Viacheslav Ragozin
Encyclopedia
Viacheslav Vasilyevich Ragozin (October 8, 1908 – March 11, 1962) was a Soviet chess
Grandmaster
, an International Arbiter
of chess, and a World Correspondence Chess Champion
. He was also a chess writer and editor.
in a 1930 match and was himself awarded the title of soviet master. At Moscow in 1935, he won the best game prize for his victory against Lilienthal
. At the very strong Moscow tournament of 1936, he beat Flohr
and Lasker
and came very close to defeating Capablanca, the ever-resourceful ex-world champion scrambling to find a draw
by perpetual check
at the game's frantic conclusion. There followed a victory at the Leningrad championship
of 1936 and second place shared with Konstantinopolsky
(behind Levenfish
) at the Soviet Championship of 1937. At the 1939 Leningrad-Moscow tournament, he finished third equal, behind Flohr and Reshevsky
, but ahead of Keres
.
Success continued into the 1940s with first prize at Sverdlovsk in 1942 and a repeat triumph at the Leningrad Championship of 1945. In 1946, he finished outright first at Helsinki and beat Bondarevsky
in a match. His greatest achievement in over-the-board chess then followed at the Chigorin
Memorial (Moscow) tournament of 1947, where he placed second, a half-point behind Botvinnik
, but notably ahead of such luminaries as Smyslov
, Boleslavsky
and Keres.
By the 1950s, he and most of his generation had been overtaken by the new wave of players emerging from the Soviet chess schools, but Ragozin continued his patronage of the Soviet Championship, competing a total of eleven times, from 1934-1956. Of his rare post-1950 international tournament appearances, his best result came at the 1956 Marianske-Lazne Steinitz
Memorial tournament, where he finished second behind Filip
, ahead of Flohr, Pachman
, Stahlberg
and a young Wolfgang Uhlmann
.
Throughout his life, he displayed an interest and talent for almost every aspect of the game of chess. For his over-the-board play, he became a grandmaster in 1950 and in 1951 he obtained the title of international arbiter. From 1956–1958, his main focus switched to correspondence chess
, where he showed that he was also an expert analyst and theoretician by becoming the second ICCF
World Correspondence Chess Champion in 1959 (winning 9 games, drawing 4 games, and losing 1 game). His correspondence chess grandmaster title was awarded the same year.
With Ragozin's wide range of achievements, came a previously unparalleled breadth of expertise and specialised knowledge of the game; a fact that had not escaped the attention of world champion Mikhail Botvinnik. He recognised that Ragozin would make an ideal sparring partner and they played many secret training matches, as Botvinnik prepared for important world championship encounters. Ragozin's style had always been experimental and risky, particularly with regard to the sacrifice
of pawns
for the initiative
. As Botvinnik was attempting to put together a repertoire of solid, reliable openings
, it was vital that they were rigorously tested against any latent sacrificial play. Accordingly, many historians attribute Ragozin's contribution as a significant factor in Botvinnik's success.
Ragozin and Botvinnik also teamed up to train for the 1944 Soviet championship. To more or less simulate the noise that would be present in the tournament hall, they practiced with the radio blasting at high volume. Botvinnik won the tournament, whilst Ragozin, placing 13th out of 17, blamed his defeats on the unusual quietness of his surroundings.
His contributions to opening theory
mainly concerned the development of systems by which the player of the black pieces could achieve equality in the Queen's Gambit
and Nimzo Indian complexes. In each case, the moves were preparatory to the central pawn push e6-e5.
The QGD Ragozin Defence, typically arrived at via the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 Bb4 (or by transposition) offers black active play from the start and has enjoyed a resurgence in recent times. Ladies' European Champion (2007) Tatiana Kosintseva
, Gregory Serper
, Varuzhan Akobian
and Aleksej Aleksandrov
are just four very strong players who have added the opening to their repertoire.
From 1946 to 1955, Viacheslav Ragozin edited the magazine publication Shakhmaty v SSSR
, but he also had a career in the construction industry as a civil engineer
. He was Vice-President of FIDE from 1950 through 1961.
He died in Moscow while putting together a collection of his best games, which his friends completed for publication in 1964, under the title Izbrannye Partii Ragozina. It contains 74 games spanning his career.
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...
Grandmaster
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....
, an International Arbiter
International Arbiter
In chess, International Arbiter is a title awarded by FIDE to individuals deemed capable of acting as arbiter in important chess matches . The title was established in 1951....
of chess, and a World Correspondence Chess Champion
Correspondence chess
Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, usually through a correspondence chess server, through email or by the postal system; less common methods which have been employed include fax and homing pigeon...
. He was also a chess writer and editor.
