Eduard Gufeld
Eduard Efimovich Gufeld (Russian Эдуард Ефимович Гуфельд, scientific transliteration Eduard Efimovič Gufel'd; born March 19, 1936 in Kiev, † 23 September 2002 in Los Angeles ) was a Soviet chess player.
Life
Eduard Gufeld lost his father early and grew up under the care of his mother Ewa Juliewna in Kiev. He had a sister Lidia. During the Second World War, the family was evacuated to Samarkand. Later he lived for many years in Tbilisi. Gufeld in his youth was a good football player, but then turned to the bay. His first tournament he played in 1953.
Between 1959 and 1972 he qualified eight times for the national championships of the Soviet Union, which included the time of the most heavily occupied tournaments in the world. His best finish at these championships was a 7th place in Leningrad in 1963. The title of International Master, he won in 1964, Grand Master he was in 1967. Though he could not penetrate into the top flight of the Soviet players because of its varied services, get him isolated wins against world class players such as Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Boris Spassky and Viktor Korchnoi. As a member of the Soviet Army, he played in numerous Army Championships. He also worked as a chess journalist and trainer. Among other things, he was supervisor of the chess world champion Maia Tschiburdanidse and the women's national team in several Chess Olympiads. In the World Chess Federation FIDE, he campaigned for the establishment of a committee for chess art.
Gufeld undertook many foreign trips to chess tournaments. Since travel permits for Soviet chess players were usually handled very restrictively by the authorities, this led to the up to now unexplained assumption that he was a KGB agent. In 1995 he emigrated to the USA and took there in his last years at numerous open tournaments, most recently in March 2002, in Las Vegas.
Gufeld was involved as an author of over fifty chess books, which were not particularly highly regarded in professional circles, as they often proved to be superficially researched. He likes to tell anecdotes, regardless of whether they were true now or not. Nevertheless, he inspired so many people to the game of chess. The Russian grandmaster Gennadi Sosonko called him a " chess salesman" ( traveling salesman comes to chess).
Gufeld was renowned expert of the King's Indian defense and described the fianchettierten black bishop as his favorite character, which is therefore also often jokingly called " Gufeld - runner".
He died of a stroke at Cedars -Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
His best Historical Elo rating was 2664th
Game
Gufelds "calling card" was the following win against Vladimir Bagirov, he performed at every available opportunity and designated as his Mona Lisa. The loser commented years later, Gufeld have this game so often published, that he could finance his entire home furnishings with the fees.
W. Bagirov - E. Gufeld, Kirovabad 1973
1.d2 -d4 g6 2.c2 - c4 g7 g7 - Bf8 3.Sb1 - c3 d7 - d6 4.e2 -e4 - f6 Ng8 5.f2 -f3 -e3 0-0 6.Lc1 Sb8 - c6 7 Sg1 - e2 Ta8 b8 - a7 - a6 8.Dd1 -d2 b7 - b5 9.Le3 - h6 10.h2 - h4 e7 - e5 12.h4 - h5 11.Lh6xg7 Kg8xg7 KG7 - h8 13.Sc3 -d5 b5xc4 14 h5xg6 f7xg6 15.Dd2 - h6 - h5 16.g2 Nf6 - g4 g6 - g5 Tb8xb2 17.g4xh5 18.Th1 g1 - g5 - g4 - f4 19.0-0-0 Tb2xa2 20.Se2 e5xf4 21.Sd5xf4 Tf8xf4 22.Dh6xf4 c4 c3 - c4 - 23.Lf1 Ta2 -a3 Nc6 - b4 24.f3xg4 25.Kc1 -b1 Bc8 - e6 26.Lc4xe6 Nb4 -d3 27.Df4 - f7 Qd8 - b8 -b3 28.Le6 Ta3xb3 29.Kb1 -c2 Sd3 - b4 30.Kc2xb3 Nb4 -d5 31.Kb3 -c2 -b2 db8 32.Kc2 -d3 Db2 b5 0-1
The mat would be perfect after 33.Kc2 De2 34.Td2 Dxd2 35.Kb3 Db2 36.Kc4 Db5.