Levenfish Plays Like Stockfish

    In describing Levenfish’s play in The Soviet School of Chess, Kotov and Yudovich wrote, “Levenfish’s style in the middlegame is universal. He has an excellent command of the methods of positional maneuvering and a keen grasp of strategy...His chief strong point however is tactics. A resourceful tactician, he plans complex and disguised combinations, foresees combinational attacks long ahead of time, sets ingenious traps and conceives combinational blows which at first glance appear impossible.” 

    Other terms used to describe his play include terms such as smashing attack, a stunning blow, a sledge hammer blow, etc. Who wouldn’t want to play over his games? Unfortunately no collection of his games exist in English. 

    Awarded the Soviet GM title in 1950, Grigory Levenfish (1889-1961) was born in Poland. He was Leningrad champion in 1922, 1924 and 1925 (jointly). He won the USSR Championship in 1934/35) (jointly with Ilya Rabinovich) and 1937. 

    He drew a match with Mikhail Botvinnik (+5 -5 =3) in 1037, but that was to be the last major success of his chess career although before the war he won a match against Vladimir Alatortsev in 1940 (+5 -2 =7). 

    As mentioned, Levenfish's play was marked by elegant combinations, unexpected tactical blows and deep endgame analysis. Chessmetrics estimates his highest ever rating to have been 2677 which came in 1939 and his best world ranking to have been #9 in 1938.

    Unlike Alekhine, Bogoljubov, Nimzovich and Rubinstein, he was one of the few pre-revolutionary masters who didn't end up abroad. He successfully passed on his knowledge to the first generation of young Soviet players, authoring a book on openings and along with Smyslov, a book on Rook endings. 

    In the following game his opponent was Vyachesvlav Ragozin (1908-1962), another Soviet GM, both OTB and in correspondence play. Ragozin won the 2nd Correspondence World Championship (1956-1959. For many years he served as Botvinik’s sparring partner. He was also active in FIDE affairs, edited Shakhmaty v SSSR magazine and wrote an excellent book on first Botvinnik - Tal Match in 1960. Ragozin died in Moscow in 1962 while compiling a collection of his own games. His friends completed the book which was published in 1964.