Ortvin Sarapu
Encyclopedia
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(22 January 1924 in Narva
Narva
Narva is the third largest city in Estonia. It is located at the eastern extreme point of Estonia, by the Russian border, on the Narva River which drains Lake Peipus.-Early history:...
, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
– 13 April 1999 in Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
), sometimes known as "Mr Chess", was a New Zealand 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...
International Master who won or co-won the New Zealand Chess Championship
New Zealand Chess Championship
The New Zealand Chess Championship was first conducted in 1879.Note: Up until 1934 foreign players were eligible for the title. The eligibility rules were changed in 1935 to preclude this; John Angus Erskine was born in Invercargill and was therefore eligible although he was domiciled in...
20 times between 1952 and 1990.
Early life
Born Ortvin Sarapuu in Estonia, he won the Estonian Junior Championship in 1940, then defected to Finland from Nazi-occupied Estonia in 1943, then to Sweden. In 1945, just after World War II ended, Sarapu was invited to stay with a family friend in Denmark. In 1946, he won the CopenhagenCopenhagen
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...
championship and the Copenhagen five-minute lightning chess championship. In 1948, he played twenty games of blindfold chess
Blindfold chess
Blindfold chess is a form of chess play wherein the players do not see the positions of the pieces or touch them. This forces players to maintain a mental model of the positions of the pieces...
simultaneously in Denmark.
His first and last international tournament in Europe was at Oldenburg
Oldenburg
Oldenburg is an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the western part of the state between the cities of Bremen and Groningen, Netherlands, at the Hunte river. It has a population of 160,279 which makes it the fourth biggest city in Lower Saxony after Hanover, Braunschweig...
1949. There, he beat former world chess championship
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....
candidate Efim Bogolyubov with a sharp turnaround from a bad position. Sarapu finished in fifth place with 11-6, a point behind tournament winners Bogolyubov and Elmārs Zemgalis
Elmars Zemgalis
Elmārs Zemgalis , is a Latvian-American chess master and mathematics professor. He was awarded an Honorary Grandmaster title in 2003.- Biography :...
, and a half point behind Nicolas Rossolimo
Nicolas Rossolimo
Nicolas Rossolimo was an American-French-Russian-Greek chess Grandmaster. He was many times champion of Paris, France, and after relocating to the United States won the 1955 U.S. Open Championship...
and H. Heinicke.
New Zealand
One of his opponents at the 1949 OldenburgOldenburg
Oldenburg is an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the western part of the state between the cities of Bremen and Groningen, Netherlands, at the Hunte river. It has a population of 160,279 which makes it the fourth biggest city in Lower Saxony after Hanover, Braunschweig...
tournament was former New Zealander Robert Wade
Robert Wade (chess player)
Robert Graham Wade OBE , was a British chess player, writer, arbiter, coach, and promoter. He was New Zealand champion three times, British champion twice, and played in seven Chess Olympiads and one Interzonal tournament...
; in a conversation after their game, Wade suggested that New Zealand would be a good place for someone like Sarapu, who wanted to escape war-ravaged Europe. He met Barbara Bialonczyk after the Oldenburg tournament, and they married in 1950. Immediately thereafter, the newlyweds emigrated to New Zealand, arriving in Wellington in October 1950. They had one son, Peter.
On arrival, there was a huge gap in chess strength between him and the rest. His strength helped raise the general standard of chess in New Zealand. Even so, he won or co-won the New Zealand Chess Championship
New Zealand Chess Championship
The New Zealand Chess Championship was first conducted in 1879.Note: Up until 1934 foreign players were eligible for the title. The eligibility rules were changed in 1935 to preclude this; John Angus Erskine was born in Invercargill and was therefore eligible although he was domiciled in...
20 times between 1952, when he won his first championship with 10.5 points out of 11 games, and 1990, when he tied with Ben Martin at 7.5 out of 11. Sarapu claimed that this was a world record number of wins of any national championship. He became known as "Mr NZ Chess", and represented the country at ten 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.
In 1952 he played C. J. S. Purdy
Cecil Purdy
Cecil John Seddon Purdy was an Australian chess International Master and inaugural World Correspondence Chess champion. Purdy earned the Grandmaster title at Correspondence Chess in 1953...
, then champion of Australia, for the championship of Australasia. The match, played at Auckland, was drawn, the players becoming joint champions for 1952. Sarapu took first place at the Melbourne International Tournament in 1955.
Awards
FIDE awarded Sarapu the International Master title in 1966 after he won the Asian Zonal, making him the second New Zealand player to gain the IM title, the first being Robert G WadeRobert Wade (chess player)
Robert Graham Wade OBE , was a British chess player, writer, arbiter, coach, and promoter. He was New Zealand champion three times, British champion twice, and played in seven Chess Olympiads and one Interzonal tournament...
. In addition to Bogolyubov, other world-class players whom Sarapu played include World Champions 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...
(a loss at the Sousse 1967 Interzonal), Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
(a loss at the Lucerne 1982 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...
), and 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...
(a draw at Wellington 1988), and perennial World Championship candidate Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ; pronounced in the original Russian as "karch NOY"; Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, born March 23, 1931 is a professional chess player, author and currently the oldest active grandmaster on the tournament circuit...
(a draw at the Sousse Interzonal).
Sarapu was awarded an MBE
MBE
MBE can stand for:* Mail Boxes Etc.* Management by exception* Master of Bioethics* Master of Bioscience Enterprise* Master of Business Engineering* Master of Business Economics* Mean Biased Error...
for his services to chess.
Literature
- Ortvin Sarapu: 25 Years in the New Zealand Chess Championship (1952–1977), 1978.
- Ortvin Sarapu: "Mr. Chess". The Ortvin Sarapu Story. New Zealand Chess Supplies, Wainuiomata 1993. ISBN 0-473-01607-9
- Ortvin Sarapuu: Minu malelugu. Kupar, Tallinn 1998. ISBN 9985-61-117-9
See also
- New Zealand Chess ChampionshipNew Zealand Chess ChampionshipThe New Zealand Chess Championship was first conducted in 1879.Note: Up until 1934 foreign players were eligible for the title. The eligibility rules were changed in 1935 to preclude this; John Angus Erskine was born in Invercargill and was therefore eligible although he was domiciled in...
- New Zealand Chess FederationNew Zealand Chess FederationThe first chess club in New Zealand was formed in September 1863 in DunedinThe New Zealand Chess Association came into being in the 1870s. The association, refounded in 1892, conducts the annual championship, usually held in the Christmas – New Year period. The Australian master, C. J. S...
- Fédération Internationale des ÉchecsFédération Internationale des ÉchecsThe Fédération Internationale des Échecs or World Chess Federation is an international organization that connects the various national chess federations around the world and acts as the governing body of international chess competition. It is usually referred to as FIDE , its French acronym.FIDE...
(FIDE) - International Correspondence Chess FederationInternational Correspondence Chess FederationInternational Correspondence Chess Federation was founded in 1951 as a new appearance of the ICCA , which was founded in 1945, as successor of the IFSB , founded in 1928....
(ICCF)