Semyon Furman

Semyon Abramovich Furman (Russian Семён Абрамович Фурман; born December 1, 1920 in Pinsk, † 16 March 1978 in Leningrad) was a Soviet chess player, coach and theorist.

Chess career

In 1931 the family moved Semyon Furman from the province of Leningrad. There they became aware of his chess talent. He was trained by the Soviet chess school, his teacher was the champion Ilya Rabinovich. Chess career was during the Second World War Furman stopped, he won the national championship at the age of 25 years.

In 1953, Furman was Leningrad Champion, and 1954 and 1957 divided winner of this contest. As a steady participant in USSR Championships he was third in 1948, fifth in 1949 and 1965 shared shared fourth. The title of international master he received in 1954, the a Grand Master in 1966.

In international tournaments victories he achieved in 1966, Harrachov Polanica- Zdrój 1967 and third places in Madrid in 1973 behind Karpov and Tukmakow and 1977 in Bad Lauterberg behind Karpov and Timman. Since he was not a member of the CPSU, he was rarely travel to the West.

His best historical Elo rating was 2708 in April 1948, that he was at this time at number 11 in the world rankings.

Trainers and theorists

Best known he was as a chess teacher and Sekundant. For many years he worked with Mark Taimanov. From the year 1969, and until his untimely death in 1978 coached the Furman born in 1951 Karpov, who in 1975 became World Champion. After Furman had been appointed because of extraordinary success with young players deserved coach of the Soviet Union in 1973, he supervised the team of the Soviet Union at the Chess Olympiad 1974 in Nice and at the European Team Championship in 1977.

Furman also attended the theory, for example, in the Grünfeld Indian Defence, the Nimzowitsch - Indian defense, Ruy Lopez and the Queen's Gambit. However, he published no books, but only occasional contributions in Russian chess magazines, and gave his analysis, which he recorded in handwritten notebooks, otherwise mostly to his students.

Private

He was married to Alla Furman. In addition to chess, he also played enthusiastically cards, especially Bridge. In 1966 he was diagnosed with cancer. At the request of the Soviet Chess Federation he was treated by the best doctors in the country, eleven years later, however, the disease returned and led to his death.