Lajos Portisch

Lajos Portisch (born 4 April 1937) is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster, whose positional style earned him the nickname, the "Hungarian Botvinnik".

His younger brother, Ferenc (born 1939), is an International Master.

Portisch represented Hungary at the World Junior Chess Championship, Antwerp 1955.

He scored 4½/7 in the preliminary round to advance to the final, where he scored 5½/9, to finish fourth; the winner was Boris Spassky.

Portisch made his first national top-level appearance in 1955 at age 18, at the Hungarian Chess Championship.

He would eventually win or share the national title on nine occasions.

His complete Hungarian Championship results follow (from chessmetrics.com).

Portisch tied for first through third places in a master event at Budapest 1956, along with József Szily and Béla Sándor, ahead of Pal Benko; the three winners scored 7/11.

In a second master event at Budapest 1956, Portisch made 7½/11.

He was in the pack at Debrecen 1956 with 5½/11.

Portisch successfully represented Hungary in several team matches in 1956 and 1957, against Poland, Estonia, the Soviet Union, Belarus, and Yugoslavia.

He made his first Student Olympiad and full Olympiad appearances for Hungary in 1956; he would eventually represent Hungary at a record twenty Olympiads (see below).

In Hungarian Chess Championships, he either shared the title or won it outright a total of eight times (1958, 1959, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1971, 1975, and 1981).

He won many strong international tournaments during his career.

He excelled at his first individual international event, winning at Balatonfüred 1958 with 9/11, ahead of strong Grandmasters László Szabó and Alexander Tolush.

He earned the International Master title.

He finished second at Hastings 1958–59 with 7/9, behind Wolfgang Uhlmann.

One of the strongest non-Soviet players from the early 1960s into the late 1980s, he participated in twelve consecutive Interzonals from 1962 through 1993, qualifying for the World Chess Championship Candidates Cycle a total of eight times (1965, 1968, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1985, and 1988).

Portisch set several all-time records in Chess Olympiads.

Portisch entered the World Championship cycle for the first time with the Madrid 1960 Zonal, where he tied for second/third place, on 13½/21, along with Arturo Pomar; the winner was Svetozar Gligorić, as all three advanced.

Portisch was awarded the grandmaster title by FIDE in 1961.

In the World Chess Championship cycles, Portisch played in every Interzonal from 1962 to 1993, twelve in total.

Portisch's first Interzonal appearance was the 1962 Interzonal in Stockholm, where he tied for ninth/tenth places, after losing a late-round game to one of the tail-enders, and did not advance to the Candidates Tournament.

Portisch won the Halle Zonal 1963 with 14/19 to advance to the next Interzonal.

At the 1964 Interzonal in Amsterdam he finished in a tie for eighth/ninth, with 14½/23.

Only six players qualified for the Candidates, but due to a rule limiting the number of players from a single country, the Soviet Union players Leonid Stein and David Bronstein were ineligible, so Portisch played a match against Samuel Reshevsky to determine who would be the sixth qualifier.

Portisch won the match to the Candidates' series for the first time, but he lost his first round match against Mikhail Tal, by 2½–5½.

He qualified for the next stage, the Candidates Tournament, eight times: in the 1966, 1969, 1975, 1978, 1981, 1984, 1987 and 1990 cycles; with his best results when he reach the Candidates semi-finals in 1977 and 1980.

Portisch won the 1967 Halle Zonal with 15½/19, to advance.

He qualified through the Sousse Interzonal 1967, with 13½/21 for a solo fifth-place finish.

The winner was Bent Larsen.

Portisch then lost his first-round Candidates' match to Larsen at Porec 1968, by 4½–5½.

He qualified from the Raach 1969 Zonal, after tying for second/fifth places, on 13½/21, then winning a four-way playoff for two berths at Prague 1970 with 4/6, against Borislav Ivkov, Jan Smejkal, and Ulf Andersson.

He advanced, but narrowly missed Candidates' qualification at the Palma de Mallorca Interzonal 1970, tying with Vasily Smyslov for seventh/eighth places on 13½/23, after another late defeat at the hands of one of the outsiders; the winner was Fischer.

Portisch and Smyslov played a drawn match (3–3) at Portorož 1971 for a reserve place, with Portisch declared the winner, as his tiebreak score from Palma was superior, though this proved unnecessary.

Portisch qualified from the Petropolis Interzonal 1973, scoring 11½/17 for a shared second/fourth place (the winner was Henrique Mecking), then surviving a further three-man playoff for two berths against Lev Polugaevsky and Efim Geller, at Portorož 1973, by winning outright with 5½/8; however, Portisch lost his first-round Candidates' match to Tigran Petrosian in 1974, by 6–7 at Palma de Mallorca.

At the 1976 Biel Interzonal, he tied for second/fourth places on 12/19 with Petrosian and Tal, after Larsen.

Then, in a three-way playoff for two spots, held at Varese 1976, Portisch scored 4/8 for second place, with Tal being eliminated.

In 2004, Portisch was awarded the title of 'Nemzet Sportolója' (Sportsman of the Nation), Hungary's highest national sports achievement award.

His main hobby is singing operatic arias; he has a fine baritone voice, a quality shared by Vasily Smyslov, a chess world champion and grandmaster who also had talent as an operatic singer.