A tribute to Rashid Nezhmetdinov

[Louis Morin]

A tribute to one of the most feared attacking players. There are many chess videos on YouTube, but this one is really great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BUZ2zyWRh0

[Frank Dixon]

Re: A tribute to Rashid Nezhmetdinov

There are some who believe that the game Lev Polugaevsky vs Nezmetdinov, RSFSR Ch. Sochi 1958, is the greatest game ever played. :)

FM Eric Schiller wrote a booklet dealing with just this game! It is absolutely amazing, to be sure. Sites such as chessgames.com have it, so I won't reproduce it here.

[Jack Maguire]

Re: A tribute to Rashid Nezhmetdinov

Chessgames.com's 'game of the day' today is a 1961 Nezhmetdinov gem vs Belov that surprisingly isn't even listed as one of Super Nez's 'notable games'. No wonder he was Tal's favourite player!

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1274195

[Jack Maguire]

Re: A tribute to Rashid Nezhmetdinov

As a natural corollary to my Tal's favourite player reference, Lev Alburt listed Nezhmetdinov as one of the few players who had less respect for material than Tal. According to Lev, no one had less!

https://thechunkyrook.wordpress.com/...-for-material/

[Wayne Komer]

Re: A tribute to Rashid Nezhmetdinov

A tribute to Rashid Nezhmetdinov

May 29, 2016

I am ashamed to say that I had never heard about Nezhmedtinov until Dale Brandreth sold me a copy of his new book about him in 2000 (No.2 in the list below).

The books that have appeared about him to date are:

1. Super Nezh, Chess Assassin
Pishkin, Alex, Thinkers’ Press 2000

2. Nezhmetdinov’s Best Games of Chess
Nezhmetdinov, Rashid, Caissa Editions 2000

3. Rasid Nezhmetdinov,
Damskij, Ja. V., Fizkultura I Sport 1987

4. Izbrannye partii
Nezhmetdinov, R., Tatarskoe kniznoe izdatel’stovo 1978, 1960

There are also two books in the Tatar language.
_____

(Wikipedia) - Nezhmetdinov was born in Aktubinsk, Russian Empire, in what is now Aktobe, Kazakhstan, in a Tatar family. His parents died when he was very young, leaving him and two other siblings to be raised by their brother. The orphaned, impoverished family moved to Kazan, Tatar ASSR.

Nezhmetdinov had a natural talent for both chess and checkers. He learned chess by watching others play at a chess club, whereupon he challenged one of the players, won, and then challenged another player, winning that game as well. At 15, he played in Kazan's Tournament of Pioneers, winning all 15 games. He also learned to play checkers at this time. During the same month in which he learned the game, he won Kazan's checkers semi-final and placed second in the finals. In the same year, he placed sixth in the Russian Checkers Championship. He later won the Russian Checkers Championship at least once. Later, however, he gave up checkers for chess.

FIDE awarded him the International Master title for his second-place finish behind Korchnoi at Bucharest 1954, the only time he was able to compete outside of the Soviet Union. Despite his extraordinary talent, he never was able to obtain the grandmaster title. Grandmaster Yuri Averbakh, a strong positional and endgame player, suggested a possible reason for this in his interview by Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam in The Day Kasparov Quit:

Nezhmetdinov, ... if he had the attack, could kill anybody, including Tal. But my score against him was something like 8½–½ because I did not give him any possibility for an active game. In such cases he would immediately start to spoil his position because he was looking for complications.

[Jack Maguire]

Re: A tribute to Rashid Nezhmetdinov

Nezhmetdinov held the record for most Russian Chess Championships, namely 5, until Peter Svidler eclipsed said record in 2011. Nezhmetdinov also had a plus score in his 20 games against World Champions so there's no doubt he was well beyond IM strength.

[Hans Jung]

Re: A tribute to Rashid Nezhmetdinov

The great Nezh! - no more be said