Vassily Smyslov
| Vasily Smyslov | |
|---|---|
Smyslov in 2002
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| Full name | Vasily Vasilyevich (Vasilievich) Smyslov |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Born |
24 March 1921 Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union |
| Died | 27 March 2010 (aged 89) Moscow, Russia |
| Title | Grandmaster |
| World Champion | 1957–58 |
| Peak rating | 2620 (July 1971) |
Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov (Russian: Васи́лий Васи́льевич Смысло́в; 24 March 1921 – 27 March 2010) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster, and was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship on eight occasions (1948, 1950, 1953, 1956, 1959, 1965, 1983, and 1985). Smyslov twice tied for first at the Soviet Championship (1949, 1955), and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won is an all-time record. In five European Team Championships, Smyslov won ten gold medals.
Smyslov remained active and successful in competitive chess well into the 1960s and 1970s, qualifying for the finals of the World Championship Candidates' Matches as late as 1983. Despite failing eyesight, he remained active in the occasional composition of chess problems and studies until shortly before his death in 2010.
Smyslov (pronounced "smis-LOFF") first became interested in chess at the age of six. His father, Vasily Osipovich Smyslov, worked as an engineering technician and had represented the St. Petersburg Technical Institute in intercollegiate chess competitions. Smyslov's father had also studied chess for a time under the tutelage of Mikhail Chigorin and the senior Smyslov became the boy's first teacher. The elder Smyslov gave his son a copy of Alexander Alekhine's book My Best Games of Chess 1908–1923 and the future world champion would later write that this book became his constant reference. He would also write that "...I was later to read everything that my father had in his library: Dufresne's handbook, separate numbers of the Soviet chess magazines Chess and Chess Sheet, the text-books of Lasker and Capablanca, and the collections of games of Soviet and international tournaments. The games of the great Russian chess master M. I. Chigorin made an indelible impression on me; it was with interest that I read the various declarations on questions of strategy by A. I. Nimzovitch; I studied attentively the genius of prominent Soviet masters."
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