Igor Ivanov passed away November 17, 2005 at the much too early age of 58. Born in St. Petersburg Russia, he found his way to his final home in St. George, Utah.
He learned to play chess from his mother at age 5. At age 8,
he was already an accomplished player, attending the Chess Palace daily with
the other most promising young Russian talent.
His mother tried to discourage chess and pushed playing the
piano on Igor. This may have hindered his future development. He studied
mathematics at the University of Leningrad, but soon left to become a
professional chess player. His first job was to represent Tajikistan, but
stayed only for a year before moving to Uzbekistan to play 1st board
for them. It was here that he first gained world attention by defeating
reigning World Champion Anatoly Karpov in 1979.
Ivanov went on to win several tournaments throughout the
Soviet Union. These results earned him his first trip abroad to play in the
Capablanca Memorial in Cuba in 1980. On the return flight home, the plane
stopped in Newfoundland, Canada where Ivanov asked for and received political
asylum.
The increase in personal freedom was tempered by the lack of
economic security. In the USSR, Igor was well off. In the chess barren land of
Canada, trying to earn a living with chess was a challenge. Playing in our North
America weekend Swiss tournaments was a far cry from the 16 player round robin
format back in Europe.
Igor settled in Montreal, learned French and English, and
then with home grown Kevin Spraggett, would dominate Canadian chess for the
next decade. He represented Canada on first or second board in the 1980’s.
But money still needed to be made, so Spraggett moved to
Europe and Igor to the United States. He hit the road across the USA and by
1997 had won 9 US Grand Prix titles (think FedEx Cup for golf) in 11 years! Where
you might get 6 points for a tournament win, Igor would rack up close to 500
points every single year! That does not leave many weekends off, and he spent
many a week driving cross country.
In the late 1990’s he turned more of his attention to
coaching. He was the Grandmaster in Residence at the St. George Chess School
and lived in the mountains of southern Utah.
A month after Igor’s death IM John Donaldson wrote a tribute
to Ivanov for Chess-Base Magazine. He estimates that Igor played over 7000
games in his career annotating very few and keeping almost none of them.
We will have his victory over Anatoly Karpov in our next
article.
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