Miguel Najdorf was a Polish-Argentine chess grandmaster who was one of the strongest players who never won a world championship. He was born on April 15, 1910, in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland. He was introduced to chess by a friend at the age of 14.
His chess career began to take off around 1929 when he was almost 20 with the game now called ‘The Polish Immortal’ where he sacrificed 5 pieces in a 22 move victory against Glucksberg.
He won the Warsaw Championship in 1934 and placed 2nd in the 1935 Polish championship.
During the 8th Chess Olympiad taking place in Buenos Aires, Argentina - Germany invaded his country of Poland. Being Jewish along with his teammates, Tartakower and Frydman - they stayed in Argentina. His wife, daughter, parents, and 4 siblings were murdered in the Holocaust.
While in Argentina during the war, he set a world record for simultaneous blindfold chess games by playing 40 people at the same time. Reportedly, he had hoped the news of these records would be reported in Europe and his family would learn of his whereabouts, but they had already perished before the information arrived.
He quickly became one of the strongest players in South America placing 1st or 2nd in 13 different tournaments during/shortly after the war. In 1944, he became an official citizen of Argentina.
At this point, even though he was number 2 in the world according to Chessmetrics, he was not a full-time chess professional, he was still selling life insurance as a day job.
As the World Championship cycle wasn’t formalized yet tournaments around the world helped determine who the world championship caliber players would be. His victories in Prague in 1947 were downplayed, claiming the tournament was ‘weak’.
However, in 1950, he was granted the inaugural Grandmaster title by FIDE along with 26 of his peers.
He was in the Candidates Tournament in 1951 (finishing 5th) and 1953 (finishing 6th), but he could not re-climb the mountain to get back to the World Championship.
Toward the end of his career, he participated in the 1970 USSR versus Rest of the World match achieving an even score against 38 year old Mikhail Tal. During the commentary of the match Najdorf remarked “When [World Champion] Boris Spassky offers you a piece, you might as well resign then and there. But when Mikhail Tal offers you a piece, you would do well to keep playing, because then he might offer you another, and then another, and then… who knows?”
Najdorf ended up passing away from complications from surgery when he was 87.
Najdorf’s impact on the game has been absolutely monumental. He was particularly known for his mastery of the Sicilian Defense, he developed a variation of the Sicilian that is now known as the Najdorf Variation, which is still played in 3% of all chess games. He defeated many of the game's greatest players, including Fischer, Karpov, and Tal. And created a blindfold chess record of 45 games at once that stood for over 60 years. It is hard to spend time in the chess scene without encountering his name.
This week, we are heading to 1955 in the Argentine Championship in Buenos Aires.
Miguel Najdorf vs Ruben Shocron
Now if we’re ready, let’s begin.
1.c4 f5 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e6 4.e3 b6 5.Be2 Bb7 6.Bf3 Nc6 7.Nge2 Be7 8.b3 Qc8 9.O-O g5 10.Bb2 Nd8 11.Bxb7 Qxb7 12.d5 O-O 13.e4 fxe4 14.Ng3 b5 15.dxe6 Nxe6 16.Nf5 Rae8 17.Nd5 Bd8 18.Qh5 Ng7 19.Qxg5 Nh5 20.Nh6+ 1-0
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