Florin Gheorghiu
| Florin Gheorghiu | |
|---|---|
Gheorghiu in 1961
|
|
| Country | Romania |
| Born |
6 April 1944 Ploiești, Romania |
| Title | Grandmaster |
| FIDE rating | 2378 |
Florin Gheorghiu (born 6 April 1944) is a Romanian chess player and university lecturer in foreign languages.
Born in Ploiești, on 6 April 1944, while the American bombers attacked the country's capital, his prodigious talent for the game was evidenced by his many early achievements; he became an International Master in 1963 and Romania's first Grandmaster just two years later. He was also awarded the title of World Junior Chess Champion (on tie-break) in 1963 at Vrnjacka Banja.
In his home country there were few who could rival his dominance of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. He won the Romanian Championship nine times (the first at age 16) and represented his country in all of the Chess Olympiads between 1962 and 1990, playing first board on ten occasions (1966–1974, 1978–1982, 1988–1990).
Gheorghiu was a lecturer in French at Bucharest University and also speaks English, Russian, German, and Spanish.
Gheorghiu has seldom been regarded a serious contender for the world chess championship title, although he regularly participated in the cycle and at other prestigious events. His placings at four Interzonal Tournaments (world championship qualifiers) confirm that he was not as strong as the world's elite players at the time, but could nevertheless perform consistently well at a high level. At Petropolis 1973 he finished 14th, at Manila 1976 10–13th, Riga 1979 5–6th and twelfth at Moscow 1982. At the Riga Interzonal, he only narrowly failed to qualify for the Candidates Matches. Overall, he participated in 9 zonal and 4 interzonal tournaments.
When playing at his peak on the regular international tournament circuit, he won on many occasions, including Hastings 1967–68 (with Hort and Stein), Reykjavik 1972 (with Hort and Ólafsson), Orense 1973, Torremolinos 1974 (with Torre), Lone Pine 1979 (with Gligorić, Liberzon, and Hort), Novi Sad 1979, Biel 1982 (with Nunn) and Lenk 1990. He was always a formidable opponent at the U.S. Open tournament and finished first in three successive years—1979, 1980 (with Fedorowicz) and 1981 (with Christiansen and three others).
...
Wikipedia