Ratmir Kholmov

Ratmir Dmitrievich Cholmow (Russian Ратмир Дмитриевич Холмов, born May 13, 1925 in Shenkursk; † 18 February 2006 in Moscow) was a Russian- Soviet chess player.

Life

Ratmir Cholmow learned to play chess at age 12 and was already 14 years old Master of Arkhangelsk. In his youth he was a sailor of the Soviet merchant fleet. Between 1949 and 1961 he won several times the championship of Lithuania. In 1954 he became International Champion, 1960 Grand Master. He left in 1967 in Moscow down and played there for many years for Spartak Moscow. Between 1948 and 1972 he participated in sixteen national championships of the USSR in part, he achieved his best result here with a shared first place in Leningrad in 1963. He also played several tournaments abroad, but only in socialist countries, and won, among others, in Kecskemét 1962 Havana in 1968 and Budapest in 1976. schachlich he was active into old age because he could not live from his modest state pension.

In 1982 he published an autobiography with 63 annotated games in Russian. His most famous winning play, he played in Havana in 1965 against Bobby Fischer. A self- narrated from Cholmow anecdote is that he himself as the "real world champion" in 1954 looked at, because before the start of World Cup battle between Mikhail Botvinnik and Vasily Smyslov, the two championship fighters have played each secret training matches with Cholmow and Cholmow won both.

His best Historical Elo rating was 2736 in March 1961 that he was number 8 in the world rankings.

Game example

A brilliant game won Cholmov at the 32th USSR Championship in Kiev in 1964 against David Bronstein. The knight sacrifice in the 18th train is run by the British Grandmaster John Emms in his book The most amazing chess moves of all time at number 4.

Cholmov - Bronstein

1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 Nc3 d6 4 d4 cxd4 5 Nxd4 a6 6 Bg5 e6 7 f4 Be7 8 Df3 Qc7 9 0-0-0 Nbd7 10 g4 b5 11 Lxf6 gxf6 12 f5 Ne5 13 Dh3 0-0 g5 14 b4 15 gxf6 Lxf6 16 Tg1 Kh8 17 dh6 Qe7 18 Nc6 19 e5 Sxc6 Bg5 Even after the better 19 .. Lxe5 20 f6 21 Lxf6 Ld3 Bg5 22. Txg5 f6 23 Tg3 plus Tdg1 White has a decisive attack Txg5 20 f6 21 exd6 DF7 22 Tg3 bxc3 23 Bc4 cxb2 24 Kb1 Sd8 25 Tdg1 TA7 26 d7 27 Txd7 fxe6 Sxe6 28 Lxe6 Td1 29 txd1 Lxe6 30 KXB2 Rb8 31 Ka1 Lxa2 32 Tgd3 Qe7 33 Kxa2 DE6 34 Tb3 1-0