Lilienthal Andor Arnoldovich (05.05.2011-08.05.2010)

Hungarian Grandmaster (1950) born in Moscow, journalist, coach, and writer. In 1913 his family moved from Moscow to Hungary and he lived in Budapest from the age of 2.

Lilienthal became interested in chess at 16. From 1930 he participated in international tournaments and shared the 4-5 places in Paris and won the tournament in Bad Stuben, scoring 9:11 ahead of Vasja Pirc and Salo Flohr. At the 1933 Chess Olympiad, he scored the best individual result – 10/13 being a reserve player. He succeeded at Hastings in 1933-34 where he shared 2-3 places with Alexander Alekhine, followed by José Raúl Capablanca. He did well at Ujpest being the first, ahead of Vasja Pirc and Salo Flohr, at Budapest sharing the 2nd-3rd place and at Barcelona sharing the 1st-3rd place in 1934. The next year at Hastings, he shared the 5th-6th place with Mikhail Botvinnik. After he had participated in 1935 in the second Moscow International Tournament (sharing 8-10 places), he settled in the USSR and took an active part in Soviet chess life, acting as the chess coach at the Trade Union. He played several matches: won a match with Sergey Belavenets with a score of 5,5-2,5, and with Udovich 1,5-0,5, and drew a match with Vladimir Alatortsev- 6:6. In 1936 he performed in fourth place in the III International Tournament. Before he received USSR citizenship in 1939, he had played successfully as a member of the Hungarian team in the World Chess Olympiads of 1935 and 1937.

He participated in USSR Championships eleven times and his best achievement was the first place equal with Igor Bondarevsky followed by Paul Keres and Mikhail Botvinnik in 1940. He continued to play successfully in numerous international tournaments. In 1942 he was equal third with Alexander Kotov, behind Vasily Smyslov and Isaac Boleslavsky at the Moscow Championship. In 1944 he performed first at Baku, in 1947 at Parnu he came in third behind Paul Keres and Alexander Kotov, and in 1963 at Moscow Central Chess Club he shared the third place after Yuri Averbakh and Evgeny Vasiukov. In 1948 he shared the fifth place in the Interzonal tournament and came in eighth in the Candidates Tournament in 1950, and was awarded the title of International GM. In 1952 he played a match with Viacheslav Ragozin which he won by a score +4=5-1.

He did not participate in any chess events after 1965, and in 1976 he returned to live in Hungary. His style of playing chess is characterized with a keen intuition, original strategic thoughts, and unexpected combinations.
He published his autobiography and 150 annotated games in “Eletem, a sakk” in Budapest (1985, in English in 2001).