Ukrainian Players

     For a long time visitors to this site from the United States far outnumbered other countries. Frequently visitors from Brazil were a close second, but lately, for reasons unknown, Ukrainian visitors have been outnumbering U.S. visitors by a large margin. 
     I was unaware of how many well known players were/are from the Ukraine...Wikipedia lists 115 players and that list is even missing some! A few ended up in the U.S. where they occupied a position of prominence, if not nationally, then locally. Here’s a partial list of some of the better known Ukrainian players. Note that some of the players were just born in Ukraine or places that at one time were under its control. 

Lev Alburt, Boris Alterman, Boris Baczynsky, Alexander Beliavsky, Ossip Bernstein, Efim Bogoljubov, Fedir Bohatyrchuk, Isaac Boleslavsky, David Bronstein, Oscar Chajes, Alexander Chernin, Josif Dorfman, Fedor Duz-Khotimirsky, Pavel Eljanov, Maurice Fox, Mikhail Golubev, Eduard Gufeld, Vitaly Halberstadt, Vassily Ivanchuk, Nicolai Jasnogrodsky, Gregory Kaidanov, Sergey Karjakin, Abram Khasin, Boris Kogan, Alexander Konstantinopolsky, Irina Krush, Gennady Kuzmin, Konstantin Lerner, Isaac Lipnitsky, Paul List, Vladimir Malaniuk, Adrian Mikhalchishin, Alexander Moiseenko, Alexander Onischuk, Sam Palatnik, Roman Pelts, Ruslan Ponomariov, Stepan Popel, Vsevolod Rauzer, Oleg Romanishin, Nicolas Rossolimo, Iosif Rudakovsky, Lyudmila Rudenko, Vladimir Savon, Alexey Sokolsky, Victor Soultanbeieff, Leonid Stein, Mark Taimanov, Vladimir Tukmakov, Miroslav Turiansky and Boris Verlinsky. 

     There was no date on the Woochess article I saw, but the Ukraine was listed as the 4th strongest chess county with 91 GMs. Very impressive. 

     One of the names that caught my eye was that of Josif Dorfman (born May 1, 1952) who is a Soviet-French GM, coach and chess writer of renown. 
     His books have been highly acclaimed and he acted as one of Garry Kasparov's seconds in his first four World Championship matches against Anatoly Karpov. As a result he was involved in a little intrigue in the Kasparov-Karpov matches. Mark Weeks covered it in The Dorfman Affair in his blog.
     Later Dorfman moved to France where he coached the French player Etienne Bacrot from age nine until Barcot became a GM. In 2004 Dorfman was awarded the title of FIDE Senior Trainer. 
     In his career Dorfman has played some impressive games such as the following one. His opponent was Bulgarian GM Petar Velikov (born March 30, 1951), the Bulgarian champion in 1987. 

     The game was played in the very strong 9-round Swiss at Palma in 1989 that was won by Boris Gelfand (7.5-1.5) a half point ahead of Anthony Miles and Gata Kamsky. 
     Dorfman finished way down in the standings with an even score of 4.5, but so did players like Lev Polugayevsky, Murray Chandler, Zurab Azmaiparashvili, Sergey Kudrin, Jerorn Piket, Julian Hodgson, Bnet Lartsen, Edward Gufeld, Robert Byrne, Vladimir Bagirov and Andy Soltis, just to name a few! Samuel Reshevsky scored but a single point. Velikov scored 3.5 points. 
     The Palma de Mallorca 1989 event was a World Cup Qualification Tournament. In 1988–1989, the Grandmasters Association, a brainchild of Kasparov which held tournaments in competition with FIDE, organized a series of six World Cup tournaments in the form of a Grand Prix. 
     Speaking of Palma...it is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. I was there in 1966 and the city and the weather were beautiful. When I was there a great tournament was taking place that was won by Tal ahead of Pomar and Portisch. I was in Palma because I was on a U.S. Marine Corps six-month long training cruise to the Mediterranean and the ship I was on was in port for liberty while the tournament was being played. I didn't find out about the tournament until months later when I read about it in Chess Review magazine. 

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[Event "Palma de Mallorca "]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1989.12.??"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Petar Velikov"]
[Black "Josif Dorfman"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
{QP Opening} 1. Nf3 g6 2. g3 Bg7 3. d4 c5 {An unusual move. In my database
half the games were drawn while the other half were almost equally divided
between white and black wins.} 4. c3 {Note that if 4.dxc5 white can't hold the
P. Either 4...Qa5+ or 4...Na6 will regain it.} 4... b6 {This move is quite
risky. The analysis of the complications can get a little tricky, especially
OTB.} 5. dxc5 bxc5 6. Qd5 Nc6 7. Qxc5 Nf6 8. Bg2 {Here black has a couple of
decent moves: 8...O-O, 8...Bb7, or even 8...Rb8.} 8... Ba6 {Instead Dorfman
chooses to play this...it's somewhat inferior, but tricky.} 9. Nd4 Nxd4 10.
Qxd4 {Now if black moves his R away from the Bs line of fire, white captures
the a-Pawn with the advantage.} 10... O-O {On his next move white is too quick
to grab the exchange. With 11.Qa4 attacking both the B and the R he would make
it almost impossible for black to justify his risky move choice. Best would be
11.Qa4! Qb6 and only then take the exchange. Black would have or take back
with ... Rxa8 and then white would have been able to castle.} 11. Bxa8 Qxa8
{Now castling would be white's best assuming he doesn't get too greedy
snatching Ps. 12.O-O Bxe2 13.Re1 Bg4 and white has to avoid taking the P on e7
because ... Bh3 threatens mate and wins. However, with either 14.Qd3 or 14.Nd2
white can defend himself and would even be just a little better.} 12. f3 e5
{Of the the many squares available to the Q, d6 as played by Zickus,S (2269)
against Kanovsky,D (2409) at Pardubice 2008 is probably best.} 13. Qd1 {This
is too passive.} 13... e4 {Technically the position is equal, but on gets an
uneasy feeling about white's position.} 14. Kf2 {Castling was much better.}
14... Re8 15. Re1 Qc6 16. Na3 Qe6 17. Nc2 {Somewhat better would have been
17.Bf4} 17... Qh3 18. Kg1 Re5 { White has good reason to worry about the
safety of his K.} 19. Bf4 Rd5 20. Nd4 {White falls apart. His best try was
20.Qc1} 20... Rh5 21. g4 Nd5 {After this white is lost. Neither 22.gxh5 Nxf4
which leads to mate in 8 nor 22.Bg3 Be5 offers any hope.} 22. Qb3 Nxf4 23.
Qb8+ Bc8 24. Qxc8+ Bf8 25. Kf2 {Dead man walking, but there is no choice.}
25... Re5 26. Ke3 exf3+ 27. Kxf4 d6 28. e4 f2 {If 29.Rf1 g5 mate} 29. Nf3
fxe1=Q 30. Rxe1 h5 31. Nxe5 dxe5+ 32. Kg5 Kg7 {And with this move white
resigned because all he can do it delay, but not avoid, mate.} 0-1