Genrikh Kasparyan ( hy, Հենրիկ Գասպարյան; 27 February 1910 in

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the Capital city, capital and the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia, lying on the ...

– 27 December 1995 in

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...

) was a Soviet

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. He is considered to have been one of the greatest

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

s of chess

endgame studies In the game of chess, an endgame study, or just study, is a composed position—that is, one that has been made up rather than played in an actual game—presented as a sort of puzzle, in which the aim of the solver is to find the essentially uniqu ...

. Outside

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

, he is better known by the

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

version of his name Genrikh Moiseyevich Kasparyan or Kasparian (russian: Генрих Моисеевич Каспарян). Kasparyan became a

national master A chess title is a title regulated by a chess governing body and bestowed upon players based on their performance and rank. Such titles are usually granted for life. The international chess governing body FIDE grants several titles, the most pre ...

in 1936 and an

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 ...

in 1950. He was awarded the titles of

International Judge of Chess Compositions International Judge of Chess Compositions is a title award by FIDE via the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC; until 2010 ''Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Compositions'', PCCC) to individuals who have judged several chess prob ...

in 1956 and International Grandmaster of Chess Composition in 1972, the first composer to receive this title from

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 ...

. Kasparyan was also an active chess player, winning the Armenian championship ten times (from 1934 to 1956, including two ties with future

World Champion A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

Tigran Petrosian Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian (, ; 17 June 1929 – 13 August 1984) was a Soviet-Armenian chess grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his almost-impenetrable defensive playing style, ...

) and the

Tiflis Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million pe ...

championship three times (1931, 1937, 1945). He reached the USSR Championship finals four times (1931, 1937, 1947, 1952), but never finished higher than tenth place. Kasparyan is best known for his compositions. He started with

chess problems A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by the composer using chess pieces on a chess board, which presents the solver with a particular task. For instance, a position may be given with the instruction that White is to ...

, mainly three-movers, but soon discovered that his best field was in

. He wrote several books and collections and composed about 600 studies, many on the theme of domination, winning 57 first prizes.''Study Database 2005'', by

Harold van der Heijden Harold van der Heijden is a Dutch composer of chess endgame studies. He was born in Veghel, The Netherlands, on 18 December 1960. By profession, after finishing his PhD in 2009, he is head of the Research and Development laboratory of a veterinary ...

. He won the USSR Composing Championship several times .

Sample study

Irving Chernev Irving Chernev (January 29, 1900 – September 29, 1981) was a chess player and prolific Russian-American chess author. He was born in Pryluky in the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine) and emigrated to the United States in 1905. Chernev was a nati ...

included five of Kasparyan's compositions in his book ''200 Brilliant Endgames''. This study uses a "

model mate A model mate is a type of pure mate checkmating position in chess in which not only is the checkmated king and all vacant squares in its field attacked only once, and squares in the king's field occupied by friendly units are not also attacked by ...

" in the middle of the board.

Most famous combination from practical play

Apart from being a prolific composer of chess problems Kasparyan was, as mentioned above, an excellent tournament player. One of his games has found its way into countless books on chess tactics: 1. d4 g6 2. b3 Bg7 3. Bb2 d6 4. e4 f5 5. exf5 Bxf5 6. g3 Nc6 7. Bg2 Qd7 8. f4 O-O-O 9. Nf3 a5 10. Nc3 Nf6 11. Qd2 Ne4 12. Nxe4 Bxe4 13. a4 Rhe8 14. Bc3 b6 15. O-O-O Kb7 16. Rhe1 Bd5 17. Re2 e5 18. Rde1 exf4 19. Rxe8 Rxe8 20. Qxf4 Ka6 21. Qh4 Rh8 22. Rd1 Qc8 23. Rd3 Be6 24. d5 Bxc3 25. Rxc3 Bxd5 (diagram) 26. Rxc6! Bxc6 27. Qc4+ Kb7 28. Qxc6+!! Kxc6 29. Ne5++ Kc5 30. Nd3+ Kd4 31. Kd2!! 1–0

Books

* ''Domination in 2,545 Endgame Studies'' by Genrikh Kasparyan. * ''The Complete Studies of Genrikh Kasparyan'' by

A. J. Roycroft Arthur John Roycroft (born 25 July 1929, London) is an English chess endgame study composer and author. Chess career In 1959 he was awarded the title International Judge of Chess Compositions. In 1965 he founded '' EG'', the first long-running j ...

. * ''888 Miniature Studies'' by Genrikh Moiseyevich Kasparian.

Notable games

Vitaly Chekhover vs. Genrikh Kasparian, Erevan, Match 1936, King's Indian Defense: Fianchetto Variation, Classical Fianchetto (E67), 0–1Genrikh Kasparian vs. David Bronstein, Ch URS 1947, Sicilian Defense: Grand Prix Attack (B23), 1–0Genrikh Kasparian vs. Anatoly Ufimtsev, Ch URS 1947, Reti Opening: Anglo-Slav, Bogoljubow Variation Stonewall Line (A12), 1–0

Notes

References

* * * http://www.saunalahti.fi/~stniekat/pccc/hcc.htm

External links

*
Grandmaster Games Database – Genrikh KasparyanSelected studies by Kasparyan at Arves.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kasparyan, Genrikh 1910 births 1995 deaths Armenian chess players Soviet chess players Chess players from Georgia (country) Chess composers 20th-century Armenian writers Writers from Georgia (country) Chess International Masters Chess writers Grandmasters for chess composition Honoured Masters of Sport of the USSR Sportspeople from Tbilisi Georgian people of Armenian descent Armenian male writers 20th-century chess players