Florin Gheorghiu
Encyclopedia
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n chess player
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 university lecturer in foreign languages.
Born in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, his prodigious talent for the game was evidenced by his many early achievements; he became an International Master in 1963 and Romania's first Grandmaster just two years later. He was also awarded the title of World Junior Chess Champion
World Junior Chess Championship
The World Junior Chess Championship is an under-20 chess tournament organized by the World Chess Federation ....
(on tie-break) in 1963 at Vrnjacka Banja.
In his home country there were few who could rival his dominance of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. He won the Romanian Championship
Romanian Chess Championship
The Romanian Chess Championship became a yearly even in 1946, and was held irregularly earlier. A series of national eliminating contests are played to select a 20-player field for the men's final...
nine times (the first at age 16) and represented his country in all of the 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 between 1962 and 1990, playing first board on ten occasions.
Gheorghiu was a lecturer in French at Bucharest University and also speaks English, Russian, German, and Spanish.
Chess
Gheorghiu has seldom been regarded a serious contender for the world chess championship title, although he regularly participated in the cycle and at other prestigious events. His placings at four InterzonalInterzonal
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 :...
Tournaments (world championship qualifiers) confirm that he was not as strong as the world's elite players at the time, but could nevertheless perform consistently well at a high level. At Petropolis 1973 he finished 14th, at Manila 1976 10-13th, Riga 1979 5-6th and twelfth at Moscow 1982. At the Riga Interzonal, he only narrowly failed to qualify for the Candidates Matches
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...
.
When playing at his peak on the regular international tournament circuit, he won on many occasions, including 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 (with 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,...
and 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 :...
), Reykjavik 1972 (with 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,...
and Ólafsson
Friðrik Ólafsson
Friðrik Ólafsson is an Icelandic chess Grandmaster and former president of FIDE.Friðrik was born in Reykjavík, Iceland. A first-time winner of the Icelandic Championship in 1952 and of the Scandinavian Championship a year later, he rapidly became recognised as the strongest Icelandic player of his...
), Orense 1973, Torremolinos 1974 (with Torre
Eugenio Torre
Eugenio Torre is a chess Grandmaster . He is considered the strongest chess player the Philippines has ever produced during the 1980s and 1990s period, following the heels of Fischer-era Filipino chess champions National Master Ramon Lontoc, International Master Renato Naranja, IM Rodolfo Tan...
), Lone Pine
Lone Pine International
Lone Pine International was a series of chess tournaments held annually in March or April from 1971 through 1981 in Lone Pine, California. Sponsored by Louis D. Statham , millionaire engineer and inventor of medical instruments, the tournaments were formally titled the Louis D. Statham Masters...
1979 (with Gligorić
Svetozar Gligoric
Svetozar Gligorić is a Serbian chess grandmaster. He won the championship of Yugoslavia a record twelve times, and is considered the best player ever from Serbia...
, Liberzon
Vladimir Liberzon
Vladimir Mikhailovich Liberzon was a Russian–born Israeli chess grandmaster.-Biography:Liberzon played in several Soviet championships, his best result being fourth at the 36th Championship, Alma-Ata 1968/69...
, and Hort), Novi Sad 1979, Biel 1982 (with Nunn
John Nunn
John Denis Martin Nunn is one of England's strongest chess players and once belonged to the world's top ten. He is also a three times world champion in chess problem solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician....
) and Lenk 1990. He was always a formidable opponent at the U.S. Open tournament
U.S. Open Chess Championship
The U.S. Open Championship is an open national chess championship that has been held in the United States annually since 1900.-History:Through 1938, the tournaments were organized by the Western Chess Association and its successor, the American Chess Federation .The United States Chess Federation ...
and finished first in three successive years—1979, 1980 (with Fedorowicz
John Fedorowicz
John Peter Fedorowicz from the Bronx area of New York is an American International Grandmaster of chess, and a chess writer....
) and 1981 (with Christiansen and three others).
Gheorghiu is renowned for his success against the reputedly solid Nimzo-Indian Defence
Nimzo-Indian Defence
The Nimzo-Indian Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:This hypermodern opening was developed by Grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch who introduced it to master-level chess in the early 20th century. Unlike most Indian openings the Nimzo-Indian does not involve an immediate fianchetto,...
. The variation comprising an early f3 for White (which is allied to the Samisch Variation) became his trademark weapon, improving on the games and development work of Lajos Portisch
Lajos Portisch
Lajos Portisch is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster, whose positional style earned him the nickname, the "Hungarian Botvinnik"...
and Gyozo Forintos
Gyozo Forintos
Győző Victor Forintos is a Hungarian chess master and by profession, an economist.He first participated in the Hungarian Championship as early as 1954 and became the national champion in 1968/9....
before him. The system is now referred to as the Gheorghiu Variation in many chess 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...
manuals and has been employed by tactical experts such as Alexei Shirov
Alexei Shirov
Alexei Dmitrievich Shirov is a Soviet-born Latvian chess grandmaster. He has consistently ranked among the world's top players since the early 1990s, and reached a ranking as high as number four in 1998...
.
Notable game
Here is how Gheorghiu, playing White, beat future world champion Bobby FischerBobby 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...
with his aggressive system at the Havana Olympiad in 1966
17th Chess Olympiad
The 17th 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 October 23 and November 20, 1966, in Havana, Cuba.-References:* OlimpBase...
: This was the only competitive game Fischer ever lost to a player younger than himself.
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. f3 d5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 0-0 7. cxd5 exd5 8. e3 Nh5 9. Qc2 Re8 10. g4 Nf4 11. h4 c5 12. Kf2 Ng6 13. Bd3 Nc6 14. Ne2 Be6 15. g5 Rc8 16. h5 Nf8 17. g6 fxg6 18. hxg6 h6 19. Qb1 Na5 20. Nf4 c4 21. Bc2 Rc6 22. Ra2 Nd7 23. a4 Nf6 24. Ba3 Qd7 25. Rb2 b6 26. Rb5 Nb7 27. e4 dxe4 28. Bxe4 Rcc8 29. Re5 Bg4 30. Nd5 Rxe5 31. Nxf6+ gxf6 32. dxe5 Nc5 33. Bxc5 Qd2+ 34. Kg3 Bxf3 35. Bxf3 Rxc5 36. Qc1 Qxc1 37. Rxc1 Rxe5 38. Kf4 Kg7 39. Be4 h5 40. Rd1 Re7 41. Rd5 Kh6 42. Rd6 Kg7 43. Rc6 h4 44. Rxc4 h3 45. Kg3 Kh6 46. Bb1 Re3+ 47. Kh2 Re1 48. Bd3 Re3 49. Rh4+ Kg5 50. g7 1-0