Leonid Stein
Leonid Sacharowitsch Stone (Russian Леонид Захарович Штейн, scientific transliteration Leonid Zacharovič Štejn; born November 12, 1934 in Kamenets-Podolski/Ukraine; † 4 July 1973 in Moscow) was a Soviet grandmaster in chess.
Life
Leonid Stein succeeded during his military service, to draw attention to their chess skills. He won in 1955 and 1956 ( respectively shared 1st and 2nd place) in the championships of the Soviet Army. By the end of the 1950s, he managed though, to establish itself among the best players in the Ukraine, but his breakthrough came only in 1961 - and this is very surprising - when he at his first participation in a USSR championship the third informed and 4th place and qualified for the interzonal in Stockholm.
In Stockholm, 1962 ( after this tournament, Stein received the Grandmaster title awarded ) he came to the divided 6th and 7th place, which actually amounted to a qualification for the Candidates Tournament, but the FIDE had previously changed accordingly, the qualification rules for the superiority of the Soviet players, that only a certain number of players of a country could qualify. Stone would be the sixth Soviet citizens, who would have qualified for the Candidates Tournament, so let the FIDE play the runners- Benkő from the U.S..
In this regard, stone may be regarded as a very tragic figure of modern chess, because it happened to him Interzonal 1964 in Amsterdam, where he finished fifth, that he had to bide him runners-up player ( Ivkov and Portisch ) due to the aforementioned paragraphs.
Interzonal in Sousse 1967, he shared space 6 to 8, it had to be played on this rank a random battle of the three players to be awarded last place for the candidates fighting can. Stone played with Reshevsky and Hort, 1968 in Los Angeles for a three tournament. In the final round in the lead, he lost treasure, and Reshevsky came on.
Stone won the USSR Championship 1963 ( by tag battles with Spassky and Cholmow ), 1965 and 1966 (each an undivided winner). It was from this time until his untimely death as one of the best players in the world.
1964 and 1966 he was also a member of the USSR - winning teams at the Chess Olympiads of Tel Aviv and Havana. In Tel Aviv, he scored 10 out of 13 ( 76.92 percent, highest rating on the first reserve board ), in Havana 9 out of 12 (75 percent, second best score on board 4), both very strong results.
His best historical Elo rating was 2759th This he achieved in September 1966.
He won in 1965 and 1970 with the Soviet Union, the European Team Championships, where he scored a second place in 1965 and 1970, a third in the rating board. Leonid Stein died in 1973 of a heart attack when the USSR team traveled to Europe Team Championship to Bath.
Stein's sharp and enterprising style was appreciated by many chess lovers, his traditional roles, under which there is an abundance of shiny beads are still admired. Garry Kasparov has stone in his work Moi Velikie predschestweniki (Russian Edition Volume 3, 2004; German Title: My great predecessors ) in a separate chapter.