Yuri Averbach

Article

May 28, 2022

Yuri Averbakh, or Yuri Lvovich Averbakh (Ю́рий Льво́вич Аверба́х; February 8, 1922 – May 7, 2022) was a chess player from the former USSR and Russia, who was the author of numerous books on the game. In 2012, he became the living Grandmaster at an older age. He was considered one of the greatest endgame experts of all time. He participated in the 1953 Candidates Tournament in Zurich placing tenth. His best tournament results are in Vienna (1961) and Moscow (1962) in which he shared first place with Vasyukov. He participated in the Soviet Union Chess Championship fifteen times between 1949 and 1969, having been champion in 1949, 1950 and 1962 and taking second place in 1956. His most important literary contributions are in the editorial work on Shakhmaty v SSSR and Shakhmatny biuletin which are works of references to the endgames having been translated into other languages.

Biography

His father was a German Jew, and his ancestors came from Germany and were called Auerbach, which means "meadow stream". His mother was Russian. Her grandparents disapproved of her marriage because her father was probably an atheist and her mother was Orthodox, as well as the fact that her maternal grandmother died very young, so her mother had to take care of the family. Yuri calls himself a fatalist. Ruti Averbakh was a Holocaust survivor, she spent a year in Auschwitz in 1945.

Death

Yuri died on May 7, 2022, at the age of 100.

References

Bibliography

HOOPER, David & WHYLD, Kenneth (1992). The Oxford Companion to Chess (in English) 2nd ed. England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-866164-9 !CS1 maint: Multiple names: author list (link)