Mark Taimanov

Mark Evgenievich Taimanov (Марк Евгеньевич Тайманов; 7 February 1926 – 28 November 2016) was one of the leading Soviet and Russian chess players, among the world's top 20 players from 1946 to 1971.

When he was ten, he performed as a young violinist in the Soviet children's film Beethoven Concerto that was released in 1936, to practice for his role Taimanov studied the violin for a year, many years later when on tour, Isaac Stern met Taimanov, and complimented on his violin playing in the movie saying that all the young actors "didn't even know how to hold the violin properly. Only once I saw a violinist who did it, in the film Beethoven Concert".

Evgeny was a student at the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute and later made a career as a head engineer at the Kirov Plant and the Hydraulic Plant, but left it to work as an engineer at the Leningrad Conservatory and various Leningrad theaters after his brother and his wife's relatives were imprisoned in 1937.

Taimanov's mother Serafima Ivanovna Ilyina came from an Orthodox Russian family; she studied at the Kharkiv National Kotlyarevsky University of Arts.

As a piano teacher she later introduced her son to music.

Mark was the eldest of three children.

During the Great Patriotic War he and his father evacuated to Tashkent shortly before the Siege of Leningrad started; his mother along with his two siblings decided to stay in the city and had to survive the siege up till their evacuation in March 1942.

He represented Leningrad in internal Soviet regional team competitions, scoring (+36−24=56) in 116 games, across 15 events, between 1948 and 1983.

He represented the sports society "Burevestnik" (Students) in internal Soviet club team competitions.

He played in 23 USSR Chess Championships (a record equalled by Efim Geller), tying for first place twice.

He was awarded the International Master title in 1950, and the International Grandmaster title in 1952 by FIDE.

A prolific chess author, Taimanov was awarded the title of Grandmaster in 1952 and in 1956 won the USSR Chess Championship.

In 1952 he lost the playoff match to Mikhail Botvinnik, who was World Champion at the time.

He was a World Championship Candidate in 1953 and 1971, and several opening variations are named after him.

Taimanov was also a world-class concert pianist.

Taimanov was born in Kharkiv, where his parents studied at the time.

They moved to Leningrad when he was six months old.

His father Evgeny Zakharovich Taimanov was Jewish; his family escaped to Kharkiv from Smolensk during World War I.

He played in the Candidates Tournament in Zürich in 1953, where he tied for eighth place.

He was regularly in the world's top 20 players for over 25 years.

In 1956, after finishing equal with Yuri Averbakh and Boris Spassky in the tournament proper, he won a match-tournament ahead of them, for the title.

At the 1956 Chess Olympiad in Moscow, as first reserve he scored (+6−0=5), winning team gold and board bronze medals.

This was his only Olympiad appearance.

Taimanov represented the USSR four times in the European Team Chess Championship.

At Vienna 1957, he played board seven, scored (+2−0=3), winning team and board gold medals.

At Oberhausen 1961, he played board eight, scored (+6−0=3), and won team and board gold medals.

At Hamburg 1965, he played board seven, scored (+3−1=4), and won team and board gold medals.

At Kapfenberg 1970, he played board six, scored (+4−0=2), and won team and board gold medals.

In the inaugural Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World team match, Belgrade 1970, he played board seven, and scored (+2−1=1) against Wolfgang Uhlmann.

Taimanov was one of the few players to have beaten six world champions (Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, and Anatoly Karpov).

Taimanov lost to Bobby Fischer in the 1971 Candidates quarterfinal by the unprecedented score of 6–0.

About this match, Taimanov later recalled that Fischer "was an incredibly tough defender" and that "the third game proved to be the turning point of the match".

Fischer's overwhelming match wins later in 1971, first by 6–0 against Bent Larsen, then by 6½–2½ against Tigran Petrosian, may have helped contribute to their change of mind.

Taimanov considered this match "the culminating point" of his chess career and later wrote a book about the match, titled How I Became Fischer's Victim.

In 2001 he came second, a half point behind the winner Jacob Murey, at the first European Senior Chess Championship in Saint-Vincent.

Taimanov represented the USSR in international team play with enormous success.

After his loss to Fischer, the Soviet government was embarrassed, and, as Taimanov later put it in a 2002 interview, found it "unthinkable" that he could have lost the match so badly to an American without a "political explanation".

Soviet officials took away Taimanov's salary and no longer allowed him to travel overseas.

The official reason given for punishing Taimanov was that he had brought a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn into the country, but that explanation was merely a bureaucratic pretext.

The officials later "forgave" Taimanov, and lifted the sanctions against him.