Vladimir Bagirov
Vladimir Konstantinovich Bagirov ( rus, Влади́мир Константи́нович Баги́ров; lv, Vladimirs Bagirovs; August 16, 1936 – July 21, 2000) was a Soviet- Latvian chess player, author, and trainer. He played in ten USSR Championships, with his best result being fourth place in his debut in 1960. Bagirov was world senior champion in 1998. He was the coach of Mikhail Tal and Garry Kasparov, both of which are considered to be among the greatest chess players of all time. Biography Vladimir Bagirov was born to an Armenian father and a Ukrainian mother in Baku. He showed chess talent as a youth, and came under the wing of the master and trainer Vladimir Makogonov. He made his debut in the semi-finals of the Soviet Championship in 1957, but did not advance to the final. Bagirov qualified for the final for the first time in 1960, and finished in 4th place at the 27th USSR Championship in Leningrad, which was won by Viktor Korchnoi. In 1961, he was select ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world and also the largest city in the world located below sea level. Baku lies on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, alongside the Bay of Baku. Baku's urban population was estimated at two million people as of 2009. Baku is the primate city of Azerbaijan—it is the sole metropolis in the country, and about 25% of all inhabitants of the country live in Baku's metropolitan area. Baku is divided into twelve administrative raions and 48 townships. Among these are the townships on the islands of the Baku Archipelago, and the town of Oil Rocks built on stilts in the Caspian Sea, away from Baku. The Inner City of Baku, along with the Shirvanshah's Palace and Maiden Tower, were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. The c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
International Master
FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and norms (performance benchmarks in competitions including other titled players). Once awarded, titles are held for life except in cases of fraud or cheating. Open titles may be earned by all players, while women's titles are restricted to female players. Many strong female players hold both open and women's titles. FIDE also awards titles for arbiters, organizers and trainers. Titles for correspondence chess, chess problem composition and chess problem solving are no longer administered by FIDE. A chess title, usually in an abbreviated form, may be used as an honorific. For example, Magnus Carlsen may be styled as "GM Magnus Carlsen". History The term "master" for a strong chess player was initially used informally. From the late 19th c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous city and state. A landlocked country, Austria is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The country occupies an area of and has a population of 9 million. Austria emerged from the remnants of the Eastern and Hungarian March at the end of the first millennium. Originally a margraviate of Bavaria, it developed into a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire in 1156 and was later made an archduchy in 1453. In the 16th century, Vienna began serving as the empire's administrative capital and Austria thus became the heartland of the Habsburg monarchy. After the dissolution of the H ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Grieskirchen
Grieskirchen is a town in Austria. It is capital of the Grieskirchen district of Upper Austria Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, an ..., in the Trattnachtal valley. Notable people * Franz Födermayr (1933–2020), musicologist, was born in the town. * Otto Prechtler (1813–1881), dramatist and librettist, was born in the town. * Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg (1897–1944), SS functionary Population References Cities and towns in Grieskirchen District {{UpperAustria-geo-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Collapse Of The Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Soviet Union (USSR) which resulted in the end of the country's and its federal government's existence as a sovereign state, thereby resulting in its constituent republics gaining full sovereignty on 26 December 1991. It brought an end to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's (later also President) effort to reform the Soviet political and economic system in an attempt to stop a period of political stalemate and economic backslide. The Soviet Union had experienced internal stagnation and ethnic separatism. Although highly centralized until its final years, the country was made up of fifteen top-level republics that served as homelands for different ethnicities. By late 1991, amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several republics alre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Alekhine's Defence
The Alekhine's Defence is a chess opening that begins with the moves: :1. e4 Nf6 Black tempts White's pawns forward to form a broad , with plans to undermine and attack the white structure later in the spirit of hypermodern defence. White's imposing mass of pawns in the centre often includes pawns on c4, d4, e5, and f4. Grandmaster (GM) Nick de Firmian observes of Alekhine's Defence in ''MCO-15'' (2008), "The game immediately loses any sense of symmetry or balance, which makes the opening a good choice for aggressive fighting players."Nick de Firmian, ''Modern Chess Openings, Fifteenth Edition'', 2008, p. 159. . The ''Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings'' has four codes for Alekhine's Defence, B02 through B05: *B02: 1.e4 Nf6 *B03: 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 (including the Exchange Variation and Four Pawns Attack) *B04: 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 (Modern Variation without 4...Bg4) *B05: 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 Bg4 (Modern Variation with 4...Bg4) History The opening is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Chess Theory
