Evgeny Ellinovich Sveshnikov ( rus, Евгений Эллинович Све́шников; lv, Jevgēņijs Svešņikovs; 11 February 1950 – 18 August 2021) was a Russian
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
player and writer. He was awarded the title of
Grandmaster by
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
in 1977.
Chess career
Sveshnikov played in his first
USSR Chess Championship
The USSR Chess Championship was played from 1921 to 1991. Organized by the USSR Chess Federation, it was the strongest national chess championship ever held, with eight world chess champions and four world championship finalists among its winners. ...
when he was 17 years old. He was awarded by
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
the
titles
A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify either generation, an official position, or a professional or academic qualification. In some languages, titles may be inserted between the f ...
International Master in 1975 and Grandmaster in 1977.
In his early international competitions, he was a joint winner at
Decin 1974, shared first place (with
Lev Polugaevsky
Lev Abramovich Polugaevsky ( rus, Лев Абрамович Полугаевский, p=pəlʊɡɐˈjefskʲɪj; 20 November 1934 – 30 August 1995) was a Soviet chess player. He was awarded the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE i ...
) at
Sochi
Sochi ( rus, Со́чи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-Сочи.ogg) is the largest resort city in Russia. The city is situated on the Sochi River, along the Black Sea in Southern Russia, with a population of 466,078 residents, up to 600,000 residents in ...
1976 and won
category 8
International standard ISO/IEC 11801 ''Information technology — Generic cabling for customer premises'' specifies general-purpose telecommunication cabling systems (structured cabling) that are suitable for a wide range of applications (analog an ...
tournaments at
Le Havre
Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very cl ...
1977 and
Cienfuegos
Cienfuegos (), capital of Cienfuegos Province, is a city on the southern coast of Cuba. It is located about from Havana and has a population of 150,000. Since the late 1960s, Cienfuegos has become one of Cuba's main industrial centers, especial ...
1979. At
Novi Sad
Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; hu, Újvidék, ; german: Neusatz; see below for other names) is the second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pan ...
in 1979, he shared second prize with
Efim Geller
Efim Petrovich Geller (russian: Ефим Петрович Геллер, uk, Юхим Петрович Геллер; 8 March 1925 – 17 November 1998) was a Soviet chess player and world-class grandmaster at his peak. He won the Soviet Champi ...
behind
Florin Gheorghiu
Florin Gheorghiu (born 6 April 1944) is a Romanian chess player and has been a university lecturer in foreign languages.
Born in Ploiești, on 6 April 1944, while the American bombers attacked the country's capital, his prodigious talent for the ...
. At
Wijk aan Zee
Wijk aan Zee ( literally ''Neighborhood at Sea'') is a village on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk, the province of North Holland of the Netherlands. The prestigious Tata Steel Chess Tournament (formerly called the Coru ...
in 1981, he shared 3rd place and in 1983, was joint
champion of Moscow. Sveshnikov won the
Latvian Chess Championship The Latvian Chess Champsionship () is the annual national chess tournament of Latvia among men and women players, which was established in 1924. It is organized by the Latvian Chess Federation (), previously - Latvian Chess Union ().
History
...
in 2003 and 2010. In 2017, Sveshnikov won the 65+ section of the
World Senior Chess Championship
The World Senior Chess Championship is an annual chess tournament established in 1991 by FIDE, the World Chess Federation.
Overview
Originally, the minimum age was 60 years for men, and 50 for women.
Since 2014, the Senior Championship is split i ...
.
![Jevgeni Svesjnikov (1981)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Jevgeni_Svesjnikov_%281981%29.jpg)
In team competitions, he played on the gold medal-winning Soviet team in the 1976 World Student Team Chess Championship, and was selected as a reserve for the Soviet side participating at the 1977
European Team Chess Championship
The European Team Championship (often abbreviated in texts and games databases as ''ETC'') is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of European nations whose chess federations are located in zones 1.1 to 1.9. This more ...
in Moscow. Although only an international master at the time, he registered a score of 80%, winning individual and team gold medals. He represented Latvia at the
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 and ...
s of 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010, and at the European Team Championship in 2011. In 2016 he was the top board of the gold medal-winning Russian team in the 65+ section of the World Senior Team Championship.
A critic of the system
Known as one of the most outspoken and controversial grandmasters on the circuit, Sveshnikov became linked with player revolts over the handing in of
gamescores. It was (and is) accepted practice that players submit copies of their gamescores to tournament organisers and these games later appear on the internet, in books, magazines and in database programs. Sveshnikov insisted that it was not in the best interests of chess professionals to allow this to continue.
He contended that gamescores were the labors and
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
of the two players concerned and therefore
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
permissions and
royalty fees should apply. It is morally corrupt, he argued, that only authors, editors and owners of Chess Publishing Houses profit from the publication of gamescores. Effectively, players are even prevented from producing an exclusive book of their own best games as an investment for their retirement. He also questioned the wisdom of handing over such detailed information to future opponents, who would utilise databases to improve their chances of victory, regardless of original thought or chess-playing ability.
