Volodymyr Zavon

Volodymyr Zavon, 1972
Association	Ukraine
Born	September 26, 1940 Chernihiv
Died	May 30, 2005 Kharkiv , Ukraine
title	International Master (1967) Grand Master (1973)
Best Elo rating	2595 (July 1972)

Volodymyr Andrijowytsch Savon ( Ukrainian Володимир Андрійович Савон ; born September 26, 1940 in Chernihiv , Ukrainian SSR ; † May 30, 2005 in Kharkiv , Ukraine ) was a Ukrainian chess master and coach.

Life

Sawon was a promising Soviet youth player in the early 1960s : in 1961 he won in Lviv , 1961 and 1963 to 1967 he won the student Olympics with the team of the Soviet Union. In 1967 he was shared third in Sarajevo , received the title of International Master and qualified for the first time for the final of the USSR Championship , in which he shared 10-12 place. In 1969 (10th-11th) and 1970 (5th-7th) he also took part and achieved good places. His victory at the 39th USSR Championship in Leningrad in 1971 was a sensation . Savon was superior to the USSR with 1.5 points ahead of the two former world champions Vasily Smyslow and Mikhail Tal , as well as two points ahead of eventual world champion Anatoly Karpov -Master. He won the 1972 Chess Olympiad in Skopje with the Soviet Union . 1973 awarded him FIDE the Grandmaster title . In the same year Sawon qualified for the interzonal tournament in Petrópolis , in which he was eighth. In the course of his career, Sawon won numerous international tournaments, including his last tournament, the Mikhail Botvinnik Memorial (a veterans' tournament ) in Satka 2004. In July 1972, Sawon achieved his highest Elo rating of 2595, placing him in 15th place World ranking.

Further tournament successes:

• Maróczy Memorial Debrecen 1970: 1st / 2nd Place with István Bilek
• Moscow 1970: 1st place
• Mar del Plata 1971: 2/3 space
• Sukhumi 1972: 2nd place behind Mikhail Tal
• USSR Championship 1972 Baku: 3rd – 5th space
• Lublin 1977: 1st / 2nd space

In the last years of his life, Sawon shifted the focus of his work to chess training with young Ukrainian chess players. His most important students include Vasyl Ivanchuk , Ruslan Ponomarev , Serhiy Karjakin , Oleksandr Areschchenko and others. Zavon died in Kharkiv in 2005 .

Web links

• Nekrolog by Roman Wassilewski (russ.)
• Nekrolog by Bobby Ang ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Replayable chess games by Wolodymyr Sawon on chessgames.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wladimir Sawon's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
2. ^ Willy Iclicki: FIDE Golden book 1924-2002 . Euroadria, Slovenia, 2002, p. 76.
3. ↑ Elo history on olimpbase.org (English)