First Grandmaster of the Soviet Union - by Sergei Tkachenko (Paperback)

About the Book

Born in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and brought up in Odessa, Boris Verlinsky (1888-1950) was the first holder of the grandmaster title in the Soviet Union, and he was consistently one of the top Soviet players.

Book Synopsis

Born in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and brought up in Odessa, Boris Verlinsky (1888-1950) was the first holder of the grandmaster title in the Soviet Union, and he was consistently one of the top Soviet players in the 1920s.

He earned the master's title at the 1924 Soviet Championship and won fourth prize at the 1925 Championship, defeating the tournament winner Bogoljubov along the way. Verlinsky then crushed Capablanca at the 1925 Moscow International Tournament, where he finished twelfth equal with Rubinstein and Spielmann, both of whom he also beat. He won the Soviet Championship in 1929, for which he was awarded the grandmaster title, and came third in 1931 despite poor health. Verlinsky played in five Soviet Championship finals in total. He also won a number of other major Tsarist and Soviet-era tournaments, including the Southern Russia Championship, Odessa Championship, Ukrainian Championship, Moscow Championship and others. Moreover, he achieved all this despite being profoundly deaf.

According to the Chessmetrics website, Verlinsky's highest world ranking was #15 in 1926, and that year he achieved his highest rating of 2627.

Verlinsky possessed a sharp attacking style. As Grandmaster Dmitry Kryakvin highlights in his foreword, "I think that this great attacking player was way ahead of his time, and in his best years he played spectacular, beautiful, dynamic and modern chess more characteristic of the famous players of the second half of the twentieth century. As you study Verlinsky's brilliant victories, you think of the masterpieces of Mikhail Tal, Leonid Stein, Viktor Kupreichik, Alexei Shirov, and other modern successors of the 'Fire-On-Board' dynasty."

Ukrainian historian and former world champion at composing chess studies Sergei Tkachenko presents a comprehensive biography of this unique player. This book analyzes 130 games and fragments, in which opponents include Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Bronstein, Bogoljubov, Spielmann and other stars. The games are frequently annotated by Verlinsky or his opponents and contemporaries, and they have all been reviewed using modern engines by grandmasters or international masters especially for this work.

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Review Quotes

"Elk and Ruby continue to produce books which no other publisher does. Anyone interested in chess history simply cannot turn away from the Elk and Ruby catalogue. They repeatedly publish books of immense interest, more often than not offering an abundance of material which cannot be found elsewhere...

As usual with books on historical figures from the old days of the Soviet Union, there is a mixture of triumph and tragedy, as revealed by the large amount of biographical material presented in this fine volume. Childhood meningitis left Verlinsky almost completely deaf, for example. On a brighter

note, one early story sees Verlinsky trying to win a problem-solving competition, facilitated by a local newspaper...

Elk and Ruby continue to go the extra mile with their production values. This book comes with a hardback option, and has the usual array of rare photographs. It can be heartily recommended not only to chess historians, but also to anyone who enjoys playing through very exciting games which, despite their age, will have a freshness about them due to being so obscure." - Sean Marsh, CHESS Magazine, December 2023

"The biography of Verlinsky is a fascinating read that will please historians with games which chess lovers will enjoy. This book is highly recommended." - Carsten Hansen, American Chess Magazine, December 2023

"This 418-page book in a lovely hardback format complete with photos and tournament crosstables is a true biography: you marvel at the work and research that Tkachenko must have put in to piece together the life of a player who has completely fallen into obscurity.

...Another excellent book from Elk and Ruby, spotlighting another fine player from the Soviet era whose life story was marked by tragedy. 5 stars!" - Grandmaster Matthew Sadler, New In Chess magazine, December 2023