Ortvin Sarapu

Ortvin Sarapu MBE (Born: Ortvin Sarapuu); 22 January 1924 in Narva, Estonia – 13 April 1999 in Auckland, New Zealand), sometimes known as "Mr Chess", was a New Zealand chess International Master who won or shared the New Zealand Chess Championship 20 times from 1952 to 1990.

Born Ortvin Sarapuu in Estonia, he won the Estonian Junior Championship in 1940, then defected to Finland from then Nazi-occupied Estonia in 1943, thence to Sweden. In 1945, just after World War II ended, Sarapu was invited to stay with a family friend in Denmark. In 1946, he won the Copenhagen championship and the Copenhagen five-minute lightning chess championship. In 1948, he played twenty games of blindfold chess simultaneously in Denmark.

Sarapu's first and last international tournament in Europe was at Oldenburg 1949. There, he defeated former world chess championship candidate Efim Bogoljubov with a sharp turnaround from a bad position. Sarapu finished in fifth place with 11-6, a point behind tournament winners Bogolyubov and Elmārs Zemgalis, and a half-point behind Nicolas Rossolimo and Herbert Heinicke.

One of Sarapu's opponents at the 1949 Oldenburg tournament was former New Zealander Robert Wade; in a conversation after their game, Wade suggested that New Zealand would be a good place for someone like Sarapu, who wanted to escape war-ravaged Europe. He met Barbara Bialonczyk after the Oldenburg tournament, and they married in 1950. Immediately thereafter, the newlyweds emigrated to New Zealand, arriving in Wellington in October 1950. They had one son, Peter.

...
Wikipedia