Victor Soultanbeieff

Infobox chess player
playername = Victor Soultanbéieff


birthname = Victor Ivanovich Soultanbéieff
country = RUS BEL
datebirth = birth date|1895|11|11
placebirth = Dnepropetrovsk, Russia
datedeath = death date and age|1972|2|9|1895|11|11
placedeath = Liège, Belgium
title =
worldchampion =
womensworldchampion =
rating =
peakrating =

Victor Ivanovich Soultanbéieff (also spelled Sultanbajew, Sultanbaev, Sultanbeev, Sultanbejeff, Sultanbaieff, etc.) (11 November 1895 – 9 February 1972) was a Belgian chess master.

Life

Soultanbéieff learned to play chess rather late, but he improved fast. In 1914 he won the city championship. In WWI, he fought in the Russian army.In 1918 he won the city championship again. After the Bolshevik Revolution, in 1920, he moved to Gallipoli with the army of Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel. At the end of 1921 he searched for asylum in Belgium. [ "Guide pratique du jeu des combinaisons", V.Soultanbéieff, Editions "Échec et mat"] . After a short stay in Brussels he moved to Liege, where he would stay for the rest of his life.

In 1923 he participated for the first time in the Belgian Chess Championship, a championship which he would win 5 times; in 1932 (jointly with Boruch Israel Dyner), 1934, 1943, 1957, and 1961. In 1923 he finished 4^th, but impressed with his play. He had to combine chess with his work, which resulted in a low number of international tournaments and sometimes bad playing conditions. Nevertheless he participated in some important tournaments like Hastings International Chess Congress and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corus_chess_tournament|the Hoogovens tournament] .

Soultanbéieff was made an national master in 1931 and International Arbiter in 1964.citation
last=Gaige | first=Jeremy | author-link=Jeremy Gaige
year=1987 | title=Chess Personalia, A Biobibliography
publisher=McFarland
isbn=0-7864-2353-6
page=400]

Chess

Playing style

Soultanbéieff was known for his agressive playing style, which sometimes resulted in short, brilliant games, but which sometimes led to unnecessary defeat. Some of his games are still famous like his games against [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1242925 Liubarski, 1928] or [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1288488 Borodin, 1943] . Unlike many other players, Soultanbéieff stayed true to his attacking style when he grew old.He left his name to the Soultanbeieff defence, a line in the Slav Defense which was introduced in the correspondence game Macht–Soultanbéieff, 1931–2: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 e6.citation
last1=Hooper | first1=David | author1-link=David Vincent Hooper
last2=Whyld | first2=Kenneth | author2-link=Kenneth Whyld
year=1992 | title=The Oxford Companion to Chess | edition=2
publisher=Oxford University Press
isbn=0-19-280049-3
page=379] .

Tournament record

Although he had won a few tournaments in Russia, his chess career only took off when he came to Belgium. He participted in a total of 22 Belgian championships [ Les Cahiers du CREB: Les Championnats de Belgique d’Échecs (1901 à 2007), http://users.skynet.be/fa054591/JOURNAL/CAHIER2007.pdf] between 1923 and 1969. He won it 5 times (1932 (shared with Boruch Israel Dyner), 1934, 1943, 1957*, 1961*) , took 3 times 2^nd place (1938 (Shared with Arthur Dunkelblum), 1945*, 1958*) and one time 3^rd place (1962). (Tournaments markes with * were FBE-championships.)

Due to his professional activities, international tournaments were rare. Nevertheless he achieved some remarkable results, which are contained in the following table:

Being one of the best Belgian players of is time, he represented Belgium on various occasions, notably on the 1933 Olympiad in Folkestone . [ [http://www.olimpbase.org/1933/1933in.html 5th Chess Olympiad: Folkestone 1933] , retrieved 2008-06-26] . Playing on 1^st board, he achieved 4/14, including a victory over Savielly Tartakower.

During his long career, Soultanbéieff played a few short matches. His most notable results in this category were a drawn match against Arthur Dunkelblum (1932; +1,-1,=2), a drawn match against Georges Koltanowski (1935; +1,-2,=2) and a lost match against Paul Devos (1946; +1,-2,=3).

Correspondence chess

Soultanbéieff was a gifted correspondence player too, although again, his professional activities left not much time for this. He started playing correspondence chess tournaments when he was still in Russia. He became first a memer, later a honorary member of the EB/BS. He played 1^st board for Belgium I in the first correspondence chess olympiad, scoring 3/6. Another notable result was a drawn match against Aleksandras Machtas, futue champion of Lithuania.

Writing

Like many chess players, Soultanbéieff also wrote about chess. He wrote a chess column for various local newspapers and collaborated with many outstanding chess periodicals like Shakmati Listock (later "Shakhmaty v SSSR"), l'Échiquier Belge and Échec et Mat. He wrote a book on the world championship match between José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, which appeared in 1929, published by l'Échiquier editions. He commented the games of the Ostend 1936 tournament for the tournament book and published a collection of his own games under the title "Guide pratique du jeu des combinaisons", which was later reprinted as "le Maître de l'attaque".

References

Further reading

*citation

last=Soultanbéieff | first=V.
title=Guide pratique du jeu des combinaisons
publisher=Édition "Échec et Mat"| location=Brussels/Liege
* | last=Soultanbéieff | first=V.
year=1974 | title=Le maître de l'attaque : guide pratique du jeu des combinaison
publisher=Au Pion passé : Impensé Radical | location=Paris" "Reprint of the "guide pratique". fr icon
*"Ajedrez", 1972, p. 310–311
*"British Chess Magazine", 1972, p. 216
*"Deutsche Schachzeitung", 1972, p. 138

External links

*chessgames player|id=47575|name=Victor Ivanovich Soultanbeieff