Polugayevsky Lev Abramovich (29.11.1934 – 30.08.1995)

Russian Grandmaster (1962), one of the world’s best ten players during the 1970s.

Polugayevsky played in nearly 40 strong tournaments from 1960 to the mid-1981s, winning or sharing 18 first and 10-second prizes.

Best results: won or shared first at Mar del Plata 1962, Sochi 1963, Budapest 1966, Beverwijk 1966, Amsterdam 1970, Mar del Plata 1971, Skopje 1971, Amsterdam 1972 and Kislovodsk 1972.

Between 1956 and 1983 he participated in 20 USSR championships, scoring an overall 207-136 for 60.4%. Polugayevsky was a Candidate four times. During the 1977 and 1980 cycles, when he defeated Henrique Mecking and former world champion Mikhail Tal, respectively, in quarterfinal Candidates matches, before succumbing both times in the semifinals to the eventual challenger, Viktor Korchnoi.
A participant in the Olympiads between 1978 and 1984.

Lev died from a brain tumor in 1995. He is buried in Paris not far from Alexander Alekhine. Best ELO: 2645 in 1972.

Polugayevsky wrote Rozhdeniye varianta (1977); his major work Grandmaster Preparation (1981) is an English translation with revisions and added material. An excellent book for those aspiring to succeed in competitive chess, it includes many of the author’s games. A measure of the care he devotes to writing is given by this comment: Ninety percent of all chess books you can open at page one and then immediately close again forever. Sometimes you see books that have been written in one month. I don’t like that. You should take at least two years for a book, or not do it all.