Miguel Najdorf

Miguel Najdorf at the 1973 Hoogovens tournament
Association	Poland (until 1944) Argentina (from 1944)
Born	April 15, 1910 Grodzisk Mazowiecki
Died	July 5th 1997 Málaga
title	Grand Master (1950)
Best Elo rating	2540 (July 1972)

Miguel Najdorf (born April 15, 1910 in Grodzisk Mazowiecki , Generalgouvernement Warsaw , Russian Empire as Mieczysław (or Mendel) Najdorf ; † July 5, 1997 in Málaga , Spain ) was an important Polish chess grandmaster of Jewish origin who, in 1944, also the assumed Argentine citizenship. He is the founder and namesake of the important Najdorf variant in the Sicilian defense .

Life

Miguel Najdorf, Manila 1992

In his home country Poland, Miguel Najdorf came to chess at the age of 12. Savielly Tartakower discovered him and became his first teacher. The world-famous grandmaster inspired the pupil for the original ideas of hypermodern chess. At the age of 22, Najdorf managed to keep the competition with world champion Alekhine in a draw.

In 1934 Najdorf became Polish team champions with Warsaw . Miguel Najdorf played very successfully for Poland at the unofficial Chess Olympiad in Munich in 1936 , he finished second with the team and achieved the best individual result on the second board with 16 points from 20 games. In 1939 he took part in the Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires for Poland and stayed in Argentina after the outbreak of World War II . As a Jew , a return to Poland was impossible for him. He lost his wife, his child, father, mother and four brothers in the Holocaust in the concentration camps of the Nazis .

Although he never played for the world championship , Najdorf was always one of the greats of the international chess scene, and around the middle of the century also regularly among the world's top five players.

During his career he played against all world chess champions from Emanuel Lasker to Garri Kasparow and defeated Mikhail Botvinnik , Vasily Smyslow , Michail Tal , Tigran Petrosyan and Robert Fischer . In addition, he took part in numerous national and international tournaments with considerable success. He won the tournaments in Prague 1946, Venice 1948, Bled 1950, Amsterdam 1950, Mar del Plata 1959 and Havana 1961.

Between 1935 and 1976 he took part in 14 Chess Olympiads (until 1939 for Poland, from 1950 for Argentina), mostly on the 1st board of his team. With the team he reached four second (1939, 1950, 1952 and 1954 ) and three third places (1935, 1937 and 1962 ), in the individual ranking he achieved the best result on the second board in 1939, and on the first board in 1950 and 1952. Najdorf won the Pan-American team championships with Argentina in 1971 and 1985. In 1970 he was appointed to the ninth board of the world selection in the match between the USSR and the rest of the world, and scored 2: 2 (+1 = 2 −1) against Michail Tal .

Najdorf is the father of a popular opening variant in the Sicilian game , the Najdorf variant named after him . Najdorf's last Elo rating was 2,445 , his highest rating was 2540 in July 1972. His best historical rating before the introduction of Elo ratings was 2797 in February 1948. He was number two in the world for 33 months.

Due to his international success, he received the title of Grand Master from FIDE in 1950 .

Also impressive are the performances Najdorfs in blindfold chess : In its heyday, he was blind simultaneous exhibitions against more than 40 opponents.

In the 1950s, Najdorf made a lot of money doing oil business in Venezuela . In 1996 he was made an honorary member of FIDE. In the chess scene until old age, Miguel Najdorf died in 1997 after a heart operation.

Game example

	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

The mate position after Black's 22nd move

Najdorf's “calling card” was the following game, which he played in Warsaw in 1930 (not as often stated at the 1935 Chess Olympiad , where he performed it). Savielly Tartakower called her the Polish Immortals . Black sacrifices all four minor pieces to checkmate.

Glucksberg – Najdorf

Dutch Defense , A85

1. d4 f5 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 d5 5. e3 c6 6. Bd3 Bd6 7. 0–0 0–0 8. Ne2 Nbd7 9. Ng5 Bxh2 + 10. Kh1 Ng4 11. f4 De8 12. g3 DH5 13. Kg2 Lg1 14 Sxg1 Dh2 + 15. Kf3 e5 16. dxe5 Sgxe5 + 17. fxe5 Nxe5 + 18. Kf4 Ng6 + 19. Kf3 f4 20. exf4 Bg4 + 21 Kxg4 Ne5 + 22. fxe5 h5 matt

literature

• Tomasz Lissowski, Adrian Mikhalchishin: Najdorf: life and games . Batsford, London 2005. ISBN 0-7134-8920-0 .
• Liliana Najdorf: Najdorf x Najdorf . Russell Enterprises, Milford 2016. ISBN 978-1-941270-39-4 . (Memories of Najdorf's daughter about her father, game comments by Jan Timman )

Web links

Commons : Miguel Najdorf  - Collection of Images

• André Schulz : Miguel Najdorf: Portrait in ila on chessbase.de
• Replayable chess games by Miguel Najdorf on chessgames.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Miguel Najdorf's results at Polish team championships on olimpbase.org (English)
2. ↑ Miguel Najdorf's results at unofficial chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
3. ↑ Miguel Najdorf's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
4. ↑ Miguel Najdorf's results at the Pan American team championships on olimpbase.org (English)
5. ↑ Elo history at olimpbase.org (English)
6. ↑ Miguel Najdorf's historical Elo numbers at chessmetrics.com (English)
7. ^ Willy Iclicki: FIDE Golden book 1924-2002 . Euroadria, Slovenia, 2002, p. 74.
8. ↑ Honorary Members of FIDE (English)
9. ↑ Edward Winter: The Polish Immortal . See also E. Winter: Kings, Commoners and Knaves. Further Chess Explorations . Russell Enterprises, Milford 1999, p. 306.
10. ^ Miguel Najdorf in Pravo Lidu November 1, 1930
11. ↑ Kurjer Warszawski from October 19, 1930 gives the name as Gliksberg . See Chess Notes by Edward Winter