Dawid Ionowitsch Bronstein

Dawid Bronstein, 1968
Association	Soviet Union Russia
Born	February 19, 1924 Bila Tserkva , Soviet Union
Died	December 5, 2006 Minsk
title	Grand Master (1950)
Best Elo rating	2595 (May 1974) ( Elo rating ) 2792 (June 1951) ( historical Elo rating )

Dawid Ionowitsch Bronstein ( Russian Давид Ионович Бронштейн ; scientific transliteration David Ionovič Bronštejn , internationally common spelling David Bronstein ; born February 19, 1924 in Bila Zerkwa , Ukrainian SSR ; † December 5, 2006 in Minsk , Belarus ) was a Soviet Grand Master .

Life and tournament successes

Dawid Bronstein grew up in a Jewish family, he was the only son of a mill manager and a doctor. His father was arrested in December 1937 during the Stalin Purge and did not return from camp detention until February 1944, ill health.

Bronstein's talent came to the fore at a very young age. He was trained by Alexander Konstantinopolski as part of the Soviet chess school . Bronstein finished second in the Ukrainian championship in 1937 and won it in 1939. In 1941 he received the Soviet championship title. In the same year he had to flee from the Germans from Kiev, but was not called up for service in the Red Army due to poor eyesight. In 1944 he caused a sensation by defeating the eventual world champion Mikhail Botvinnik . In 1945 he was third in the USSR championship . In 1948 he won the Interzonal Tournament in Saltsjöbaden and came first in the USSR championship in 1948 and 1949.

In the Candidates Tournament 1950 he succeeded in the last round to overtake the leading Grandmaster Boleslawski , which resulted in a playoff. After the regular twelve games, the competition was again a draw. In this case, the regulations stipulated that the next winning game should decide. After a draw in the 13th game, Bronstein succeeded in the 14th game to achieve the decisive victory with the black pieces.

Because of this success, Bronstein was the challenger of world champion Botwinnik in 1951, who had won the 1948 world championship against Vasily Smyslow , Paul Keres , Samuel Reshevsky and Max Euwe . In the 24-game world championship match, Bronstein led after 22 games with 11.5: 10.5. In the penultimate game, however, he had to admit defeat and could not win the last game, so that Botvinnik had defended his world title with the draw (12:12). There were repeated rumors that Bronstein had been pressured by state officials to purposely lose the match. He himself later commented evasively about it in public.

In 1953 he finished second behind Vasily Smyslow at the Candidates' tournament. Bronstein's tournament book, which was published in German under the title Sternstunden des Schach (1991, ISBN 3-328-00428-9 ), is one of the best works in chess literature because of the quality of its game comments . In 1955 he won another interzonal tournament in Gothenburg , but could no longer qualify for a world championship fight at the 1956 Candidates tournament in Amsterdam .

Bronstein continued to take part in many important tournaments, including the interzonal tournaments in 1958 in Portorož , 1964 in Amsterdam and 1973 in Petrópolis . He was city champion of Moscow in 1946, 1953, 1957, 1961, 1968 and 1982. He played his last USSR championship in 1975 in Yerevan .

Bronstein's grave

In 1976 he refused to sign a resolution against Viktor Korchnoi, who had emigrated , and was banned from traveling to western countries for 14 years by the Soviet sports leadership.

In the early 1990s he was one of the first grandmasters to play numerous games against chess computers , including at the AEGON tournaments in The Hague. In the heavily occupied tournament of Hastings 1994/95 Bronstein achieved the shared 1st – 4th. Preis and then announced his retirement from tournament chess.

With his best historical rating of 2792 he was number 1 in the world rankings in June 1951.

Bronstein had a very dynamic style and was particularly comfortable in complicated positions. He played “romantic” openings like the King's Gambit , but also enriched modern systems like the King's Indian Defense with many ideas. Bronstein also composed a total of eight studies that were published between 1948 and 1997.