Biography
Born in the city of St.Petersburg, Ragozin's chess career first came to the fore with a series of excellent results in the 1930s. In the earliest of these, he defeated the respected master Ilyin-ZhenevskyAlexander Ilyin-Zhenevsky
Alexander Fyodorovich Ilyin , known with the party name Zhenevsky, "the Genevan" because he joined the Bolshevik group of Russian émigrés while exiled in that city, was a Soviet chess master and organizer, one of founders of the Soviet chess school, an Old-Guard Bolshevik cadre, a writer, a...
in a 1930 match and was himself awarded the title of soviet master. At Moscow in 1935, he won the best game prize for his victory against Lilienthal
Andor Lilienthal
Andor Arnoldovich Lilienthal was a Hungarian and Soviet chess Grandmaster. In his long career, he played against ten male and female world champions, beating Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, and Vera Menchik...
. At the very strong Moscow tournament of 1936, he beat Flohr
Salo Flohr
Salomon Mikhailovich Flohr was a leading Czech and later Soviet chess grandmaster of the mid-20th century, who became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s. His name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, slippers and eau-de-cologne...
and Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
and came very close to defeating Capablanca, the ever-resourceful ex-world champion scrambling to find a draw
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,...
by perpetual check
Perpetual check
In the game of chess, perpetual check is a situation in which one player can force a draw by an unending series of checks. Such a situation typically arises when the player who is checking cannot deliver checkmate; while failing to continue the series of checks gives the opponent at least a chance...
at the game's frantic conclusion. There followed a victory at the Leningrad championship
Leningrad City Chess Championship
The Leningrad City Chess Championship is a chess tournament held officially in the city of Leningrad, Russia starting from 1920. The city was called Petrograd from 1914 to 1924, then Leningrad until 1991, and Saint Petersburg afterwards...
of 1936 and second place shared with Konstantinopolsky
Alexander Konstantinopolsky
Alexander Markovich Konstantinopolsky was a Soviet International Master of chess, chess coach and trainer, and a chess author. He was a five-time Kiev champion, and trained the world title challenger David Bronstein from a young age...
(behind Levenfish
Grigory Levenfish
Grigory Yakovlevich Levenfish was a leading Jewish Russian chess grandmaster of the 1920s and 1930s. He was twice Soviet champion - in 1934 and 1937. In 1937 he tied a match against future world champion Mikhail Botvinnik...
) at the Soviet Championship of 1937. At the 1939 Leningrad-Moscow tournament, he finished third equal, behind Flohr and Reshevsky
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...
, but ahead of Keres
Paul Keres
Paul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster, and a renowned chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s....
.
Success continued into the 1940s with first prize at Sverdlovsk in 1942 and a repeat triumph at the Leningrad Championship of 1945. In 1946, he finished outright first at Helsinki and beat Bondarevsky
Igor Bondarevsky
Igor Zakharovich Bondarevsky was a Soviet Russian chess Grandmaster in both over-the-board and correspondence chess, an International Arbiter, trainer, and chess author...
in a match. His greatest achievement in over-the-board chess then followed at the Chigorin
Mikhail Chigorin
Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin also was a leading Russian chess player...
Memorial (Moscow) tournament of 1947, where he placed second, a half-point behind Botvinnik
Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...
, but notably ahead of such luminaries as Smyslov
Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster, and was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship on eight occasions . Smyslov was twice equal first at the Soviet Championship , and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won...
, Boleslavsky
Isaac Boleslavsky
Isaac Yefremovich Boleslavsky was a Soviet–Jewish chess Grandmaster.-Early career:Boleslavsky taught himself chess at age 9...
and Keres.
By the 1950s, he and most of his generation had been overtaken by the new wave of players emerging from the Soviet chess schools, but Ragozin continued his patronage of the Soviet Championship, competing a total of eleven times, from 1934-1956. Of his rare post-1950 international tournament appearances, his best result came at the 1956 Marianske-Lazne Steinitz
Wilhelm Steinitz
Wilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian and then American chess player and the first undisputed world chess champion from 1886 to 1894. From the 1870s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz was effectively the champion earlier...
Memorial tournament, where he finished second behind Filip
Miroslav Filip
Miroslav Filip was a Grandmaster of chess from the Czech Republic. Filip was awarded the title of International Master in 1953, and the Grandmaster title in 1955...
, ahead of Flohr, Pachman
Ludek Pachman
Luděk Pachman was a Czechoslovak-German chess grandmaster, chess writer, and political activist. In 1972, after being imprisoned and tortured almost to death by the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, he was allowed to emigrate to West Germany...
, Stahlberg
Gideon Ståhlberg
Anders Gideon Tom Ståhlberg was a Swedish chess grandmaster.He won the Swedish Chess Championship of 1927, became Nordic champion in 1929, and held it until 1939....
and a young Wolfgang Uhlmann
Wolfgang Uhlmann
Wolfgang Uhlmann is a prominent German International Grandmaster of chess. Despite being a dedicated professional chess player, and undoubtedly the GDR's most successful ever, he has also had a career in accountancy.-Chess career:...
.
