Semyon Zinovyevich Alapin was a Russian

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 and Lithuanian 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...

 master, openings

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...

 analyst, and puzzle

Chess puzzle

A chess puzzle is a puzzle in which knowledge of the pieces and rules of chess is used to solve logically a chess-related problem. The longstanding popularity of chess has paved the way for a rich tradition of such chess-related puzzles and composed problems, which assume a familiarity with the...

 composer. He was a linguist, railway engineer and merchant (grain commodities).

Biography

Born in Vilnius

Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

 on 19 November 1856, he was a Jewish Russian citizen and one of the strongest players in Russia in the late 19th century. He died in Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

, Germany on 15 July 1923.

Legacy

Today he is best known for his creation of opening systems in almost all major openings. Most of these are of little significance today, but Alapin's Variation of the Sicilian Defence

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...

 is an important opening line that is often played by leading grandmasters.

List of openings named after Alapin

• Alapin's Variation of the Sicilian Defence
  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. c3
• Alapin's Opening
  Alapin's Opening
  Alapin's Opening is an unusual chess opening that starts with the moves:Although this opening is rarely used, Ljubojević played against it at Groningen in 1970.Alapin's Opening is offbeat, but perfectly playable for White....
  
  in the Open Game: 1. e4 e5 2. Ne2!?
• Alapin's Gambit of the French Defence
  French Defence
  The French Defence is a chess opening. It is characterised by the moves:The French has a reputation for solidity and resilience, though it can result in a somewhat cramped game for Black in the early stages...
  
  : 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Be3!?
• Alapin's Defence of the Ruy Lopez
  Ruy Lopez
  The Ruy Lopez, also called the Spanish Opening or Spanish Game, is a chess opening characterised by the moves:-History:The opening is named after the 16th century Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura, who made a systematic study of this and other openings in the 150-page book on chess Libro del...
  
  : 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bb4
• Alapin's Variation of the Caro-Kann Defence
  Caro-Kann Defence
  The Caro-Kann Defence is a chess opening —a common defense against the King's Pawn Opening characterised by the moves:The usual continuation isfollowed by 3.Nc3 , 3.Nd2 , 3.exd5 , or 3.e5 . The classical variation has gained much popularity...
  
  : 1. e4 c6 2. c3
• Alapin's Variation of the Dutch Defence
  Dutch Defence
  The Dutch Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:-History:Elias Stein , an Alsatian who settled in The Hague, recommended the defence as the best reply to 1.d4 in his 1789 book Nouvel essai sur le jeu des échecs, avec des réflexions militaires relatives à ce jeu.-Theory:Black's 1.....
  
   (also known as the "Manhattan Variation"): 1. d4 f5 2. Qd3
• Alapin's Variation of the Queen's Gambit
  Queen's Gambit
  The Queen's Gambit is a chess opening that starts with the moves:The Queen's Gambit is one of the oldest known chess openings. It was mentioned in the Göttingen manuscript of 1490 and was later analysed by masters such as Gioachino Greco in the seventeenth century...
  
  : 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 b6
• Alapin Steinitz Variation of the Evans Gambit
  Evans Gambit
  The Evans Gambit is a chess opening characterised by the moves:The gambit is named after the Welsh sea Captain William Davies Evans, the first player known to have employed it. The first game with the opening is considered to be Evans - McDonnell, London 1827, although in that game a slightly...
  
  : 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. 0-0 d6 7. d4 Bg4
• Sanders Alapin Variation of the Evans Gambit
  Evans Gambit
  The Evans Gambit is a chess opening characterised by the moves:The gambit is named after the Welsh sea Captain William Davies Evans, the first player known to have employed it. The first game with the opening is considered to be Evans - McDonnell, London 1827, although in that game a slightly...
  
  : 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. 0-0 d6 7. d4 Bd7

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