Person of day   -  19 FEBRUARY 2024

ALEXANDER KONSTANTINOPOLSKY

ALEXANDER KONSTANTINOPOLSKY

In the 1930s, he won the Kiev Championship five times and he successfully played in Ukrainian, Moscow and Soviet Championships. In 1937, Konstantinopolsky split 2nd-3rd places with Ragozin in the Soviet championship. Despite never winning any national championship, he demonstrated impressive results. For example, he split 4th-6th places in 1945 and 5th-6th places in 1950. 

Konstantinopolsky is a thoughtful and objective analytic, who published multiple commentaries of matches and interesting analyses or monographs…” wrote Mikhail Botvinnik. And here are the words of Nona Gaprindashvili: “In my mind, A. Konstantinopolsky was always a notable theoretic and mentor, who did ever so much for Soviet chess.” 

Konstantinopolsky successfully competed in correspondence chess: in 1951, he became the champion of the USSR and, as a member of his country’s national team, he won gold at the 3rd correspondence Olympiad.

His chess talent blossomed in his training job. Konstantinopolsky was the first mentor of David Bronstein in the Kiev Pioneers’ Palace chess school and he was later his second at the match for the world championship against Botvinnik in 1951. For 22 years, from 1954 to 1976, Konstantinopolsky was the trainer of the Soviet female national team and for 6 years he trainer the Soviet correspondence team. He became a recognised trainer of the USSR in 1957. In 1983, he was awarded the title of honorary grandmaster for his previous achievements.

Konstantinopolsky is the author of multiple articles on debut theories and the problems of mittelspiel. Among his celebrated books are and XIII Soviet Chess Championship, XXI Soviet Chess Championship and The Caro-Cann Defence.

Alexander Konstantinopolsky died in September 1990 in Moscow.