Kholmov Ratmir Dimitrievich (13.05.1925 – 18.02.2006)

Russian Grandmaster (1960) and Moscow Champion 1987.  First or equal first in ten Lithuanian championships between 1949 and 1961.

Kholmov was one of the strongest players of his time. He played most of his chess in the USSR and is not as well known as he deserves.  He played in 16 USSR Championships between 1948 and 1972 and scored over 56%.  His best performance was when he shared first place in the 1936 USSR championship but lost the subsequent play-off against Leonid Stein and Boris Spassky.

Another achievements were the second place in Leningrad 1967, equal first in Moscow 1961 (XII) and in Kecskemet 1962, was the winner in Belgrade 1967, Havana 1968 and Dubna 1973, came equal first in Budapest 1976, Tbilisi 1977 and Vladivostok 1978.

Kholmov tied for the title in the 2000 World Senior Championship with Mark Taimanov, Janis Klovans, and Alexander Chernikov.

Kholmov was never a Candidate nor did he ever make the USSR Olympiad team (usually filled with World Champions current, ex- or future), but his scores reveal his strength. He beat Efim Geller +3=16-1, Tigran Petrosian +1=7-0, Garry Kasparov +1 and Rafael Vaganian +2=2.  He also drew with Paul Keres +1=6-1, David Bronstein +2=13-2, Viktor Korchnoi +2=16-2, Bobby Fischer +1-1 and Anatoly Karpov =1. He did, however, lose to Mikhail Botvinnik +0=1-2, Mikhail Tal +0=16-2, Vassily Smyslov +0=7-3, Spassky +1=8-5 and Isaac Boleslavsky +0=1-5.

The author of Ratmir Kholmov (1982), a book written in Russian which contains 63 annotated games.