Miguel Najdorf
From Chesspedia, the Free Chess Encyclopedia.
Miguel Najdorf (born as Mieczysław Najdorf; 1910 – 1997) was a Polish-Argentine chess player.
He was born in 1910 in Warsaw, Poland. In 1930, at the age of 20, he was already an International Master. He was tutored by Savielly Tartakower, whom he always referred to as "my teacher". In 1939 the outbreak of World War II caught him in Buenos Aires, where he was playing the 8th Chess Olympiad, representing Poland. Being Jewish (as were the other members of the Polish team), he correctly interpreted the world events of the time and decided to stay in Argentina, suffering considerable personal and familial loss as a result.
Although not a full-time chess professional (for many years he worked in the insurance business), he was one of the world's leading chess players in the 1950s and 1960s and he excelled in playing blindfold chess. In 1950 he became an International Grandmaster. In the same year he played in the Candidates Tournament to select a challenger for the world chess championship and finished fifth. Three years later, in the Zurich Candidates Tournament in 1953, he got the sixth place. He won important tournaments such as Mar del Plata (1961) and Havana (1962 and 1964), and he also took part in several Chess Olympiads representing Argentina, their best result being the second place obtained in Helsinki (1952). Despite advancing age he participated in the 1970 "USSR vs. Rest of the World" match, achieving an even score against the former World Champion Mikhail Tal. He died in 1997 in Málaga, Spain.
Najdorf's lively personality made him a great favorite among chess fans, helped no doubt by his aptitude for the witty saying, taking after his mentor Tartakower. An example: commenting on his opponent at the 1970 USSR-vs-World match, he remarked, "When (then-world-champion Boris) Spassky offers you a piece, you might as well resign then and there. But when Tal offers you a piece, you would do well to keep playing, because then he might offer you another, and then another, and then ... who knows?"
The Najdorf variation in the Sicilian Defense is named after him. He also made contributions to the theory and praxis of other openings such as the King's Indian Defense, as in the following brilliancy-prize game from the 1953 Candidates event versus the Soviet grandmaster Mark Taimanov. Najdorf's enthusiasm for, and virtuosity in conducting, the attack against the enemy King is well shown here, in a game praised by David Bronstein in his famous book on the tournament.[1]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 o-o 6. Be2 e5 7. o-o Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. Ne1 Nd7 10. Be3 f5 11. f3 f4 12. Bf2 g5 13. Nd3 Nf6 14. c5 Ng6 15. Rc1 Rf7 16. Rc2 Bf8 17. cxd6 cxd6 18. Qd2 g4 19. Rfc1 g3 20. hxg3 fxg3 21. Bxg3 Nh5 22. Bh2 Be7 23. Nb1 Bd7 24. Qe1 Bg5 25. Nd2 Be3+ 26. Kh1 Qg5 27. Bf1 Raf8 28. Rd1 b5 29. a4 a6 30. axb5 axb5 31. Rc7 Rg7 32. Nb3 Nh4 33. Rc2 Bh3 34. Qe2 Nxg2 35. Bxg2 Bxg2+ 36. Qxg2 Qh4 37. Qxg7+ Kxg7 38. Rg2+ Kh8 39. Ne1 Nf4 40. Rg3 Bf2 41. Rg4 Qh3 42. Nd2 h5 and White sealed 43. Rg5 but soon resigned, since he is defenseless after 43 ... Rg8.
This is a good example of learning from one's defeats. Earlier that year, Svetozar Gligorić had beaten Najdorf with the same system he borrowed to such effect with Taimanov.[2]
Trivia
Miguel Najdorf once played a game of chess with communist revolutionary Che Guevara. They drew. [[3] A record of the game]
