Bogdan Åšliwa

Bogdan Śliwa ( born July 4, 1922 in Krakow, † May 16, 2003 ) was a leading Polish chess master in the 1950s.

In 1946 Śliwa won something unexpectedly the first Polish post-war championship. His talent he demonstrated in the subsequent national championship in 1948 when he finished third behind Kazimierz Makarczyk and Stanisław Gawlikowski. After completing his engineering studies at the Polytechnic Institute in Krakow is reinforced Śliwa devoted to chess. Between 1951 and 1954 he won four consecutive national champion. He started at a number of international tournaments where he could prove himself in meetings with world class players. In 1952 he had a very successful debut at the Chess Olympiad in Helsinki, where he held the silver medal for his individual result obtained for the Polish team at fourth board ( for a 75 -percent profit).

A year later he was awarded the title of International Master. In 1954 he celebrated the biggest success of his career when he was third in the zone tournament in Marienbad and qualified for the interzonal tournament in Gothenburg, where he scored 5.5 out of 20. Śliwa remained until the abolition of interzonal tournaments with FIDE the only Pole who was able to reach this stage of qualifying for the World Chess Championship. In zone tournament in 1957 in Sofia he was the repeat his success from 1954 is very close, but ultimately submitted its fourth rank no longer qualifying for the Interzonal. Śliwas best historical Elo rating was 2586th This he reached in March 1955.

In the second half of the 1960s Śliwas skill level subsided somewhat, since he, more professionally operated next to chess. In 1960, he was the last time Polish national champion. Overall, he took for Poland 1952-1966 seven times at the Chess Olympiad in part ( Result: 44, -25, = 37). He has participated in dozens of international tournaments and defeated over the years such luminaries as Boris Spassky, David Bronstein, Salo Flohr and Miguel Najdorf. 1987 awarded the FIDE Grand Master Śliwa the honorary title.