Levente Lengyel

Levente Lengyel (13 June 1933 – 18 August 2014) was a Hungarian chess player, who gained the Grandmaster title in 1964.

Lengyel played for Hungary in six Olympiads between 1960 and 1970.

His most notable results were:

His overall Olympiad record was 41 points from 70 games.

Lengyel also played in the European Team Chess Championship three times between 1961 and 1970.

His results were as follows:

Lengyel gained the title of International Master in 1962 and became a Grandmaster in 1964.

His final published rating from the international chess federation FIDE was 2293, although he had not been active for a number of years.

At his peak, he was regarded as a strong grandmaster, competing for his nation at the top level and winning medals.

Lengyel also played in the 1964 Amsterdam Interzonal, a preliminary round of the World Chess Championship, achieving 12th place with 13/23, 1.5 points short of qualifiying for the candidates matches (the winner was Smyslov with 17).

Lengyel had wins against former World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik, but perhaps his two most memorable results were two games which finished in somewhat unorthodox fashion:

Portisch - Lengyel, Málaga 1964, where he achieved a stalemate draw with a spectacular queen sacrifice.

In the left-hand board position (after 52. f4) Lengyel played 52... Qg4+!

53. Kh6 (53. Kxg4 is stalemate and 53. Kf6 is met by 53... Qe6+ with stalemate if the queen is taken, otherwise the game will end in perpetual check) Qg5+!!

after which any of the three captures of the queen leads to stalemate.

Darga - Lengyel, Amsterdam 1964, where Darga resigned in a clearly winning position.

In the right-hand board position (after 41... R6xe2+) Darga played 42.

Resigns??, instead of 42.

Rxe2 Bxh4+ 43.

Ke3 where White should win with his additional material.

It appears that both players missed that 43.

Ke3 would be possible.

He died in Budapest in 2014.