Viacheslav Ragozin

Vyacheslav Vasilyevich Ragozin (Russian Вячеслав Васильевич Рагозин, scientific transliteration Vjačeslav Vasil'evič Ragozin; born October 8, 1908 in Saint Petersburg, † March 11, 1962 in Moscow ) was a Soviet chess Grandmaster and the second correspondence chess world champion.

Ragozin, an engineer by profession, had in the late 1920s in his native St. Petersburg chess successes. 1930 gave to him the Soviet Championship title after he defeated Alexander Fyodorovich Ilyin - Schenewski in a competition with 8:6 ( 6, -4, = 6). From the mid- 1930s, he succeeded again and again to achieve high rankings on the USSR Championships, without, however, ever win the title. Excellent results reach him at home and abroad in the 1940s. He was, for example, in Moscow in 1947 second to Botvinnik.

In 1950 he was awarded the World Chess Federation FIDE, its vice - president, he was from 1950 to 1961, the Grand Master title. He was a close friend and analysis partner of World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik. Botvinnik published in the 1980s, a variety of secret training games with Ragozin.

The USSR was given a free space the association awarded to Ragozin for which began in 1955 2 Correspondence Chess World Championship. This was surprising because so reigning USSR correspondence chess champion was ignored. When the remote tournament was over in 1958, Grand Master was Ragozin world champion.

His best historical Elo rating was 2699th This he achieved in August 1946. Accordingly, he was then the eleventh best players in the world.

Vyacheslav Ragozin died in 1962 before he could defend the title at the next tournament for the world championship.

After Ragozin, who was one of the most thorough analyst in the Soviet Union, a variant is named in the Queen's Gambit: the Ragozin Variation ( 1 d2 -d4 d7 -d5 2 c4 e7 - e6 c2 - 3 Nb1 - c3 - f6 Ng8 4. Sg1 -f3 Bf8 - b4).