Andor Lilienthal
Encyclopedia
Andor Arnoldovich Lilienthal (May 5, 1911 – May 8, 2010) was a Hungarian
and Soviet
chess
Grandmaster. In his long career, he played against ten male and female world champions
, beating Emanuel Lasker
, José Raúl Capablanca
, Alexander Alekhine
, Max Euwe
, Mikhail Botvinnik
, Vasily Smyslov
, and Vera Menchik
. In a 2005 article, Slobodan Adzic wrote that Lilienthal was still active, in good health, driving his car, and writing articles for chess magazines. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living grandmaster, and the last surviving person from the original group of grandmasters awarded the title by FIDE in 1950.
to Hungarian Jewish parents and moved to Hungary at the age of two. He played for Hungary in three Chess Olympiad
s: Folkestone 1933
(scoring +7 = 6 − 0 as the reserve, the fifth player on the team), Warsaw 1935
(scoring +11 =8 −0 on second board), and Stockholm 1937
(scoring +9 =6 −2 on first board, leading his team to the silver medal
). He won the individual gold medal
for his board (reserve and second board, respectively) at the 1933 and 1935 Olympiads, and had the fourth-best result on first board in 1937. His total score in the Olympiads was a remarkable 75.51%.
Emigrating to the Soviet Union
in 1935, Lilienthal became a Soviet citizen in 1939. He played in the USSR Chess Championship
eight times. His best result came in the 1940 championship, when he tied for first with Igor Bondarevsky
, ahead of Smyslov, Paul Keres
, Isaac Boleslavsky
, Botvinnik, and 14 other players. He qualified for the Candidates Tournament
once, in 1948.
From 1951 until 1960 he was Tigran Petrosian's
trainer. Lilienthal began a friendship with Vasily Smyslov in 1938, and was Smyslov's second in his world championship matches against Botvinnik. He retired from tournament play in 1965 and returned to Hungary in 1976. His last tournament was Zamárdi 1980, where he finished sixth in the B group, scoring +3 =11 −1.
1934–35:
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 b6 6.f3 d5 7.Bg5 h6 8.Bh4 Ba6 9.e4 Offering a pawn sacrifice introduced by Alekhine
against Erich Eliskases
at Hastings 1933–34. Bxc4 9...dxe4 10.fxe4 g5 11.Bg3 Nxe4 12.Be5, followed by Qc2 or Bd3, gives White an attack. 10.Bxc4 dxc4 11.Qa4+ Qd7 12.Qxc4 Qc6 Eliskases got a satisfactory game after 12...Nc6. 13.Qd3 Nbd7 14.Ne2 Rd8 15.O-O a5 16.Qc2 Qc4 17.f4 Rc8 18.f5 e5 19.dxe5 (see diagram) Qxe4? Lilienthal analyzes 19...Qc5+ 20.Bf2! Qxe5 21.Bd4 Qxe4 22.Qxe4 Nxe4 23.Bxg7 Rh7 24.f6 "and Black's position is hopeless". On 19...Nxe5, White retains the initiative with 20.Nf4, for example 20...Nfd7 21.Rad1 0-0 22.Nd5 threatening 23.Ne7+ or 23.f6. 19...Nxe4 20.Rf4 Qc5+ 21.Kh1 Ng5 22.Bf2 is strong for White. 20.exf6!! A spectacular queen sacrifice
. Qxc2 No better is 20...Qxh4 21.fxg7 Rg8 22.f6! followed by Rf4; if 22...Nxf6 23.Qf5 Ke7 and now 24.Rae1 or 24.Qe5+ wins. 21.fxg7 Rg8 22.Nd4 Threatening a murderous check on e1. Qe4 If 22...Qa4, 23.Rae1+ Ne5 24.Rxe5+ Kd7 25.Rd5+ Ke8 26.Re1#. On 22...Qd2, 23.Rael+ Ne5 24.Rxe5+ Kd7 25.Rd5+ Ke8 26.Re1+ wins. As in the game, Black loses back the queen after 22...Qxc3 23.Rae1+ Ne5 24.Rxe5+ Kd7 25.Re7+ Kd6 26.Nb5+ or 22...Qd3 23.Rae1+ Ne5 24.Rxe5+ Kd7 25.Rd5+. 23.Rae1 Nc5 24.Rxe4+ Nxe4 25.Re1 Rxg7 26.Rxe4+ Kd7 1-0 Seeing that 27.Re7+ Kd6 28.f6 and 29.Bg3+ wins, Capablanca resigned. This game is very famous. Lilienthal relates, "wherever I went on an exhibition
tour, both in the Soviet Union
and elsewhere, chess players and fans always asked me to show them how I sacrificed the queen against the great Cuban. When Bobby Fischer
noticed Lilienthal in the audience at his 1992 return match against Boris Spassky
, Fischer greeted him with the remark "Pawn e5 takes f6."
