Yuri Averbakh Celebrates the 100th Anniversary
CFR President Andrey Filatov's congratulations to the legendary player.
Dear Yuri Lvovich!
It is my sincere pleasure to congratulate you on this beautiful and fantastic event — your centenary anniversary! You are the first grandmaster in the world to conquer this summit!
Your diverse talent has made a vivid mark on all areas of chess and sport. Your outstanding power as an over-the-board player shined back in the distant 1950s, when you qualified to the 1953 Candidates Tournament and won the 1954 USSR Championship. Your contribution to the endgame theory is hard to overstate as "Averbakh's five-volume edition" has shaped more than one generation of chess players. That said, your contribution to the opening theory is of key value: suffice it to recall that one of the trendy lines in the King's Indian Defense bears your name. Over many years, you used to be the chief editor of such popular editions as the Chess Moscow newspaper, Chess in the USSR and Chess Bulletin magazines. You delivered classes for a TV chess school, watched by the entire Soviet Union.
Being a coach and a second, you assisted several world champions and a number of young chess players. In 1972-1977 you headed the Chess Federation of the USSR; by the end of this period, all world titles went to belong to the USSR chess players, chess composition and correspondence being among them. You used to be our country's honorable representative in front of FIDE. They trusted your authority to serve as an arbiter of major competitions, such as the 1984-1985 historic no-limit world championship match between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov.
You have written many excellent chess books, Journey to the Chess Kingdom being of particular worth mentioning (co-authored with M. Beilin) — many future famous grandmasters mastered chess basics using this book. You are an internationally recognized chess historian and a genuine person of encyclopedic learning. You are an example to us all by continuing to serve your beloved art, to which you have dedicated your entire life.
Dear Yuri Lvovich! I wish you good health, energy and optimism!
CFR President
Andrey Filatov
