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Zigfrīds Solmanis
Zigfrīds Aleksandrs Otto Solmanis (July 9, 1913, Riga – September 6, 1984, Jūrmala) was a Latvian chess player. Chess career Zigfrīds Solmanis started to play chess at the age of 6. From him earliest youth participated in various tournaments and other events related to chess. He stood out with his aggressive style of play. In 1938, Solmanis won the Latvian Chess Club tournament and in 1939 he participated at the second Ķemeri International chess tournament. Solmanis was a very good speed chess player having won over 70 such tournaments. In 1938 he visited 25 cities in Latvia and gave simultaneous exhibitions with a very good result 74 percent. After the Second World War, Solmanis actively involved in reconstruction of Latvian chess life. He was a triple champion in chess in Jurmala and in 1947 won Latvian Chess Championship. In 1947 he took third place in Quarterfinal of Championship of USSR in Tbilisi, after the next world champion Tigran Petrosian. In 1948 he repres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latvia
Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to the southeast, and shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia covers an area of , with a population of 1.9million. The country has a Temperate climate, temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city is Riga. Latvians, who are the titular nation and comprise 65.5% of the country's population, belong to the ethnolinguistic group of the Balts and speak Latvian language, Latvian. Russians in Latvia, Russians are the most prominent minority in the country, at almost a quarter of the population; 37.7% of the population speak Russian language, Russian as their native tongue. After centuries of State of the Teutonic Order, Teutonic, Swedish Livonia, Swedish, Inflanty Voi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal (9 November 1936 – 28 June 1992) was a Soviet and Latvian chess player and the eighth World Chess Champion. He is considered a creative genius and is widely regarded as Comparison of top chess players throughout history, one of the most influential players in chess history. Tal played in an attacking and daring combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability. Vladislav Zubok said of him, "Every game for him was as inimitable and invaluable as a poem". His nickname was "Misha (name), Misha", a diminutive for Michael (given name), 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 October 1974, until Ding Liren's streak o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latvian Chess Players
Latvian may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Latvia **Latvians, a Baltic ethnic group, native to what is modern-day Latvia and the immediate geographical region **Latvian language, also referred to as Lettish **Latvian cuisine **Latvian culture **Latvian horse *Latvian Gambit, an opening in chess See also *Latvia (other) Latvia is a country in Europe. Latvia can also refer to: * Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (1940–1990) * Latvia (European Parliament constituency) * 1284 Latvia - asteroid * Latvia Peak - mountain in Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the ... * {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chess Players From Riga
Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no elements of chance. It is played on a square board consisting of 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. The players, referred to as "White" and "Black", each control sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns, with each type of piece having a different pattern of movement. An enemy piece may be captured (removed from the board) by moving one's own piece onto the square it occupies. The object of the game is to "checkmate" (threaten with inescapable capture) the enemy king. There are also several ways a game can end in a draw. The recorded history of chess goes back to at least the emergence of chaturanga—also thought to be an ancestor to similar games like and —in seventh-century India. After its introduction in Persia, it spread to the Arab world and then to Europe. The modern rules of chess emerged in Europe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1984 Deaths
__NOTOC__ The following is a list of notable deaths in 1984. Entries for each day are listed alphabetically by surname. A typical entry lists information in the following sequence: * Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent country of citizenship (if applicable), reason for notability, cause of death (if known), and reference. Deaths in 1984 January * January 1 ** Alexis Korner, British blues musician and broadcaster (b. 1928) ** Joaquín Rodríguez Ortega, Spanish bullfighter (b. 1903) * January 5 – Giuseppe Fava, Italian writer (b. 1925) * January 6 – Ernest Laszlo, Hungarian-American cinematographer (b. 1898) * January 7 – Alfred Kastler, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902) * January 9 – Sir Deighton Lisle Ward, 4th Governor-General of Barbados (b. 1909) * January 11 – Jack La Rue, American actor (b. 1902) * January 14 ** Saad Haddad, Lebanese military officer and militia leader (b. 1936) ** Ray Kroc, American entrepreneur (b. 1902) * J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1913 Births
Events January * January – Joseph Stalin travels to Vienna to research his ''Marxism and the National Question''. This means that, during this month, Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky and Tito are all living in the city. * January 3 – First Balkan War: Greece completes its Battle of Chios (1912), capture of the eastern Aegean island of Chios, as the last Ottoman forces on the island surrender. * January 13 – Edward Carson founds the (first) Ulster Volunteers, Ulster Volunteer Force, by unifying several existing Ulster loyalism, loyalist militias to resist home rule for Ireland. * January 18 – First Balkan War: Battle of Lemnos (1913), Battle of Lemnos – Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it will not venture for the rest of the war. * January 23 – 1913 Ottoman coup d'état: Enver Pasha comes to power. February * February 1 – New York City's Grand Central Te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexei Shirov