The theoretician
It is, however, the work that Sveshnikov did with his close friend Grandmaster
Gennady Timoshchenko during the 1960s and 1970s that bears greatest testimony to his chess achievements.
Previously known as the Lasker-Pelikan variation of the
Sicilian Defence
The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the following moves:
:1. b:Chess Opening Theory/1. e4, e4 b:Chess Opening Theory/1. e4/1...c5, c5
The Sicilian is the most popular and best-scoring response to White's first move 1.e4. Ope ...
, Sveshnikov's system was considered of dubious merit until he transformed it into an exciting and fully playable opening. The balance between winning and losing is often on a knife edge, making it an attractive proposition for black players seeking the full point.
Mark Taimanov
Mark Evgenievich Taimanov (russian: Марк Евгеньевич Тайманов; 7 February 1926 – 28 November 2016) was one of the leading Soviet and Russian chess players, among the world's top 20 players from 1946 to 1971. A prolific ch ...
, in an interview, described it as
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 Defens ...
theory's "last great discovery". That it is now regularly played by the world's leading grandmasters lends credence to this view.
Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik (russian: Влади́мир Бори́сович Кра́мник; born 25 June 1975) is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Cha ...
and
Valery Salov
Valery Salov (born 26 May 1964) is a Russian chess grandmaster who was once ranked the third best player in the world.
Competitive chess career
Salov was awarded the International Master title in 1984 and the Grandmaster title in 1986. He was ...
are regarded as expert practitioners of the Sicilian Sveshnikov (categorised by the moves 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 - the Sveshnikov 'proper' continuing 6.Ndb5 d6), but Kasparov, Shirov, Leko and Khalifman have also enjoyed success with it. Moreover,
Magnus Carlsen
Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster who is the reigning five-time World Chess Champion. He is also a three-time World Rapid Chess Champion and five-time World Blitz Chess Champion. Carlsen has h ...
employed this opening several times during the
World Chess Championship 2018
The World Chess Championship 2018 was a match between the reigning world champion since 2013, Magnus Carlsen, and the challenger Fabiano Caruana to determine the World Chess Champion. The 12-game match, organised by FIDE and its commercial pa ...
match with
Fabiano Caruana
Fabiano Luigi Caruana (born July 30, 1992) is an American chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, Caruana became a grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months, and 20 days—the youngest grandmaster in the history of both Italy and the United Sta ...
. The opening is rich in its tactical possibilities and despite being subjected to deep analysis, continues to flourish with new ideas being regularly unearthed. Sveshnikov authored a comprehensive book on this variation titled ''The Sicilian Pelikan''.
He was also a pioneer in the development of the
Advance Variation of the French Defence and of the
Alapin Variation of the
Sicilian Defence
The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the following moves:
:1. b:Chess Opening Theory/1. e4, e4 b:Chess Opening Theory/1. e4/1...c5, c5
The Sicilian is the most popular and best-scoring response to White's first move 1.e4. Ope ...
.
Personal life and death
His
son
A son is a male offspring; a boy or a man in relation to his parents. The female counterpart is a daughter. From a biological perspective, a son constitutes a first degree relative.
Social issues
In pre-industrial societies and some current c ...
,
Vladimir Sveshnikov
Vladimir Sveshnikov ( lv, Vladimirs Svešņikovs, russian: Владимир Евгеньевич Свешников, Vladimir Yevgenyevich Sveshnikov; born 6 May 1986) is a Latvian chess player. He was awarded the International Master title in 20 ...
, is a chess player with the title of International Master.
Evgeny died from complications of
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
on 18 August 2021, at the age of 71. His death came shortly after the death of his mother.
Notable games
Evgeny Sveshnikov vs Ruslan Sherbakov, Moscow ch-URS 1991, Sicilian Rossolimo, 1-0White expertly probes on the kingside to create weaknesses on the dark squares and then springs a surprise mating net, commencing with a queen sacrifice.
Evgeny Sveshnikov vs Igor Ivanov, Russia 1976, Caro Kann, 1-0White initiates early razor-sharp tactics and concludes the game with a stylish mating attack.
References
*
*''
CHESS magazine'', Vol.63, September 1998, pp. 49–52.
External links
Evgeny Sveshnikovchess games at 365Chess.com
*
team chess record at Olimpbase.org
Interview with Evgeny Sveshnikov by Scacchierando.net – via Chessdom.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sveshnikov, Evgeny
1950 births
2021 deaths
Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia
Chess grandmasters
Chess Olympiad competitors
Chess theoreticians
Chess coaches
Russian chess players
Latvian chess players
Soviet chess players
Russian chess writers
Latvian chess writers
World Senior Chess Champions
Sportspeople from Chelyabinsk
Russian and Soviet emigrants to Latvia