László Szabó ( March 19, 1917 – August 8, 1998) was a Hungarian

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

player. He was awarded the title of

International Grandmaster Grandmaster (GM) is a Chess title, title awarded to chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Chess Championship, World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain. Once achieved, the title is hel ...

in 1950, when it was instituted by

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

Biography

Born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, Szabó burst onto the international chess scene in 1935, at the age of 18, winning the first of Hungarian Championships, an international tournament in Tatatóváros, and was selected to represent his country at the Warsaw Chess Olympiad. It is thought that the young Szabó studied under

Géza Maróczy Géza Maróczy (; 3 March 1870 – 29 May 1951) was a Hungarian chess player, one of the leading players in the world in his time. He was one of the inaugural recipients of the Grandmaster (chess), International Grandmaster title from FIDE in 1 ...

, then a patriarchal figure in Hungarian chess who had previously trained future world champions,

Max Euwe Machgielis "Max" Euwe (; May 20, 1901 – November 26, 1981) was a Dutch chess player, mathematician, author, and chess administrator. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion, a title he held from 1935 ...

and

Vera Menchik Vera Francevna Mencikova (, ''Vera Frantsevna Menchik''; ; 16 February 1906 – 26 June 1944), was a Russian-born Czechoslovak chess player who primarily resided in England. She was the first and longest-reigning Women's World Chess Champ ...

. Prior to World War II, there were other successes, including a gold medal at the 3rd unofficial Chess Olympiad in 1936 as part of the Hungarian team and outright victory at

Hastings Hastings ( ) is a seaside town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to th ...

1938/39 (a tournament he was to hold a long association with). He began a career as a banker, dealing in foreign exchange. At the outbreak of war, Szabó was attached to a Forced Labour Unit and was later captured by Russian troops who held him as a prisoner of war. After the war, he returned to chess and played many major international events. He finished fifth at Groningen 1946, a tournament which included

Mikhail Botvinnik Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik (; ; – May 5, 1995) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster who held five world titles in three different reigns. The sixth World Chess Champion, he also worked as an electrical engineer and computer sci ...

Vasily Smyslov Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov (; 24 March 1921 – 27 March 2010) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster who was the seventh World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidates Tournament, Candidate for the World Chess Championship on ...

Miguel Najdorf Miguel Najdorf ( ; born Mojsze Mendel Najdorf; 15 April 1910 – 4 July 1997) was a Polish-Argentine chess grandmaster. Originally from Poland, he was in Argentina when World War II began in 1939, and he stayed and settled there. He was a leadin ...

Isaac Boleslavsky Isaac Yefremovich Boleslavsky (, ; 9 June 1919 – 15 February 1977) was a Soviet chess grandmaster and writer. Early career Born in Zolotonosha in Ukraine to Jewish parents, Boleslavsky taught himself chess at age nine. In 1933, he became sch ...

and

Alexander Kotov Alexander Alexandrovich Kotov (Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Ко́тов; ( – 8 January 1981) was a Soviet chess International Grandmaster, grandmaster and author. He was a Soviet chess champion, a two-time world title Cand ...

. At the Saltsjöbaden

Interzonal Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by the World Chess Federation FIDE from the 1950s to the 1990s. They were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle and were held after the Zonal tournaments, and before the Ca ...

of 1948, he finished second to

David Bronstein David Ionovich Bronstein (; February 19, 1924 – December 5, 2006) was a Soviet chess player. Awarded the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE in 1950, he narrowly missed becoming World Chess Champion in World Chess Championship 195 ...

and took outright first place at Hastings 1947/48, Budapest 1948 and Hastings 1949/50. A share of fifth place at both the Saltsjöbaden 1952

and the Gothenburg Interzonal of 1955, meant that each of his Interzonal finishes had been strong enough to merit him a place in the corresponding

Candidates Tournament The Candidates Tournament (or in some periods Candidates Matches) is a chess tournament organized by FIDE, chess's international governing body, since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship. The win ...

. It was at his third and final Candidates, held in Amsterdam in 1956, that Szabó made his most promising bid for a

World Championship 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 ...

title challenge. He tied for third place with Bronstein,

Efim Geller Efim Petrovich Geller (; ; 8 March 1925 – 17 November 1998) was a Soviet chess player and world-class grandmaster at his peak. He won the Soviet Championship twice (in 1955 and 1979) and was a Candidate for the World Championship on six occa ...

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

and

Boris Spassky Boris Vasilyevich Spassky (; January 30, 1937 – February 27, 2025) was a Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. Spassky played three world championship matches: he lost to Tigra ...

, behind Smyslov and

Paul Keres Paul Keres (; 7 January 1916 – 5 June 1975) was an Estonian chess grandmaster and chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, and narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match on five ...

. Into the 1960s and 1970s, he continued to excel in international competition; first at Zagreb 1964, first at Budapest 1965 (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 in ...

and

Mark Taimanov Mark Evgenievich Taimanov (; 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 chess author, Taimanov was awarded the title of Grandmas ...

), first at Sarajevo 1972, first at Hilversum 1973 (with Geller) and tied for first at Hastings 1973/74 (with Gennady Kuzmin,

Jan Timman Jan Timman (born 14 December 1951) is a Dutch chess grandmaster who was one of the world's leading chess players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career, he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known a ...

and

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 ...

). The last tournament that he participated in was Jubiliee tournament in Groningen in 1996. In total, he represented Hungary at eleven

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 FIDE Onli ...

s, playing first board on five occasions and delivering many medal-winning performances. In 1937, he took the team silver and individual silver medals, in 1952 an individual bronze, in 1956 a team bronze and in 1966, team bronze and individual silver. Szabó was the best player in Hungary for nearly 20 years (eventually being succeeded by

Lajos Portisch Lajos Portisch (born 4 April 1937) is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster, whose positional style earned him the nickname, the "Hungarian Botvinnik". One of the strongest players from the early 1960s into the late 1980s, he participated in twelve c ...

around 1963/64.) Chessmetrics.com, which attempts to rank players, suggests that Szabo was sixth in the world in 1946. His family donated Szabó's entire chess library and his papers to the

Cleveland Public Library The Cleveland Public Library is a public library system in Cleveland, Ohio. Founded in 1869, it had a circulation of 3.5 million items in 2020. It operates the Main Library on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, 27 branches throughout the cit ...

John G. White Chess and Checkers Collection. The John G. White Collection of Chess and Checkers is the largest chess library in the world (32,568 volumes of books and serials, including 6,359 volumes of bound periodicals.)

References

* *
OlimpBase – The History of the Chess Olympiads

Books

* ''Meine besten Partien'' (German, 248 pages, paperback, 1990.) (https://www.schachversand.de/e/listen/autoren/243.html) * ''My best games of chess'' (English, 209 pages, hardback, 1986.) (https://www.schachversand.de/e/listen/autoren/V243.html )

External links

*
Competitions
– Hungarian Chess Federation
Cleveland Public Library John G. White Chess and Checkers Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Szabo, Laszlo 1917 births 1998 deaths Chess Grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors Jewish chess players 20th-century Hungarian Jews Chess players from Budapest 20th-century Hungarian chess players 20th-century Hungarian sportsmen Hungarian World War II forced labourers Hungarian prisoners of war World War II prisoners of war held by the Soviet Union Hungarian chess players

Biography

References

See also

Books

External links