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The latest issue of New In Chess has a nine-page spread on the life and times of Igor Ivanov; 2013 #5 (August) by Genna Sosonko.
It starts off with this paragraph:
Soviet chess player Igor Ivanov embarked on his fateful trip to Cuba in 1980 with Yuri Razuvaev, who described it: “Igor didn’t ignore the Cuban rum and when he was drunk he said that he planned to stay in Newfoundland, in Canada, on the way back. One Cuban grandmaster took good note of all this, called the Soviet embassy and told them about Ivanov’s plans. Fortunately for Igor it was a Friday, the end of the working day, and everyone had rushed home and to the beach. The Cuban do-gooder was advised to call back on Monday. He probably decided not to make excessive effort. The tournament ended, I flew back to Moscow, and Igor stayed on for one more tournament…”
The article begins with Ivanov’s early life in chess in Leningrad and midway talks about chess life after defection:
In his new life, Canadian chess lay before him like a wasteland. This chess was very different from the kind that Igor Ivanov had played in the Soviet Union. Swiss tournament! Seven games, nine, eleven. Almost always without rest days. Sometimes even two games a day, or occasionally three. Playing on the nerves, weekenders, where losing even one point is fatal, and a single draw may spoil outright first place. Open tournaments, where the final result depends on the last game to an immeasurably larger extent than in the tournaments Igor was used to. They say that in his first Swiss tournament, having carefully equalized as Black, Ivanov offered a draw to someone with a rating of about 1800. He never did that again.
The Canadian Championships are mentioned and anecdotes of Edmonton 1985 and Los Angeles 1989.
It ends with him in a small town by the name of St. George, in Utah, halfway between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, living with his wife and two cats, giving chess lessons and playing the piano. He died of cancer on November 17, 2005 at the age of 58.
Lots of photos but still a good read.
I wonder if any readers have memories of playing him in a tournament?
It starts off with this paragraph:
Soviet chess player Igor Ivanov embarked on his fateful trip to Cuba in 1980 with Yuri Razuvaev, who described it: “Igor didn’t ignore the Cuban rum and when he was drunk he said that he planned to stay in Newfoundland, in Canada, on the way back. One Cuban grandmaster took good note of all this, called the Soviet embassy and told them about Ivanov’s plans. Fortunately for Igor it was a Friday, the end of the working day, and everyone had rushed home and to the beach. The Cuban do-gooder was advised to call back on Monday. He probably decided not to make excessive effort. The tournament ended, I flew back to Moscow, and Igor stayed on for one more tournament…”
The article begins with Ivanov’s early life in chess in Leningrad and midway talks about chess life after defection:
In his new life, Canadian chess lay before him like a wasteland. This chess was very different from the kind that Igor Ivanov had played in the Soviet Union. Swiss tournament! Seven games, nine, eleven. Almost always without rest days. Sometimes even two games a day, or occasionally three. Playing on the nerves, weekenders, where losing even one point is fatal, and a single draw may spoil outright first place. Open tournaments, where the final result depends on the last game to an immeasurably larger extent than in the tournaments Igor was used to. They say that in his first Swiss tournament, having carefully equalized as Black, Ivanov offered a draw to someone with a rating of about 1800. He never did that again.
The Canadian Championships are mentioned and anecdotes of Edmonton 1985 and Los Angeles 1989.
It ends with him in a small town by the name of St. George, in Utah, halfway between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, living with his wife and two cats, giving chess lessons and playing the piano. He died of cancer on November 17, 2005 at the age of 58.
Lots of photos but still a good read.
I wonder if any readers have memories of playing him in a tournament?
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