Viacheslav Ragozin

Viacheslav Ragozin
Viacheslav Ragozin
Full name	Viacheslav Vasilyevich Ragozin
Country	Soviet Union
Born	(1908-10-08)8 October 1908 St.Petersburg, Imperial Russia
Died	11 March 1962(1962-03-11) (aged 53) Moscow, Russian SFSR
Title	Grandmaster (1950) International Arbiter (1951) ICCF Grandmaster (1959)
ICCF World Champion	1956–59

Viacheslav Vasilyevich Ragozin (Russian: Вячеслав Васильевич Рагозин, 8 October 1908 – 11 March 1962) was a Soviet chess Grandmaster, an International Arbiter of chess, and a World Correspondence Chess Champion. He was also a chess writer and editor.

Born in St. Petersburg, Ragozin's chess career first came to the fore with a series of excellent results in the 1930s. In the earliest of these, he defeated the respected master Ilyin-Zhenevsky in a 1930 match and was himself awarded the title of Soviet master. At Moscow 1935, he won the best game prize for his victory against Lilienthal. At the very strong Moscow tournament of 1936, he beat Flohr and Lasker and came very close to defeating Capablanca, the ever-resourceful ex-world champion scrambling to find a draw by perpetual check at the game's frantic conclusion. There followed a victory at the Leningrad championship of 1936 and second place shared with Konstantinopolsky (behind Levenfish) at the Soviet Championship of 1937. At the 1939 Leningrad-Moscow tournament, he finished third equal, behind Flohr and Reshevsky, but ahead of Keres.

Success continued into the 1940s with first prize at Sverdlovsk in 1942 and a repeat triumph at the Leningrad Championship of 1945. In 1946, he finished outright first at Helsinki and beat Bondarevsky in a match. His greatest achievement in over-the-board chess then followed at the Chigorin Memorial (Moscow) tournament of 1947, where he placed second, a half-point behind Botvinnik, but notably ahead of such luminaries as Smyslov, Boleslavsky and Keres.