Salo Flohr

Salomon Flohr
Salomon Flohr
Full name	Salomon Mikhailovich Flohr
Country	Czech Republic Soviet Union
Born	(1908-11-21)November 21, 1908 Horodenka, Austria-Hungary
Died	July 18, 1983(1983-07-18) (aged 74) Moscow, Soviet Union
Title	Grandmaster
Peak rating	2460 (July 1972)

Salomon Mikhailovich Flohr (November 21, 1908 – July 18, 1983) was a leading Czech chess grandmaster of the mid-20th century, who became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s. His name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, slippers and eau-de-cologne. Flohr dominated many tournaments of the pre-World War II years, and by the late 1930s was considered a contender for the World Championship. However, his patient, positional style was overtaken by the sharper, more tactical methods of the younger Soviet echelon after World War II. Flohr was also a well-respected chess author, and an International Arbiter.

Flohr had a troubled childhood beset by personal crises. He was born in a Jewish family in Horodenka in what was then Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now in Ukraine). He and his brother were orphaned during World War I after their parents were killed in a massacre, and they fled to the newly formed nation of Czechoslovakia.

Flohr settled in Prague, gradually acquiring a reputation as a skilled chessplayer by playing for stakes in the city's many cafés. During 1924, he participated in simultaneous exhibitions by Richard Réti and Rudolf Spielmann, and he was still giving displays well into his seventies.

Flohr won the Kautsky Memorial tournaments of 1928 and 1929 which were held in Prague, and made his international debut at the Rohitsch-Sauerbrunn (Rogaška Slatina) tournament in Slovenia, where he finished second to Akiba Rubinstein in the latter's final success. Flohr had also taken a job as a chess journalist; one of his first assignments was to cover the 1928 Berlin tournament, during which he continued to win money on the side by playing chess.

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