Throughout his life, he displayed an interest and talent for almost every aspect of the game of chess. For his over-the-board play, he became a grandmaster in 1950 and in 1951 he obtained the title of international arbiter. From 1956–1958, his main focus switched to correspondence chess
Correspondence chess
Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, usually through a correspondence chess server, through email or by the postal system; less common methods which have been employed include fax and homing pigeon...
, where he showed that he was also an expert analyst and theoretician by becoming the second ICCF
International Correspondence Chess Federation
International 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....
World Correspondence Chess Champion in 1959 (winning 9 games, drawing 4 games, and losing 1 game). His correspondence chess grandmaster title was awarded the same year.
With Ragozin's wide range of achievements, came a previously unparalleled breadth of expertise and specialised knowledge of the game; a fact that had not escaped the attention of world champion Mikhail Botvinnik. He recognised that Ragozin would make an ideal sparring partner and they played many secret training matches, as Botvinnik prepared for important world championship encounters. Ragozin's style had always been experimental and risky, particularly with regard to the sacrifice
Sacrifice (chess)
In chess, a sacrifice is a move giving up a piece in the hopes of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an opponent's piece of lower value....
of pawns
Pawn (chess)
The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...
for the initiative
Initiative (chess)
Initiative in a chess position belongs to the player who can make threats that cannot be ignored. He thus puts his opponent in the position of having to use his turns responding to threats rather than making his own. A player with the initiative will often seek to maneuver his pieces into more and...
. As Botvinnik was attempting to put together a repertoire of solid, reliable 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...
, it was vital that they were rigorously tested against any latent sacrificial play. Accordingly, many historians attribute Ragozin's contribution as a significant factor in Botvinnik's success.
Ragozin and Botvinnik also teamed up to train for the 1944 Soviet championship. To more or less simulate the noise that would be present in the tournament hall, they practiced with the radio blasting at high volume. Botvinnik won the tournament, whilst Ragozin, placing 13th out of 17, blamed his defeats on the unusual quietness of his surroundings.
His contributions to opening theory
Chess theory
The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the opening, middlegame, and endgame. As to each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame, there is a large body of theory as how the game should be played...
mainly concerned the development of systems by which the player of the black pieces could achieve equality in 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...
and Nimzo Indian complexes. In each case, the moves were preparatory to the central pawn push e6-e5.
The QGD Ragozin Defence, typically arrived at via the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 Bb4 (or by transposition) offers black active play from the start and has enjoyed a resurgence in recent times. Ladies' European Champion (2007) Tatiana Kosintseva
Tatiana Kosintseva
Tatiana Anatolyevna Kosintseva is a Russian chess player who has achieved the FIDE title of Grandmaster...
, Gregory Serper
Gregory Serper
Gregory Serper is an International Grandmaster of chess.He was born in Tashkent, in the former Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union . At age 6, he learned to play chess from his grandfather...
, Varuzhan Akobian
Varuzhan Akobian
Varuzhan Akobian is an Armenian-American Grandmaster of chess, originally from Armenia, who now resides in Los Angeles.He became an International Master at age 16...
and Aleksej Aleksandrov
Aleksej Aleksandrov
Aleksej Aleksandrov is a chess grandmaster .-Selected tournament results:* 1991: Victory at the USSR Junior Chess Championship* 1992: Victory at the European Junior Chess Championship...
are just four very strong players who have added the opening to their repertoire.
From 1946 to 1955, Viacheslav Ragozin edited the magazine publication Shakhmaty v SSSR
Shakhmaty v SSSR
Shakhmaty v SSSR was a Russian chess magazine published 1931-91. It was edited by Viacheslav Ragozin for several years. Yuri Averbakh was also an editor. From 1921 or 1925 through 1930 it was titled Shakhmatny Listok and edited by Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky. The circulation was 55,000....
, but he also had a career in the construction industry as a civil engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
. He was Vice-President of FIDE from 1950 through 1961.
He died in Moscow while putting together a collection of his best games, which his friends completed for publication in 1964, under the title Izbrannye Partii Ragozina. It contains 74 games spanning his career.
Notable chess games
- Viacheslav Ragozin vs P Noskov, Moscow-Leningrad Match 1930, Sicilian Defense: French Variation. Normal (B40), 1-0 An exchange sacrifice for the sake of attack
- Andre Lilienthal vs Viacheslav Ragozin, 1935, Nimzo-Indian, Samisch (E24), 0-1 The power of advanced pawns
- Emanuel Lasker vs Viacheslav Ragozin, It 1936, Sicilian, Dragon, Classical (B73), 0-1 Lasker is lost in tactical complications
- Petar Trifunovic vs Vacheslav Ragozin, Moscow 1947, Dutch Defence, 0-1 White's obsession with achieving the e4 break makes him susceptible to a neat tactic.
- Volf Bergraser vs Viacheslav Ragozin, corr-2 1956, King's Indian, Fianchetto, Yugoslav Panno (E66), 0-1 A very complicated game ending with a queen sacrifice - and white is not able to keep an advanced pawn