João de Souza Mendes Júnior (23 June"Mundo del Ajedrez" August–September 1969, p. 253. But "23 July" according to Gaige. 1892 – 10 July 1969) was a seven-time

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian

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 ...

champion and physician. Prior to emergence of

Henrique Mecking Henrique Costa Mecking (born 23 January 1952), also known as Mequinho, is a Brazilian chess grandmaster who reached his zenith in the 1970s and is still one of the strongest players in Brazil. He was a chess prodigy, drawing comparisons to Bobby ...

, he was Brazil's most accomplished (given the span of his dominance) chess player. Born in the Azores,

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, Souza Mendes played in the

Brazilian Chess Championship Following are the official winners of the national Brazilian Chess Championships from 1927 to date. The 1998 championship was held 9–19 December in Itabirito, Minas Gerais State. The field of sixteen played a series of two-game single-eliminatio ...

29 times, winning in 1927 (the first year the tournament was held), 1928, 1929, 1930, 1943, 1954, and 1958. He finished second five times, the last time in 1965 at age 73 when thirteen-year-old

won, and took third five times. He played for Brazil in

Chess Olympiads 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 ...

at Buenos Aires 1939 and Helsinki 1952. Souza Mendes died in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

References

External links

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Souza Mendes' Chess Career
at brasilbase (photo, brief biography, tournament and match record, and game scores in PGN) 1892 births 1969 deaths Brazilian chess players Brazilian people of Portuguese descent Chess Olympiad competitors 20th-century chess players {{Brazil-chess-bio-stub