Bogdan Śliwa

Bogdan Śliwa (1960)

Bogdan Śliwa (born February 4, 1922 in Krakow ; † May 16, 2003 there ) was a leading Polish chess player in the 1950s.

In 1946, Śliwa unexpectedly won the first post-war Polish championship . He proved his talent at the subsequent national championship in 1948 when he was third behind Kazimierz Makarczyk and Stanisław Gawlikowski . After completing his engineering studies at the Polytechnic in Cracow, Śliwa devoted himself increasingly to the game of chess. Between 1951 and 1954 he won the national championship title four times in a row. He started at a large number of international tournaments , where he was able to prove himself in encounters with world-class players. In 1952 he had a particularly successful debut at the Chess Olympiad in Helsinki , where he received the silver medal for his individual result for the Polish team on the fourth board (for a 75 percent result).

A year later he received the title of International Master . In 1954 he celebrated the greatest success of his career when he was third in the zone tournament in Marienbad and qualified for the interzonal tournament in Gothenburg , where he scored 5.5 out of 20. Until the abolition of the interzonal tournaments by FIDE, Śliwa remained the only Pole who could reach this stage of the qualification for the World Chess Championship . At the 1957 zone tournament in Sofia he was very close to repeating his success from 1954, but his fourth place was no longer enough to qualify for the interzonal tournament. Śliwa's best historical rating was 2586, which he achieved in March 1955.

In the second half of the 1960s, Śliwa's ability to play dropped somewhat, as he was more active in his job besides chess. In 1960 he was the last Polish national champion. He took part in the Chess Olympiad seven times for Poland between 1952 and 1966 (result: +44 = 37 −25). Śliwa won the Polish team championship four times with Krakow teams, in 1948 with a city selection, 1954 with ZS Ogniwo Krakow , 1957 with KKSz WDK Krakow and 1962 with KKSz Krakow . He took part in dozens of international tournaments and over the years defeated such luminaries as Boris Spasski , David Bronstein , Salo Flohr and Miguel Najdorf . In 1987 FIDE awarded Śliwa the honorary grandmaster title .

Śliwa was also in correspondence chess active, he was from the International Correspondence Chess Federation awarded in 1991 the title of International Correspondence Chess Champion and 1995 of a correspondence chess grandmaster.

Web links

• Replayable chess games by Bogdan Śliwa on chessgames.com (English)
• Bogdan Śliwa at the International Correspondence Chess Federation ICCF (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bogdan Śliwas results at chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
2. ↑ Bogdan Śliwas results at Polish team championships on olimpbase.org (English)
3. ↑ Index card at the ICCF (English)