Liberzon Vladimir Mikhailovich (23.03.1937 – 04.08.1996)

Israeli Grandmaster (1965) born in Moscow who emigrated to Israel in 1973. Graduated from an engineering college and claimed never to have been a professional chess player, which is rather surprising in view of his impressive list of achievements.

Best results: Winner of the Israeli championship in 1974, Venice 1975 and Lone Pine 1979. Liberzon was a leading member of the Israeli teams in the Olympiads between 1974 and 1980 which took sixth place in 1976 and fifth place in 1978. Among his defeated opponents were Mikhail Tal, Paul Keres, and Tigran Petrosian, while the great Mikhail Botvinnik twice escaped defeat by the skin of his teeth.
For many years he worked as a chess trainer – among his students were Yona Kosashvili and Artur Kogan – and was the author of two chess books in Hebrew. “His Chess Pleasure”, published in 1991, is a rare book by a GM aimed at the average amateur player. The reader gets practical advice, humorous anecdotes, and some of the author’s idiosyncratic opinions about chess, for example: “What is the best variation of Alekhine’s Defense?” Answer: “They are all bad.”

Peak rating: 2555 in 1978.