Lubomir Kavalek

Chesspedia, the free chess encyclopeda.

Lubomir (Lubosh) Kavalek (born August 9, 1943) is a noted Czech-American chess player. He was awarded both the International Master and International Grandmaster titles by FIDE in 1965.

Kavalek was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). He won the championship of Czechoslovakia in 1962 and 1968. When Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in August 1968, Kavalek was playing in a tournament in Poland, in which he finished second. Kavalek, who had always hated Communism, decided to defect to the West rather than return to Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia. He bought several crates of vodka with his winnings, used them to bribe the border guards, and drove to West Germany. In 1970, he moved to Washington, D.C., later becoming a United States citizen.

Kavalek played in nine Olympiads (three times on the top board, twice on the second board for the U.S. team), winning five bronze medals.

Kavalek is a brilliant and imaginative tactician. He was co-winner of the 1973 U.S. Chess Championship with John Grefe, and won it outright in 1978, finishing with an undefeated 10-4 record, a full point ahead of James Tarjan. Also in 1978, Kavalek won a match against the world-class Swedish grandmaster Ulf Andersson by the impressive score of 6.5 to 3.5. Kavalek won the West German Championship in 1981. He was editor-in-chief of chess publishing for RHM Press in New York from 1973 to 1986. He has been the chess columnist for the Washington Post since 1986.

Serving as the Executive Director of the Grandmasters Association, Kavalek organized the first World Cup series in 1988–1989.

Kavalek had a notable coaching career, working with Yasser Seirawan and Robert Hübner. Kavalek also served as British grandmaster Nigel Short's trainer in Short's successful matches against former world champion Anatoly Karpov and Dutch grandmaster Jan Timman, leading up to Short's 1993 world championship match against Garry Kasparov. Short fired Kavalek shortly after the beginning of the latter match, which Kasparov won decisively. Short and Kavalek later wrote articles for chess magazines criticizing each other.

Kavalek ranked among the top 100 players in the world continuously from the end of 1962 until September 1988, peaking at number 25 in 1973, when he achieved his peak ELO rating of 2626. Remarkably, he again reached top-100 status in 1998, and retained it until he retired from active play in 1999 with a rating of 2594, number 95 in the world.

Here is a brilliant victory by the young Kavalek against Soviet grandmaster Eduard Gufeld. According to Larry Evans, Gufeld's soccer team had beaten Kavalek's the day before, and Kavalek vowed to get revenge:

Gufeld-Kavalek, Student Olympiad, Marianske Lazne 1962. 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. c3 f5 5. d4 fxe4 6. Ng5 Bb6 7. d5 e3 8. Ne4 Qh4 9. Qf3 Nf6 10. Nxf6+ gxf6 11. dxc6 exf2+ 12. Kd1 dxc6 13. Be2 Be6 14. Qh5+ Qxh5 15. Bxh5+ Ke7 16. b3 Bd5 17. Ba3+ Ke6 18. Bg4+ f5 19. Bh3 Rhg8 20. Nd2 Bxg2 21. Bxg2 Rxg2 22. Rf1 Rd8 23. Ke2 Rxd2+ 24. Kxd2 e4 25. Bf8 f4 26. b4 Rg5 27. Bc5 Rxc5! 28. bxc5 Bxc5 Now White has two rooks for a bishop, but cannot stop the march of Black's pawns. 29. Rab1 f3 30. Rb4 Kf5 31. Rd4 Bxd4 32. cxd4 Kf4 0-1 An extraordinary final position. Black, a rook down, still has all eight of his pawns, and White is helpless against them.

Here is one of Kavalek's most remarkable games, in which he sacrificed a queen for a bishop against Hungarian super-grandmaster Lajos Portisch:

Portisch-Kavalek, Wijk aan Zee, 1975. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 c6 6.Be3 a6 7.Bd3 b5 8.e5 Nfd7 9.f4 O-O 10.Nf3 Nb6 11.b3 N8d7 12.a4 bxc4 13.bxc4 c5 14.a5 cxd4 15.Nxd4 dxe5 16.Nc6 Qe8 17.axb6 exf4 18.Nd5 fxe3 19.Nc7 Bc3+ 20.Kf1 Bb7 21.Nxe8 Bxc6 22.Nc7 Rad8 23.Rc1 Bd2 24.Nd5 Bxd5 25.cxd5 Nxb6 26.Rc5 Nxd5 27.g3 Rd6 28.Kg2 Rfd8 29.Rxd5 Rxd5 30.Bc4 Rf5 31.Qb3 Rf2+ 32.Kh3 Rd6 33.Qb8+ Kg7 34.Qa7 g5 35.Qxe7 g4+ 36.Kxg4 Rg6+ 37.Kh3 Rh6+ 38.Kg4 Rg6+ 1/2-1/2