The great chess player is buried in the grave with his stepson, whom he raised after the child's father was repressed. Unfortunately, the young chess player will commit suicide in 1960, after failing at the World Youth Championship (4th place).
"Difficult, intense battle": the last sentence from his book "In Search of Harmony". Battle!!! World champion Vasily Smyslov carried it out elegantly and subtly.
On March 27, 2010, three days after his 89th birthday, the great grandmaster Vasily Smyslov died. May he forever be remembered.
He started his first match for the title of world champion with Mikhail Botvinnik (1954) with three defeats, but he was able to win, and equalize the score in the penultimate game 23. He showed fantastic endurance in the Candidates Tournament in Amsterdam. He gained a victory over Pilnik, and became the world champion (1957). Moreover, Botvinnik was not able to win a single victory in the last nine games of the match.
It is no coincidence that the seventh world champion's contribution to chess theory is connected with the Grunfeld Defence. Smyslov most of all appreciated the endgame. Maybe that's why the finale of his life was active, bright and fruitful.
At 64, he played the final Candidates Match against Garry Kasparov, where he lost only four out of 13 games. And until the age of 76 he continued to play in international tournaments.
He regretfully wrote about his father who studied vocals and took lessons, but remained in the profession of an engineer. Still, he dreamt about being a Caruso. When Vasily, at the age of 76, performed the most complex arias from operas on stage with the Chamber Orchestra, he, of course, dedicated that last performance to the memory of his father.
He was impeccable and gallant. He was a real intellectual and had an amazing baritone. Each of his photos is like a shot from the life of some refined English gentleman. Together with his wife, Nina, they lived out their days together, in the village of Nov 'near Moscow, and died in one spring of 2010, almost simultaneously, with a difference of two months.
