Aleksander Wojtkiewicz

Aleksander Wojtkiewicz, 2005
Association	Soviet Union (1988) Poland (1989 to 2002) United States (from 2002)
Born	January 15, 1963 Riga
Died	July 14, 2006 Baltimore
title	International Master (1989) Grand Master (1990)
Best Elo rating	2595 (July 1998)

Aleksander Wojtkiewicz (born January 15, 1963 in Riga , † July 14, 2006 in Baltimore ) was a Polish-American chess master .

Life

Wojtkiewicz was born in Latvia during the Soviet era as a Polish citizen . He was a student of the ex-world champion Michail Tal , whom he supported in 1979 at the interzonal tournament in Riga. Wojtkiewicz was one of the leading Latvian players as a youngster, received the championship title at the age of 15 and won the individual championship of the Latvian SSR in 1981 . In 1982 he was supposed to register for military service during the Soviet-Afghan War , but he hid for more than four years. It was not until 1986 that he turned himself in to the authorities and was sentenced to two years in prison. He was given an amnesty at the end of 1987. In 1988 Wojtkiewicz moved to Poland and immediately obtained Polish citizenship. He first took part in the championship of Poland in 1989 and won the tournament. He took part in these championships three times (1992, 1995 and 1996), with another win in 1995 and two runner-up championships. 1990 awarded him FIDE the Grandmaster title .

Wojtkiewicz was an open specialist and won numerous open tournaments around the world. He had lived in Baltimore since the late 1990s and represented the United States since 2002 . There he won a highly prized annual Grand Prix of the US Open several times ; he also won numerous other tournaments in the USA.

Wojtkiewicz died of severe internal bleeding at the age of 43 .

National team

With the Polish national team, Wojtkiewicz took part in the 1990 and 1992 Chess Olympiads and the European Team Championships in 1989 and 1992. At the European Team Championship in 1989 he achieved the best result on the second board and the second best rating of all participants.

societies

In the Polish team championship Wojtkiewiecz played from 1988 to 1993, 1995 and 1997 for Polonia Warsaw , 1999 and 2000 for Gant-Hetman Wrocław . With Polonia Warsaw he also took part in the European Club Cup 1997 and achieved second place.

Web links

Commons : Aleksander Wojtkiewicz  - collection of pictures

• Replayable chess games by Aleksander Wojtkiewicz on 365Chess.com (English)
• Stefan Löffler: Death of a Refusenik
• Obituary by Alex Shabalov on ChessBase.com (English)
• His rating since 1990

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Change of association in 2002 at FIDE (English)
2. ↑ Aleksander Wojtkiewicz's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
3. ↑ Aleksander Wojtkiewicz's results at European Team Championships on olimpbase.org (English)
4. ↑ Aleksander Wojtkiewicz's results at Polish team championships on olimpbase.org (English)
5. ↑ Aleksander Wojtkiewicz's results at European Club Cups on olimpbase.org (English)