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Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Hort vs. Alburt

    


     If you have never seen this amazing game by Lev Alburt don't miss the chance to play over it! If you have seen it, enjoy it again! If you don't want to take the time to play over it at least take a gander at the position after white's 29th move!
     Lev Alburt (born August 21, 1945 in Orenburg, Russia) is a Grandmaster and writer. He was three-time Ukrainian Champion and after defecting to the United States in 1979, became three-time U.S. Champion. Alburt won the Ukrainian Chess Championship three times, from 1972 to 1974. He earned the International Master title in 1976, and became a Grandmaster in 1977.
     Alburt defected to the United States in 1979, staying for several months with his former coach and fellow Ukrainian chess player and chess journalist Michael Faynberg. He won the U.S.  Championship in 1984, 1985, and 1990 and the U.S. Open Championship in 1987 and 1989. In 1986 he drew an eight-game match with British Chess Champion Jonathan Speelman. He is also a well-known author and coach.
     His opponent, Vlastimil Hort (born 12 January 1944) a Czech-born German Grandmaster, is probably lesser known to today's players. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the world's strongest players and reached the 1977–78 Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship, but never qualified for a competition for the actual title.
     Hort was born in Kladno, Czechoslovakia and was a citizen of Czechoslovakia for the first part of his chess career, winning national championships in 1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, and 1977. He achieved the Grandmaster title in 1965 as a Czechoslovak citizen. While playing for Czechoslovakia he won a number of major tournaments (Hastings 1967–68, Skopje 1969, etc.), gaining recognition as one of the strongest non-Soviet players in the world.
     He defected to the West after the 1985 Tunis Interzonal, moving to West Germany and winning the national championship of his new homeland in 1987, 1989, and 1991.


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