Ratmir Kholmov - Legacy

Legacy

Kholmov was known as "The Central Defender" in Soviet chess circles, because of his great skill at repulsing enemy aggression. But he was also a very dangerous attacker, as most of the leading Soviet players learned. During his peak years, Kholmov was difficult to defeat, even at the top levels. He qualified for 16 Soviet finals between 1949 and 1972, with an aggregate well over 50 per cent. He scored wins over World Champions Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, and Garry Kasparov. Kholmov was comfortable as White with both 1.e4 and 1.d4, could play excellent classical chess with both colours, and had an occasional fondness for unusual openings, with which he had good success, as the game selection shows.

Kholmov had winning scores against David Bronstein (+4 =12 −2), Tigran Petrosian (+3 =8 −1), Viktor Korchnoi (+3 =15 −2), Garry Kasparov (+1 =0 −0), László Szabó (+3 =10 −1), Borislav Ivkov (+1 =2 −0), Alexander Tolush (+2 =2 −1), Igor Bondarevsky (+2 =2 −0), Evgeni Vasiukov (+11 =9 −5), Andor Lilienthal (+1 =3 −0), Nikolai Krogius (+2 =6 −0), Leonid Shamkovich (+4 =6 −2), Ilya Kan (+1 =2 −0), Semyon Furman (+4 =5 −3), and Lev Aronin (+2 =1 −1).

Kholmov was level with Bobby Fischer (+1 =0 −1), Anatoly Karpov (+0 =2 −0), Paul Keres (+1 =7 −1), Lajos Portisch (+1 =1 −1), Mark Taimanov (+6 =10 −6), Alexander Kotov (+2 =2 −2), Wolfgang Uhlmann (+1 =3 −1), Vladas Mikėnas (+0 =5 −0), and Alexander Konstantinopolsky (+1 =2 −1).

He had minus scores against Vasily Smyslov (+0 =9 −3), Mikhail Botvinnik (+0 =1 −3), Isaac Boleslavsky (+0 =2 −4), Yuri Averbakh (+1 =7 −2), Alexei Suetin (+6 =15 −7), Mikhail Tal (+0 =17 −6), Boris Spassky (+1 =9 −5), Efim Geller (+3 =17 −6), Luděk Pachman (+0 =2 −1), Leonid Stein (+2 =11 −3) and Eduard Gufeld (+2 =7 −3).

Chessmetrics.com ranks his peak performance as 2760 at Leningrad 1967, and his peak rating at 2736 in May 1961, No. 8 in the world. There is a file of 2,265 of his games at chessgames.com.