Lubomir Kavalek

Lubomir Kavalek, Lugano 1968
Association	Czechoslovakia (until 1970) United States (since 1970)
Born	August 9, 1943 Prague
Died	January 18, 2021 Reston, Virginia
title	International Master (1965) Grand Master (1966)
Current  Elo rating	2527 (January 2021)
Best Elo rating	2625 (May 1974)
Tab at the FIDE (English)

Lubomir (Lubosh) Kavalek (actually Lubomír Kaválek ; born August 9, 1943 in Prague , † January 18, 2021 in Reston , Virginia ) was a Czechoslovakian - American chess grandmaster .

Life

Single successes

Lubomir Kavalek was first awarded the title of International Master by FIDE in 1965 , and then the title of Grand Master one year later . He won the championship of Czechoslovakia in 1962 and 1968 and left the country in August 1968 after the crackdown on the Prague Spring . He sat down after a tournament in Polanica-Zdrój (Poland), in which he was second, to the Federal Republic of Germany . In 1970 he moved to Washington, DC with his wife Irina and later became a US citizen. After emigrating to the USA, Kavalek first tried to find a livelihood as an employee at Radio Free Europe in Washington, but shortly afterwards he became a professional chess player.

1973 Kavalek (shared with John Grefe ) won the US championship for the first time , again in 1978. In 1981 he was first ahead of Vlastimil Hort at the International German Championship in Bochum .

Lubomir Kavalek, 1980

In 1967 (in Sousse ), 1976 (in Manila ) and 1987 (in Subotica ) he took part in interzonal tournaments, but did not qualify for the Candidates Tournament . In the course of his career, Kavalek won a number of international tournaments : 1965 and 1967 (1st – 3rd) in Varna , 1968 in Amsterdam and Caracas (1st – 3rd), 1971 in Netanya , 1973 in Montilla-Morales and Banang (Philippines ), 1974 in Solingen (shared with Lew Polugajewski ), 1981 in Bochum . In 1969 he defeated the Dutchman Hans Ree in Eersel with 6.5: 2.5 (+4 = 5 −0), in 1978 in Washington the Swede Ulf Andersson with 6.5: 3.5 (+3 = 7 −0), In 1977 he was defeated by former world champion Boris Spasski in Solingen with 2: 4 (+1 = 2 -3).

Team chess

From his stay in Germany until 1990 he was a member of the Bundesliga club Solinger SG 1868 , with which he won the German team championship in 1974 , 1975 , 1980 , 1981 , 1987 and 1988 .

He took part in a total of nine Chess Olympiads : twice for Czechoslovakia ( 1964 Chess Olympiad in Tel Aviv , 1966 Chess Olympiad in Havana ) and seven times for the USA between 1972 and 1986. He won the 1976 Chess Olympiad with the United States team and took third place five times.

Coaching and life after the chess career

Kavalek was considered a brilliant tactician and was also very successful as a coach. He worked with Yasser Seirawan and Robert Hübner , among others . In the early 1990s, he was the second of Nigel Short , whom he assisted in his candidate fights and helped him qualify for the World Cup match against Garry Kasparov . Kavalek and Short ended their collaboration in 1993. He later worked full-time as a journalist . His chess column in the Washington Post was closed in January 2010 after 23 years and 760 issues due to cost reasons. He then wrote for The Huffington Post .

Elo development

Kavalek's best Elo rating was 2625 in May 1974, making him tenth in the world rankings. He played his last Elo-rated game in 1999, after which he largely withdrew from competitive chess.

Elo development

Game example

Gufeld - Kavalek

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Position after 27. Bf8 – c5

Kavalek won a remarkable game at the 1962 Student Olympiad in Marienbad with the black pieces against the Soviet player Eduard Gufeld . In addition to a figure sacrifice, he brought two sacrifices for quality (on move 23 and 27), after which the white rooks proved to be helpless against the black passed pawns .

Eduard Gufeld - Lubomir Kavalek 0-1

Mariánské Lázně, July 20, 1962

Spanish part , C64

1. e2 – e4 e7 – e5 2. Ng1 – f3 Nb8 – c6 3. Bf1 – b5 Bf8 – c5 4. c2 – c3 f7 – f5 5. d2 – d4 f5xe4 6. Nf3 – g5 Bc5 – b6 7. d4– d5 e4 – e3 8. Ng5 – e4 Qd8 – h4 9. Qd1 – f3 Ng8 – f6 10. Ne4xf6 + g7xf6 11. d5xc6 e3xf2 + 12. Ke1 – d1 d7xc6 13. Bb5 – e2 Lc8 – e6 14. Qf3 – h5 + Qh4xh5 15. Be2xh5 + Ke8 – e7 16. b2 – b3 Be6 – d5 17. Bc1 – a3 + Ke7 – e6 18. Bh5 – g4 + f6 – f5 19. Bg4 – h3 Rh8 – g8 20. Nb1 – d2 Bd5xg2 21. Bh3xg2 Rg8xg2 22. Rh1– f1 Ra8 – d8 23. Kd1 – e2 Rd8xd2 + 24. Ke2xd2 e5 – e4 25. Ba3 – f8 f5 – f4 26. b3 – b4 Rg2 – g5 27. Bf8 – c5 diagram Rg5xc5 28. b4xc5 Bb6xc5 29. Ra1 – b1 f4– f3 30. Rb1 – b4 Ke6 – f5 31. Rb4 – d4 Bc5xd4 32. c3xd4 Kf5 – f4 0: 1

Web links

Commons : Lubomir Kavalek  - Collection of Images

• Kavalek's chess column ( Memento from December 17, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) at WashingtonPost.com (English)
• Replayable chess games by Lubomir Kavalek on chessgames.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Willy Iclicki: FIDE Golden book 1924-2002 . Euroadria, Slovenia, 2002, p. 75.
2. ↑ German individual chess championship 1981 in Bochum on TeleSchach (photos, cross table and games)
3. ↑ International tournament 1974 in Solingen on TeleSchach (table and games)
4. ↑ Lubomir Kavalek's results at the Chess Olympiad on olimpbase.org (English)
5. ↑ Numbers according to FIDE Elo lists. Data sources: fide.com (period since 2001), olimpbase.org (period 1971 to 2001)