Edmar Mednis
Encyclopedia
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...
(awarded in 1980) born in Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
. He was also a popular and respected chess writer.
Biography
At the end of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Mednis's family moved to the U.S. He was trained as a chemical engineer, then worked as a stockbroker, but became best known as a 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...
author. Mednis wrote 26 chess books, including Practical Rook Endings (1982) and Strategic Chess: Mastering the Closed Game (1993), and hundreds of chess articles. He and Robert Byrne annotated many games for Chess Informant
Chess Informant
Chess Informant is a publishing company from Belgrade that periodically produces a book of the same name, as well as the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings, Encyclopaedia of Chess Endings, Opening Monographs, other print publications, and software Chess Informant (Šahovski Informator) is a...
.
Mednis finished second in the 1955 World Junior Championship behind 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...
(the two drew
Draw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
their game). He was the first player to beat 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...
in a .S. Chess Championship|U.S. Championship] 1962 ]. He played on the 1962 United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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...
team and finished equal third in the 1961–62 U.S. Championship. Tournament results included third at Houston 1974, equal fourth at New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
1980, and equal first at Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
1984. The Puerto Rico Chess Federation, rather than the United States Chess Federation
United States Chess Federation
The United States Chess Federation is a non-profit organization, the governing chess organization within the United States, and one of the federations of the FIDE. The USCF was founded in 1939 from the merger of two regional chess organizations, and grew gradually until 1972, when membership...
, formally proposed him for the Grandmaster title. He played in the 1979 Interzonal
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, and were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle.- Zonal tournaments :...
tournament in Riga, his birthplace.
Mednis suffered a fatal heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
in 2002 in Woodside, Queens, New York.
Sample games
Fischer–Mednis, U.S. Championship 1962
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Qc7 7.Nf3 Bd7 8.a4 Ne7 9.Bd3 Nbc6 10.0-0 c4 11.Be2 f6 12.Ba3 0-0 13.Re1 Rf7 14.exf6 gxf6 15.Bf1 Re8 16.Nh4 Ng6 17.Qh5 Rg7 18.g3 Qa5 19.Bb2 Nd8 20.Re3 Nf7 21.Kh1 Nd6 22.Nxg6 hxg6 23.Qe2 Rh7 24.Kg1 Kf7 25.h4 f5 26.Qf3 Ne4 27.Qf4 Rc8 28.Bg2 Qc7 29.Qxc7 Rxc7 30.a5 Rc6 31.Ba3 Ra6 32.Bb4 Rh8 33.Ree1 Bc6 34.Bf3 Nd2 35.Be2 Ne4 36.Kg2 Nf6 37.Rh1 Be8 38.Kf3 Ne4 39.Ke3 Nf6 40.f3 Bd7 41.g4 Be8 42.Kf4 Bb5 43.h5 gxh5 44.Rag1 Be8 45.Ke3 b6 46.axb6 Rxb6 47.Ra1 Rb7 48.Bd6 Rh7 49.gxf5? (Mednis considered this the losing move, because it gave black a second passed pawn; he felt 49.g5 was better) exf5 50.Rh4 Ke6 51.Bh2 Rb2 52.Kd2 Rhb7 53.Kc1 R2b6 54.Bf1 Ng8 55.Bf4 a5 56.Rh2 a4 57.Bh3 Ne7 58.Bg5 Kf7 59.Re2 Re6 60.Rxe6 Kxe6 61.Kd1 Nc8 62.Kd2 Bd7 63.Bg2 Ra7 64.Re1+ Kd6 65.Bh6 a3 66.Bf8+ Kc6 67.Bc5 Ra8 68.Ra1 a2 69.Ke3 Nd6 70.Kf4 Nb5 71.Bb4 h4 72.Bh3 Nc7 73.Be7 0–1
Here is a crushing win by Mednis over future World Champion candidate Jan Timman
Jan Timman
Jan Timman is a Dutch chess Grandmaster who was one of the world's leading players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known as "The Best of the West"...
:
Mednis–Timman, Sombor 1974
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.g4 Nc6 7.g5 Nd7 8.Be3 Nc5 9.Qd2 a6 10.0-0-0 Bd7 11.f4 b5 12.Bg2 b4 13.Nce2 Rb8 14.Kb1 Qc7 15.h4 a5 16.h5 a4 17.g6 b3 18.gxf7+ Kxf7 19.cxb3 axb3 20.a3 h6 21.Rhf1 Nxd4 22.Nxd4 Ke8 23.Qf2 Bc8 24.e5 Rb6 25.f5 Bb7 26.fxe6 dxe5 27.Qg3 Bxg2 28.Qg6+ Kd8 29.Nb5+ Rd6 30.Qxg2 1–0
Books
- How to Beat Bobby Fischer, (New York Times, 1974); Revised edition (Dover, 1998), ISBN 0-486-29844-2. An annotated collection of all of Bobby Fischer's lost games.
- Questions and Answers on Practical Endgame Play (1987) ISBN 0-931462-69-X
- Strategic Themes in Endgames
- How Karpov Wins
- Strategic Chess: Mastering the Closed Game (1993) ISBN 0-486-40617-2