Miroslav Filip was a Grandmaster 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...

 from the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

. Filip was awarded the title of International Master in 1953, and the Grandmaster title in 1955. Filip represented Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 in 12 consecutive 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 from Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

 1952 to Nice

Nice

Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

 1974, playing 194 games with the overall result (+62 =104 –28).

World championship candidate

In 1955 Filip placed seventh in the Göteborg 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 :...

, qualifying 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...

, which was held in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 the following year. He placed eighth out of ten players. (See World Chess Championship 1957

World Chess Championship 1957

The 1957 World Chess Championship was played between Mikhail Botvinnik and Vasily Smyslov in Moscow from March 5 to April 27, 1957. Smyslov won.-Results:...

).

In 1962 Filip placed fifth (out of 23 players) in the Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

 Interzonal. This qualified him for the Candidates tournament in Curaçao

Curaçao

Curaçao is an island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast. The Country of Curaçao , which includes the main island plus the small, uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao , is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands...

, where he tied for last place out of eight players. (See World Chess Championship 1963

World Chess Championship 1963

At the World Chess Championship 1963 Tigran Petrosian narrowly qualified to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik for the World Chess Championship, and then won the match to become the ninth World Chess Champion...

).

Three times Champion of Czechoslovakia

Filip won the Czechoslovak Chess Championship

Czechoslovak Chess Championship

The Czechoslovak National Chess Championship was the chess competition, which has determined the best Czechoslovak chess player.- History :First Czechoslovak championships were held in Prague in year 1919...

 three times: in 1950 at Gottwaldov, in 1952 at Tatranska Lomnica

Tatranská Lomnica

Tatranská Lomnica is a town in the Slovakian part of the High Tatras mountains. It is a skiing and hiking resort best known for the cable car to Lomnický štít, one of the steepest in Europe and remarkable for its lack of support pylons between the two stations...

, and in 1954 in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

.

Other results

He played in the European Team Chess Championship twice: in 1970 he won an individual gold medal for the best score, in 1977 a bronze medal for the third best score. Tournament results include first place at Prague 1956 and second at Marienbad 1960, Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

 1961 and Bern 1975. In the early 1980s Filip retired from playing professional chess, but remained active as a chess journalist.

Filip vs. Tal

The chess game Mikhail Tal vs Miroslav Filip is remembered as one of Filip's most famous chess games. Filip was playing with the black pieces against the 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...

n Grandmaster and former World Champion

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....

 Mikhail Tal

Mikhail Tal

Mikhail Tal was a Soviet–Latvian chess player, a Grandmaster, and the eighth World Chess Champion.Widely regarded as a creative genius, and the best attacking player of all time, he played a daring, combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability....

 at 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...

 at Curaçao in 1962, part of the 1963 World Championship

World Chess Championship 1963

At the World Chess Championship 1963 Tigran Petrosian narrowly qualified to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik for the World Chess Championship, and then won the match to become the ninth World Chess Champion...

 cycle.

• [Event "Candidates Tournament"]
• [Site "Curacao"]
• [Date "1962.05.20"]
• [Round "12"]
• [White "Tal, Mihail"]
• [Black "Filip, Miroslav"]
• [Result "0-1"]
• [ECO "B43
  Sicilian Defence
  The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the moves:The Sicilian is the most popular and best-scoring response to White's first move 1.e4...
  
  "]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. f4 b5 7. a3 Bb7 8. Qf3
Nf6 9. Bd3 Bc5 10. Nb3 Be7 11. O-O O-O 12. Bd2 d6 13. g4 d5 14. e5 Nfd7 15. Qh3
g6 16. Nd4 Nc6 17. Nce2 Nxd4 18. Nxd4 Nc5 19. b4 Ne4 20. Be3 Rfe8 21. Rae1 Bf8
22. Nf3 a5 23. f5 exf5 24. gxf5 Rxe5 25. fxg6 hxg6 26. Nxe5 Qxe5 27. c3 axb4
28. Bd4 Bc8 29. Qg2 Qh5 30. Bxe4 dxe4 31. Qxe4 Qg5+ 32. Kh1 Be6 33. Be5 Rd8 34.
h4 Qh5 35. Qf4 Rd3 36. Bf6 Qd5+ 37. Kg1 bxc3 38. Re4 Bc5+ 39. Kh2 Qa2+ 0-1

External links

: 1,047 games.