Aivars Gipslis

Aivars Petrovich Gipslis ( born February 8, 1937 in Riga, † April 13, 2000 in Berlin- Köpenick ) was a Latvian chess grandmaster.

Aivars Gipslis won eight times the Latvian championship, namely 1955 to 1957, 1960, 1961, 1963, 1964 and 1966. Six times he participated in the USSR Championship and finished at the 34th Championship in Tbilisi in 1966-1967 for third place.

In 1963 he won along with Lew Polugajewski a tournament in Bad Love Stone, 1964, he was together with Milko Bobozow tournament winner in Pecs. In 1967 he was split second at the Alekhine Memorial in Moscow behind Leonid Stein. In the same year he became an international grandmaster.

Other tournament victories he won in 1975 in Vrnjacka Banja, 1979 in Calcutta, and in 1987 in Jurmala.

Gipslis trained Mikhail Tal, Nona Gaprindashvili (1966-1979) and the women's team of the USSR at the Chess Olympiads in 1972, 1974, 1978, 1980 and 1982.

Last Gipslis played for the chess club TSG Oberschoeneweide in the big leagues. On 30 January 2000, he suffered a heart attack during a game of chess. On the consequences of which he died on 13 April 2000 in hospital Köpenick.