From 1984 Bronstein was married to Tatjana Boleslawskaja (* 1946), the daughter of Isaak Boleslawski .

Team chess

With the Soviet national team Bronstein won the Chess Olympiads in 1952 , 1954 , 1956 and 1958 . He also achieved the best individual result on the fourth board in 1952 and on the third board in 1956 and 1958, and in 1954 he achieved the second-best individual result on the fourth board. He won the European team championship in 1957 and 1965. In the Soviet club championship he played in 1952 and in all seven events from 1968 to 1982 on the top board of Dinamo .

Game examples

Dawid Bronstein - Dragoljub Minić
international match USSR - Yugoslavia
Leinberg 1962

	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

White to move

In this position, the white man's job is not easy. However, there was a "brilliant, genuinely Bronsteinian idea".
1. g3 – g4 + !! Kf5xg4
2. a5 – a6 e6 – e5?
Minić falls into Bronstein's trap. With 2.… Kf5 he could still have offered resistance.
3. Rb7-c7 Rc3-b3
4. Rc7xc6 Rb3xb4
5. a6-a7
Black resigned. After 5.… Ra4 Bronstein would have forced the conversion with the diversion sacrifice 6. Rc4 + . The point of the first move was to prepare this sacrifice.

• See also: Bronstein - Geller, Moscow, 1961

Aftermath

At a suggestion by Bronstein, the rule goes back that one can only offer a draw immediately when a move is made. In addition, he developed decisive ideas for the abolition of hanging games through new concepts of the time control , which should make chess more attractive for spectators. In the so-called Bronstein mode , the player receives a time credit for each move in addition to the basic thinking time, but in contrast to the Fischer mode, he cannot accumulate this.

Works

• Bronstein's chess theory. Paths to a successful game . Sportverlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-328-00290-1 .
• Successful chess teaching. Opening and middlegame strategy . Falken-Verlag, Niedernhausen 1989, ISBN 3-8068-0991-7 .
• Great moments of chess. Zurich 1953. Sportverlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-328-00428-9 .
• with Tom Fürstenberg: The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The fine art of chess - from the work of David Bronstein. Edition Olms, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-283-00326-2 .
• with Sergey Voronkov: Secret Notes. Edition Olms, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-283-00464-4 .
• David Bronstein: The Candidates Tournament: Zurich 1953 , Joachim Beyer Verlag, Eltmann 2017, ISBN 978-3959200400 .

literature

• Roman Toran: David Bronstein. Creativity of the latest chess genre . W. ten Have Verlag, Amsterdam 1962 (translated and expanded by Erich Eliskases )
• Alexej Suetin : David Bronstein. The art of chess tactics. Verlag Bock and Kübler, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-86155-051-2 .
• Genna Sosonko: The Rise and Fall of David Bronstein . Elk and Ruby Publishing House, 2017, ISBN 5-950-04331-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Dawid Ionowitsch Bronstein in the catalog of the German National Library
• The king of the original chess thinkers
• 40 combinations from his games
• Replayable chess games by Dawid Ionowitsch Bronstein on chessgames.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dagobert Kohlmeyer : On the 95th birthday of David Bronstein In: de.chessbase.com. February 19, 2019, accessed November 15, 2019.
2. ↑ David Bronstein: 1924 to 2006 In: de.chessbase.com. December 6, 2006, accessed October 25, 2019.
3. ^ André Schulz : The 23rd game on chessbase.de
4. ↑ Dawid Bronstein's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
5. ↑ Dawid Bronstein's results at the European Team Championships on olimpbase.org (English)
6. ↑ Dawid Bronstein's results at Soviet club championships on olimpbase.org (English)
7. ↑ Hans-Hilmar Staudte and Milu Milescu : The 1x1 of the endgame . 3rd edition, Joachim Beyer Verlag 2007 ( ISBN 978-3-88805-486-0 ). P. 58.