Alexei Shirov (, ; 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 under-16 champion in 1988 and was the runner-up at the World Junior Championship in 1990 (second on tiebreaks to Ilya Gurevich). In the same year, he achieved the title of Grandmaster. Shirov is the winner of numerous international tournaments: Biel 1991, Madrid 1997 (shared first place with Veselin Topalov), Ter Apel 1997, Monte Carlo 1998, Mérida 2000, Paul Keres Memorial Rapid Tournament in Tallinn (2004, 2005, 2011, 2012, 2013), Canadian Open Chess Championship 2005. He reached second on the FIDE rating list in January and July 1994, behind Anatoly Karpov, though Garry Kasparov was excluded from those lists and was rate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Shabalov
Alexander Anatolyevich Shabalov (; ; 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). Chess career 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 1997 and 2000, Shabalov tied for first place at the U.S. Masters Chess Championship. 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 lecture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleksander Wojtkiewicz
Aleksander Wojtkiewicz (; January 15, 1963 – July 14, 2006) was a Polish chess grandmaster. Life Wojtkiewicz was born in the Latvian SSR. By his early teens, he was already a strong player, and was a student of the former world champion Mikhail Tal, whom he assisted in the 1979 Interzonal tournament in Riga. He won the Latvian Chess Championship in 1981. His promising chess career was interrupted when he refused to join the Soviet Army. For several years, he went undercover, but in 1986 he was sentenced to two years in prison. After one year, he received an amnesty after the meeting of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Following his release he moved from Riga to Warsaw, where he won two Polish Chess Championships. He played for Poland in the Chess Olympiads of 1990 and 1992. He later resided in the United States, where he became one of the most active players on the tournament circuit, constantly flying around the world. Several times he won the annual $10,000 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aivars Gipslis
Aivars Gipslis (February 8, 1937 – April 13, 2000) was a Latvian chess player, writer, editor and coach, who held the FIDE title of Grandmaster and the ICCF title of Correspondence Chess Grandmaster. Chess biography Born in Riga, he was champion of Latvia in 1955, 1956, 1957, 1960, 1961, 1963, 1964, and 1966. He also played in several Soviet Chess Championships, his best result coming in 1966, when he was equal third with 12/20. Gipslis played in the Sousse Interzonal of 1967, but did not advance to the Candidates' level. Perhaps his best tournament result was the Alekhine Memorial 1967 in Moscow, where he finished on 10/17, a point behind the winner Leonid Stein. His second place was shared with Milko Bobotsov and two World Champions, Vasily Smyslov and Mikhail Tal, ahead of two others, Boris Spassky and Tigran Petrosian, among a host of other strong players. His other outstanding tournament results include equal first at Bad Liebenstein 1963 with Lev Polugaevsky, and eq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anda Šafranska
Anda Šafranska (born December 2, 1960, in Riga) is a Latvian-born chess player who holds the title of Woman Grandmaster. Anda Šafranska for many years was one of the best women's chess players in Latvia. She won the Latvian Chess Championship for women eight times: 1982, 1984, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1997. Šafranska played for Latvia in Chess Olympiads: * In 1992, at second board in the 30th Chess Olympiad in Manila (+6, =0, -6); * In 1994, at first board in the 31st Chess Olympiad in Moscow (+3, =3, -5); * In 1996, at first board in the 32nd Chess Olympiad in Yerevan (+6, =4, -4); * In 2006, at third board in the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin (+1, =1, -4). She played for Latvia in European Team Chess Championship: * In 1992, at second board in Debrecen (+2, =2, -3); * In 1994, at first board in Pula (+3, =1, -3). Since 2000 Šafranska lives in Léon, France, and she now plays for France. Šafranska played for France in World Team Chess Championship: * In 2013, at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riga
Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planning Region, Riga metropolitan area, which stretches beyond the city limits, is estimated at 847,162 (as of 2025). The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava (river), Daugava river where it meets the Baltic Sea. Riga's territory covers and lies above sea level on a flat and sandy plain. Riga was founded in 1201, and is a former Hanseatic League member. Riga's historical centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, noted for its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture and 19th century wooden architecture. Riga was the European Capital of Culture in 2014, along with Umeå in Sweden. Riga hosted the 2006 Riga summit, 2006 NATO Summit, the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, the 2013 World Women's Curling Championship, and the 2006 IIHF Wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
