationality. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the world's strongest players and reached the Candidates stage of competition for the world chess championship, but was never able to compete for the actual title.Hort was born in Kladno,...
on tie-break), Lublin
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...
1976, and Dubna
Dubna
Dubna is a town in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It has a status of naukograd , being home to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, an international nuclear physics research centre and one of the largest scientific foundations in the country. It is also home to MKB Raduga, a defence aerospace company...
1979. Third place finishes at Debrecen
Debrecen
Debrecen , is the second largest city in Hungary after Budapest. Debrecen is the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar county.- Name :...
1961 and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
(Lasker Memorial) 1968 were also noteworthy.
Suetin participated in seven USSR Championships
USSR Chess Championship
This is a list of all the winners of the USSR Chess Championship. It was the strongest national chess championship ever held, with eight world chess champions and four world championship finalists among its winners...
from 1958 to 1966, his best finishes being 4th–6th in 1963 (behind Stein
Leonid Stein
Leonid Zakharovich 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.- Early life :...
, Spassky
Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky is a Soviet-French chess grandmaster. He was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from late 1969 to 1972...
and Kholmov
Ratmir Kholmov
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...
) and 4th-6th in 1965 (behind Stein, Polugaevsky
Lev Polugaevsky
Lev Abramovich Polugaevsky was an International Grandmaster of chess and frequent contender for the world chess championship, although he never achieved that title...
and Taimanov
Mark Taimanov
Mark Evgenievich Taimanov is a leading Soviet and Russian chess player and concert pianist.-Chess:He was awarded the International Grandmaster title in 1952 and played in the Candidates Tournament in Zurich in 1953, where he tied for eighth place. From 1946 to 1956, he was among the world's top...
).
Until 1971, he served as a second and trainer to Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was a Soviet-Armenian grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his playing style because of his almost impenetrable defence, which emphasised safety above all else...
for many of his most important matches, including his world championship victory in 1963. He was for many years Moscow's senior coach, overseeing the development of promising new talents, including Vassily Ivanchuk and Andrei Sokolov
Andrei Sokolov
Andrei Yurievich Sokolov is a French chess Grandmaster of Russian origin, now living in France...
. Though less distinguished than before, his playing career stretched into the 1990s and beyond. He won the Hastings Challengers event of 1990/91, but was like Efim Geller
Efim Geller
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...
, a chain-smoker, and found it difficult to adjust to the 1990 FIDE directive that banned smoking in tournament halls.
A renowned commentator on the game, he was from 1965 the correspondent for Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
and his voice was often heard on Moscow radio and TV during the 1970s and 1980s.
As a veteran player, he won the World Senior Championship
World Senior Chess Championship
The World Senior Chess Championship is an annual chess tournament established in 1991 by FIDE, the World Chess Federation.Participants must have reached 60 years old on 1 January of the year of the event...
in 1996.
He authored many chess books; principally those concerned with the middlegame or opening
Chess opening
A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a chess game. Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings as initiated by White or defenses, as created in reply by Black. There are many dozens of different openings, and hundreds of named variants. The Oxford Companion to...
. These include: Modern Chess Opening Theory, Three Steps To Chess Mastery (a treatise which combines his earlier works, The Chess Player's Laboratory and The Path To Mastery), Plan Like A Grandmaster, A Contemporary Approach To The Middle-game, French Defence, The Complete Grunfeld and The Complete Spanish. His last book, Chess through the prism of time, was published in Moscow in 1998.
Alexey Suetin was married to Woman Grandmaster Kira Zvorykina
Kira Zvorykina
Kira Alekseyevna Zvorykina is a former Soviet chess player who spent many years living in Belarus. She is a three-time winner of the Women's Soviet Championship.-Formative years:...
and together they had a son Aleksandr, born 1951. They lived in Belarus for some years and frequently competed in the national championship
Belarusian Chess Championship
The 65th Belarusian Chess Championship was held 18–28 February 1999.GM Viacheslav Dydyshko won the 12-player, single round-robin tournament , earning his tenth championship in 26 attempts.-References:**...
. Suetin was a six-time winner of the event and he and Zvorykina held the Men's and Women's titles concurrently in 1960.
He died aged 74 of a heart attack shortly after returning home from the Russian Senior Championship.
Notable game
Suetin vs Tseshkovsky, English Opening A27, Kislovodsk 1972, 1-0White builds pressure on Black's over-extended kingside, culminating in a deadly attack (33. ... Rxg7 34.Nf8+ and 35.Rxg7+).