The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the chess opening, opening, Chess middlegame, middlegame, and Chess endgame, endgame. There is a large body of theory regarding how the game should be played in each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame. Those who write about chess theory, who are often also eminent players, are referred to as "theorists" or "theoreticians". "Opening theory" commonly refers to consensus, broadly represented by current literature on the openings. "Endgame theory" consists of statements regarding specific positions, or positions of a similar type, though there are few universally applicable principles. "Middlegame theory" often refers to maxims or principles applicable to the middlegame. The modern trend, however, is to assign paramount importance to analysis of the specific position at hand rather than to general principles. The development of theory in all of these areas has been assisted by the vast literature on the game. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Chess Opening
A chess opening or simply an opening is the initial stage of a chess game. It usually consists of established theory; the other phases are the middlegame and the endgame. Many opening sequences have standard names such as the "Sicilian Defense". ''The Oxford Companion to Chess'' lists 1,327 named openings and variants, and there are many others with varying degrees of common usage. Opening moves that are considered standard are referred to as "book moves", or simply "book". When a game begins to deviate from known opening theory, the players are said to be "out of book". In some openings, "book" lines have been worked out for over 30 moves, as in the classical King's Indian Defense and in the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian Defense. Professional chess players spend years studying openings, and continue doing so throughout their careers, as opening theory continues to evolve. Players at the club level also study openings but the importance of the opening phase is smaller t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Alexander Shabalov
Alexander Anatolyevich Shabalov (russian: Алекса́ндр Анато́льевич Шаба́лов; lv, Aleksandrs Šabalovs; born September 12, 1967) is an American chess grandmaster and a four-time winner of the United States Chess Championship (1993, 2000, 2003, 2007). He also won or tied for first place seven times in the U.S. Open Chess Championship (1993, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2015, 2016). Shabalov was born in Riga, Latvia, and was known during much of his career for courting complications even at the cost of objective soundness, much like his fellow Latvians Mikhail Tal and Alexei Shirov. He has transitioned to a more conservative and positional playing style as of 2019. In 2002 he tied for first place at the Aeroflot Open in Moscow with Gregory Kaidanov, Alexander Grischuk, Aleksej Aleksandrov, and Vadim Milov. In 2009 Shabalov shared first place with Fidel Corrales Jimenez in the American Continental Chess Championship. Shabalov regularly lectured chess play ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Alexei Shirov
Alexei Shirov (, lv, Aleksejs Širovs; born 4 July 1972) is a Latvian and Spanish chess player. Shirov was ranked number two in the world in 1994. He won a match against Vladimir Kramnik in 1998 to qualify to play as challenger for the classical world championship match with Garry Kasparov; it never took place due to a lack of sponsorship. Career Shirov became the World Youth Chess Championship, world under-16 champion in 1988 and was the runner-up at the World Junior Chess Championship, World Junior Championship in 1990 (second on tiebreaks to Ilya Gurevich). In the same year, he achieved the title of International Grandmaster, Grandmaster. Shirov is the winner of numerous international tournaments: Biel Chess Festival, Biel 1991, Madrid 1997 (shared first place with Veselin Topalov), Ter Apel 1997, Monte Carlo 1998, Mérida, Spain, Mérida 2000, Paul Keres Memorial Tournament, Paul Keres Memorial Rapid Tournament in Tallinn (2004, 2005, 2011, 2012, 2013), Canadian Open Chess ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Nekhemyevich Tal; rus, Михаил Нехемьевич Таль, ''Mikhail Nekhem'yevich Tal' '', ; sometimes transliterated ''Mihails Tals'' or ''Mihail Tal'' (9 November 1936 – 28 June 1992) was a Soviet-Latvian chess player and the eighth World Chess Champion. He is considered a creative genius within the game of chess and one of its best ever players. Tal played in an attacking and daring combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability. It has been said that "Every game for him was as inimitable and invaluable as a poem". His nickname was "Misha", a diminutive for Mikhail, and he earned the nickname "The Magician from Riga". Both ''The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games'' and ''Modern Chess Brilliancies'' include more games by Tal than any other player. He also held the record for the longest unbeaten streak in competitive chess history with 95 games (46 wins, 49 draws) between 23 October 1973 and 16 O ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the Baltic states; and is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Belarus to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia covers an area of , with a population of 1.9 million. The country has a temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Riga. Latvians belong to the ethno-linguistic group of the Balts; and speak Latvian, one of the only two surviving Baltic languages. Russians are the most prominent minority in the country, at almost a quarter of the population. After centuries of Teutonic, Swedish, Polish-Lithuanian and Russian rule, which was mainly executed by the local Baltic German aristocracy, the independent R ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |