Leonid Stein

Leonid Stein, Amsterdam 1969
Association	Soviet Union
Born	November 12, 1934 Kamenets-Podolski
Died	July 4, 1973 Moscow
title	International Master (1961) Grand Master (1962)
Best Elo rating	2620 (July 1972)

Leonid Sakharovich Stein ( Russian Леонид Захарович Штейн , scientific transliteration Leonid Zacharovič Štejn ; born November 12, 1934 in Kamjanez-Podilskyj / Ukraine ; † July 4, 1973 in Moscow ) was a Soviet grandmaster in chess .

Life

Leonid Stein managed to draw attention to his chess skills during his military service. He won in 1955 and 1956 (shared 1st and 2nd place) at the championships of the Soviet Army . By the end of the 1950s he managed to establish himself among the best players in Ukraine, but his - very surprising - breakthrough only came in 1961, when he finished 3rd and 4th in his first participation in a USSR championship , Shared place and qualified for the interzonal tournament in Stockholm . In the same year he was named International Master .

In Stockholm 1962 (after this tournament Stein was awarded the title of Grand Master ) he reached the shared 6th and 7th place, which was actually equivalent to qualifying for the Candidates Tournament , but FIDE had previously changed the qualification regulations accordingly because of the superiority of the Soviet players, that only a certain contingent of players from a country could qualify. Stein would be the sixth Soviet citizen to have qualified for the Candidates Tournament, so FIDE played next-placed Pál Benkő from the USA .

In this regard, Stein can be seen as an extremely tragic figure in modern chess, because it happened to him at the 1964 interzonal tournament in Amsterdam , where he finished fifth, that he placed two players behind him ( Borislav Ivkov and Lajos Portisch ) because of the aforementioned Had to pass paragraphs.

At the interzonal tournament in Sousse in 1967 he shared 6th to 8th place. A playoff between the three players at this rank had to be played in order to be able to award the last place for the candidate fights. Stein played a three-way tournament with Samuel Reshevsky and Vlastimil Hort in Los Angeles in 1968. Leading the final lap, he lost to Hort and Reshevsky advanced.

Stein won the USSR championship in 1963 (after trick fights with Boris Spassky and Ratmir Cholmow ), in 1965 and 1966 (both undivided winners). From that time until his death he was considered one of the best players in the world.

His last Elo number was 2605, his highest Elo number of 2620 he reached in July 1972. He was tied with Vasily Smyslow in eleventh place in the world rankings. Before the introduction of the Elo numbers, his best historical Elo number was 2759. This he reached in September 1966.

Leonid Stein died of a heart attack in 1973 when the USSR team traveled to Bath for the European team championship .

Game example

Stone valley

	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

End position after 33rd Rxc5

In the following game, stone with the white stones defeated ex-world champion Mikhail Tal at the USSR championship in Leningrad in 1971 .

Stein – Tal 1-0

Leningrad, October 14, 1971

English opening , A14

1. c4 Nf6 2. g3 e6 3. Bg2 d5 4. Nf3 Be7 5. 0–0 0–0 6. d4 c6 7. Dc2 b6 8. Rd1 Bb7 9. Nc3 Nbd7 10. b3 Rc8 11. e4 c5 12. exd5 exd5 13. dxc5 dxc4 14. b4 bxc5 15. b5 Qb6 16. Bf4 Rfd8 17. a4 Qa5 18.Nd2 Bxg2 19.Nxc4 Qb4 20.Na2 Be4 21.Nxb4 Bxc2 22.Nxc2 Nb6 23.Rxd8 + Bxd8 24. S2e3 Nxc4 25.Nxc4 Nd5 26.Rd1 Nb6 27.Nd6 Ra8 28. a5 Sa4 29.Nc4 Nc3 30. Re1 Bxa5 31.Nxa5 Nxb5 32. Re5 Nd4 33.Rxc5 1: 0

National team

Stein won the Chess Olympiads in 1964 and 1966 with the Soviet team . In 1964 he also won the individual ranking on the first reserve board. He won the European team championship with the USSR in 1965 and 1970, where he achieved a second place on the sixth board in 1965 and a third place on the ninth board in the board scoring in 1970.

In 1970 he was nominated as a reserve player for the USSR against the rest of the world . In the last lap he was on the top board and lost to Bent Larsen .

societies

Stein participated five times in the Soviet club championship on the top board of Avangard . The team’s best performance was second place in 1961, and in the individual standings Stein achieved the best result on the first board in 1968.

Aftermath

Stein's sharp and enterprising style was very much appreciated by many chess lovers, and among his traditional games there are many brilliant games. Garri Kasparow dedicated a separate chapter to Stein in his work Moi welikie predschestweniki (Russian edition, 3rd volume, 2004; German title: Meine große Vorkampf ).

The most famous game that Stein will remember is his defeat against Bobby Fischer in the interzonal tournament in Sousse in 1967, which was voted the best game of the half year in the 4th edition of Chessinformator . Stein's victory over Vasily Smyslow during the Soviet team championship in 1972 came in second in the corresponding vote in the 13th edition of the Chess Informator.

literature

• E. Gufeld / E. Lazarev: Leonid Stein . Fiskultura i sport, Moscow 1980. (Russian)
• E. Gufeld, E. Lazarew: Leonid Stein, Master of Risk Strategy . Thinkers' Press, Inc., Davenport 2001, ISBN 0-938650-54-8 (softcover), ISBN 0-938650-96-3 . (hardcover)
• Siep H. Postma: Leonid Stein . Smit Publishing, Hengelo 1985, ISBN 90-6289-549-2 .
• Raymond Keene : Leonid Stein - Master of Attack . Tui Enterprises, London 1989, ISBN 1-84382-018-8 .
• Helmut Wieteck: From worker to grandmaster, the short but successful chess life of Leonid Stein . Rochade Europa, Maintal 1994, ISBN 3-920748-16-6 .
• Garry Kasparov: My great champions, volume 3 . Edition Olms, 2004, ISBN 978-3-283-00472-9 .
• Colin Crouch : Great Attackers . Everyman Chess, 2009, ISBN 978-1-85744-579-4 .

Web links

Commons : Leonid Stein  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Leonid Stein in the catalog of the German National Library
• Replayable chess games by Leonid Stein on chessgames.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Willy Iclicki: FIDE Golden book 1924-2002 . Euroadria, Slovenia, 2002, p. 75.
2. ↑ Elo history at olimpbase.org (English)
3. ↑ Leonid Stein's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
4. ↑ Leonid Stein's results at the European Team Championship on olimpbase.org (English)
5. ↑ Leonid Stein's results at Soviet club championships on olimpbase.org (English)
6. ↑ Robert James Fischer vs. Leonid Stein. "Brooklyn Warehouse" Sousse Interzonal (1967). chessgames.com, accessed February 13, 2016 . 
7. ↑ TheAlchemist: Chess Informant: 640 Best Games - Part 1. chessgames.com, accessed February 13, 2016 . 
8. ^ Leonid Stein vs. Vasily Smyslov. chessgames.com, accessed February 13, 2016 . 
9. ↑ TheAlchemist: Chess Informant: 640 Best Games - Part 2. chessgames.com, accessed February 13, 2016 .