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
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...
Grandmaster. In his long career, he played against ten male and female world champions
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
, beating Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
, José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play...
, Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
, Max Euwe
Max Euwe
Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...
, Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...
, Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster, and was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship on eight occasions . Smyslov was twice equal first at the Soviet Championship , and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won...
, and Vera Menchik
Vera Menchik
Vera Menchik was a British-Czech chess player who gained renown as the world's first women's chess champion. She also competed in chess tournaments with some of the world's leading male chess masters, defeating many of them, including future World Champion Max Euwe.The daughter of a Czech father...
. In a 2005 article, Slobodan Adzic wrote that Lilienthal was still active, in good health, driving his car, and writing articles for chess magazines. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living grandmaster, and the last surviving person from the original group of grandmasters awarded the title by FIDE in 1950.
Biography
Lilienthal was born in 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...
to Hungarian Jewish parents and moved to Hungary at the age of two. He played for Hungary in three Chess Olympiad
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.-Birth of the Olympiad:The first Olympiad was unofficial...
s: Folkestone 1933
5th Chess Olympiad
The 5th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between July 12 and July 23, 1933, in Folkestone, United Kingdom...
(scoring +7 = 6 − 0 as the reserve, the fifth player on the team), Warsaw 1935
6th Chess Olympiad
The 6th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between August 16 and August 31, 1935, in Warsaw, Poland...
(scoring +11 =8 −0 on second board), and Stockholm 1937
7th Chess Olympiad
The 7th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between July 31 and August 14, 1937, in Stockholm, Sweden]....
(scoring +9 =6 −2 on first board, leading his team to the silver medal
Silver medal
A silver medal is a medal awarded to the second place finisher of contests such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, and contests with similar formats....
). He won the individual gold medal
Gold medal
A gold medal is typically the medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture...
for his board (reserve and second board, respectively) at the 1933 and 1935 Olympiads, and had the fourth-best result on first board in 1937. His total score in the Olympiads was a remarkable 75.51%.
Emigrating to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in 1935, Lilienthal became a Soviet citizen in 1939. He played in the USSR Chess Championship
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...
eight times. His best result came in the 1940 championship, when he tied for first with Igor Bondarevsky
Igor Bondarevsky
Igor Zakharovich Bondarevsky was a Soviet Russian chess Grandmaster in both over-the-board and correspondence chess, an International Arbiter, trainer, and chess author...
, ahead of Smyslov, Paul Keres
Paul Keres
Paul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster, and a renowned chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s....
, Isaac Boleslavsky
Isaac Boleslavsky
Isaac Yefremovich Boleslavsky was a Soviet–Jewish chess Grandmaster.-Early career:Boleslavsky taught himself chess at age 9...
, Botvinnik, and 14 other players. He qualified for the Candidates Tournament
Candidates Tournament
The Candidates Tournament is a chess tournament organized by the world chess federation FIDE since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship...
once, in 1948.
From 1951 until 1960 he was Tigran Petrosian's
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...
trainer. Lilienthal began a friendship with Vasily Smyslov in 1938, and was Smyslov's second in his world championship matches against Botvinnik. He retired from tournament play in 1965 and returned to Hungary in 1976. His last tournament was Zamárdi 1980, where he finished sixth in the B group, scoring +3 =11 −1.
Notable game
Lilienthal was one of the few players with an even record against Capablanca. Lilienthal's "most celebrated victory" is his win against Capablanca at HastingsHastings 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...
