Lubomir Kavalek

Lubomir ( Lubosh ) Kavalek (actually Lubomir Kavalek; born August 9, 1943 in Prague) is an American chess grandmaster of Czech origin.

Life

Lubomir Kavalek 1965 first then awarded by the FIDE title of International Master, a year later the title of Grand Master. He won in 1962 and 1968, the Championship of Czechoslovakia, he left the country in August 1968, after the suppression of the Prague Spring. He sat down after a tournament in Polanica -Zdrój (Poland ), in which he finished second in the Federal Republic of Germany from. In 1970 he moved to Washington, D.C. in the U.S. and was later also U.S. citizens. Since his stay in Germany he was a member of the Bundesliga clubs Solinger SG 1868, with whom he won multiple German team championships. Kavalek tried after his emigration to the United States initially a job as an employee of Radio Free Europe in Washington to find, but he was shortly afterwards a professional chess player. 1973 won Kavalek ( shared with John Grefe ) for the first time the U.S. championship in 1978 again.

He took part in a total of nine Chess Olympiads: twice for Czechoslovakia ( Chess Olympiad 1964 in Tel Aviv, Chess Olympiad 1966 in Havana ) and seven times for the USA. He won it with his team one gold and five bronze medals.

1967 ( Sousse ) and 1976 ( in Manila ), he participated in Interzone tournaments, but not qualified for the Candidates Tournament. Kavalek won during his career, a number of international tournaments: 1965, 1967 (1st - 3rd ) in Varna, 1968 in Amsterdam and Caracas (1st - 3rd ), 1971 in Netanya, 1973 in Montilla -Morales and Banang (Philippines ), 1974 in Solingen ( shared with Lew Polugajewski ), 1981 in Bochum. In 1969 he defeated in Eersel the Dutchman Hans Ree with 6,5:2,5 ( 4 = 5 -0 ), 1978 in Washington to Sweden Ulf Andersson with 6,5:3,5 ( 3 = 7, -0 ), 1977, he defeated former World Champion Boris Spassky in Solingen with 2:4 ( 1, -3, = 2).

He is regarded as a brilliant tactician and was very successful as a coach. He collaborated among others with Yasser Seirawan and Robert Hübner. In the early 1990s he was Sekundant by Nigel Short, whom he assisted in his candidate fighting and helped him to qualify for the World Cup match against Garry Kasparov. Kavalek and Short ended their collaboration in 1993. In 1999 he retired with an Elo rating of 2594 from the international chess, but occasionally plays on U.S. tournaments. His best Elo rating was 2625 in May 1974, he scored in his best time in the top ten in the world. He now works full-time as a journalist. His chess column in the Washington Post was set in January 2010 after 23 years and 760 issues for cost reasons. He now writes for The Huffington Post.

Game example

A remarkable game won Kavalek in the student Olympics 1962 in Marianske Lazne with the black pieces against the Soviet player Eduard Gufeld. He brought next to a piece sacrifice two exchange sacrifice ( in 23 and 27 train ) that the white towers proved to be helpless against the associated black pawns.

Eduard Gufeld - Lubomir Kavalek

1.e2 -e4 e7 - e5 -f3 2.Sg1 Sb8 - c6 3.Lf1 - b5 - c5 4.c2 - c3 Bf8 f7 - f5 5.d2 -d4 f5xe4 6.Sf3 - g5 7.d4 Bc5 - b6 - e4 d5 -e3 -e4 8.Sg5 Qd8 - h4 9.Dd1 -f3 - f6 Ng8 10.Se4xf6 g7xf6 11.d5xc6 e3xf2 12.Ke1 d1 d7xc6 13.Lb5 - e2 - e6 Bc8 14.Df3 - h5 Dh4xh5 15 Le2xh5 Ke8 - e7 16.b2 Be6 -b3 -d5 17.Lc1 -a3 Ke7 - e6 18.Lh5 - g4 f6 - f5 19.Lg4 - h3 Th8 - g8 20.Sb1 -d2 Ld5xg2 21.Lh3xg2 Tg8xg2 22.Th1 - f1 Ta8 -d8 23.Kd1 - e2 -e4 e5 Td8xd2 24.Ke2xd2 25.La3 -f8 f5 - f4 26.b3 - b4 Tg2 - g5 - c5 27.Lf8 Tg5xc5 28.b4xc5 Lb6xc5 29.Ta1 -b1 f4 ​​-f3 30.Tb1 - b4 Ke6 - f5 31.Tb4 -d4 Lc5xd4 32.c3xd4 Kf5 - f4 0-1