1934–35:
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 b6 6.f3 d5 7.Bg5 h6 8.Bh4 Ba6 9.e4 Offering a pawn sacrifice introduced by Alekhine
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
against Erich Eliskases
Erich Eliskases
Erich Gottlieb Eliskases was a chess Grandmaster of the 1930s and 1940s, who represented Austria, Germany and Argentina in international competition....
at Hastings 1933–34. Bxc4 9...dxe4 10.fxe4 g5 11.Bg3 Nxe4 12.Be5, followed by Qc2 or Bd3, gives White an attack. 10.Bxc4 dxc4 11.Qa4+ Qd7 12.Qxc4 Qc6 Eliskases got a satisfactory game after 12...Nc6. 13.Qd3 Nbd7 14.Ne2 Rd8 15.O-O a5 16.Qc2 Qc4 17.f4 Rc8 18.f5 e5 19.dxe5 (see diagram) Qxe4? Lilienthal analyzes 19...Qc5+ 20.Bf2! Qxe5 21.Bd4 Qxe4 22.Qxe4 Nxe4 23.Bxg7 Rh7 24.f6 "and Black's position is hopeless". On 19...Nxe5, White retains the initiative with 20.Nf4, for example 20...Nfd7 21.Rad1 0-0 22.Nd5 threatening 23.Ne7+ or 23.f6. 19...Nxe4 20.Rf4 Qc5+ 21.Kh1 Ng5 22.Bf2 is strong for White. 20.exf6!! A spectacular queen sacrifice
Queen sacrifice
In chess, a queen sacrifice is a move giving up a queen in return for tactical or positional compensation.-Queen sacrifice: real versus sham:...
. Qxc2 No better is 20...Qxh4 21.fxg7 Rg8 22.f6! followed by Rf4; if 22...Nxf6 23.Qf5 Ke7 and now 24.Rae1 or 24.Qe5+ wins. 21.fxg7 Rg8 22.Nd4 Threatening a murderous check on e1. Qe4 If 22...Qa4, 23.Rae1+ Ne5 24.Rxe5+ Kd7 25.Rd5+ Ke8 26.Re1#. On 22...Qd2, 23.Rael+ Ne5 24.Rxe5+ Kd7 25.Rd5+ Ke8 26.Re1+ wins. As in the game, Black loses back the queen after 22...Qxc3 23.Rae1+ Ne5 24.Rxe5+ Kd7 25.Re7+ Kd6 26.Nb5+ or 22...Qd3 23.Rae1+ Ne5 24.Rxe5+ Kd7 25.Rd5+. 23.Rae1 Nc5 24.Rxe4+ Nxe4 25.Re1 Rxg7 26.Rxe4+ Kd7 1-0 Seeing that 27.Re7+ Kd6 28.f6 and 29.Bg3+ wins, Capablanca resigned. This game is very famous. Lilienthal relates, "wherever I went on an exhibition
Simultaneous exhibition
A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display is a board game exhibition in which one player plays multiple games at a time with a number of other players. Such an exhibition is often referred to simply as a "simul".In a regular simul, no chess clocks are used...
tour, both in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and elsewhere, chess players and fans always asked me to show them how I sacrificed the queen against the great Cuban. When Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
noticed Lilienthal in the audience at his 1992 return match against Boris 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...
, Fischer greeted him with the remark "Pawn e5 takes f6."
External links
- Lilienthal! Collection of wins by Lilienthal against notable players.
- Gorodin, Dmitri (2002). Andor Lilienthal and His Contribution to the History of Modern Chess. Chesscafe.com.
- Anzikeev, Valdimir. The Last of the Chess Mohicans, 6464 (chess magazine)The magazine 64 is a Russian chess and draughts publication, published in Moscow. Its name refers to the number of squares on a chessboard. The magazine awards the Chess Oscar annually.-History:...
, May 2006 - Winter, EdwardEdward Winter (chess historian)Edward Winter is an English journalist, archivist, historian, collector and author about the game of chess. He writes a regular column on that subject, Chess Notes, and is also a regular columnist for ChessBase.-Chess Notes:...
, Chess Note 6569, A. Lilienthal. Photographs of Lilienthal from the collection of Edward Winter. Chesshistory.com. - Obituary