The latest of an occasional series in which Kingston members and friends of the club choose the player who has most inspired them
“With every game a door to a mysterious world of fantasy, adventure, enigma and exact mathematical calculations is opened for me” – Rashid Nezhmetdinov
“Nobody sees combinations like Rashid Nezhmetdinov” – MIkhail Botvinnik
Rashid Nezhmetdinov was one of a kind. At his best he was a true force of nature, who by sheer determination could turn dismal positions into crushing wins. He could calculate tactical variations with more depth and imagination than most anyone of his time. He annihilated future world champions Mikhail Tal and Boris Spassky a combined five times, as well as a slew of other big names. Uncompromising and exuberant, he attempted to stretch the boundaries of chess reality. He also played the most insane Queen sacrifice of all time, which I’ve already written about here: https://kingstonchess.com/confessions-of-a-youthful-romantic/
Here are a couple of famous examples of what SuperNezh could do:
Rashid Nezhmetdinov isn’t just a hard-to-say name, with a cool nickname. Only those in the know have even heard of him. I got to know of him many decades ago through my university friend Kevin Henbest, whereupon Nezh became a spirit to invoke whenever a crazed attack was in prospect.
Tal is the far more famous player, but Nezh was Tal’s Tal. Each of the pair’s tournament games are remarkable, inspiring Tal to select not one of the dozens of weighty names available but Nezh as his second for the 1960 match against Mikhail Botvinnik. Nezh’s ideas and camaraderie helped Tal unseat the great Botvinnik. Surely the greatest day of his life? Yet Tal later declared the day he played, and lost, this game was “the happiest of his life”.
In Nezh, Tal had a fellow playmate who strove to do the incredible with the pieces. Tal lost 3-1 to Nezh in tournament chess (strangely all with Black), and the win was extremely lucky. Tal said of his friend and rival: “His games reveal the beauty of chess and make you love in chess not so much the points and high placings, but the wonderful harmony and elegance of this particular world.”
Nezh won the Russian championship five times (also coming second in draughts in 1950). He carried off many brilliancy prizes and became a respected coach, even writing the first Tatar book on chess. Coming from the most humble origins possible, a Tatar Muslim orphan, Nezh grew up literally starving during the Russian revolution. He was self-taught, a late starter (11), his interest split with draughts (where his progress came quicker, master level by 19). He had to gain proper employment (at one point working as a stoker), then spent many years in the army, somehow surviving the second world war intact. By 1945 he was in Berlin, 33 and starting again with chess. We don’t know too much about his early games; possibly because, according to Russian chess writer Iakov Damsky, Nezh never recorded his games. Many are fragments, with the initial moves unknown.
There’s a lot to love and respect about Nezh, but playing over his games again for the past few months one thing in particular suddenly inspired me – his best results came after 1950, when he was 38. Guess what birthday I just had! He only really got to play in serious competitions at the age of 35, being awarded the title of chess master two years later, finally debuting in the Soviet championships at 41.
The opportunities for being selected for foreign tournaments were few, requiring the favour and trust of the Party. Unfortunately Nezh had a tendency to enjoy life off the board as much as on it, as well as being much older than the Soviet rising stars. Indeed he was banned from Soviet tournament chess for a year for off-the-board antics (a light punishment – others were executed or sent to the gulag). Finally selected for Bucharest in 1954, he came second by half a point to Viktor Korchnoi, producing several gems, among them this game:
Nezh’s calling card is this brilliant game:
It was even made into a painting called “The Board of Destiny” by Galin Satonin (see detail below).
When playing over Nezh’s games, it’s hard not to feel swept up in the utter joy of the initiative, the sacrifices, the rampant pieces storming recklessly across the board towards the enemy king. Nezh finds ideas which look impossible, playing in that chaotic space between utter collapse and perfect coordination. He battles on against top players in positions that look completely hopeless, and fights not for draws but wins! When the spirit is with him, every game is a search for double exclamation marks.
But he was a player of inspiration and without it he was not Super-Nezh. “For playing well, I need inspiration,” he explained. “Like a capricious woman, it either visits me or it stands me up. Without inspiration there is no playing well. I am not rational enough; therefore games where one should play positionally and capture necessary squares, and hold back the opponent, most often end unhappily for me.”
Nezh’s chess was impossible to predict. The crosstable of the 1957 Soviet Championship tells its own story:
Early in Nezh’s career, Pyotr Romanovsky praised his fiery imagination, resourcefulness and far-sighted calculation, but warned that he suffered from poor knowledge of opening theory and lacked solidity and self-control. Often, Nezh simply could not resist “interesting” moves, unbalanced positions and juicy sacrifices. He abhorred dull chess and lengthy strategic battles, possessing little patience. He couldn’t stand to defend passively, often turning down material gains lest his opponent got a sniff of counterplay. He often overestimated his own ideas and positions, while underestimating his opponents and their resources. He could play a fantastic game, then overpress or implode; that is if he didn’t drift off in boredom or fall into time trouble as the game lengthened. Nezh was thus both an attacking genius and a highly flawed player.
Nezh tried to do something about one of his weaknesses, forcing himself to take on proper openings, becoming a respected expert on the Spanish, the Jaenisch, the King’s Indian Defence, the Sicilian Rossolimo and the “Poisoned pawn variation“. He still enjoyed sidelines, but was now prepared to do the work. Learning at the last minute his “examiner” for the title of master had been switched to the experienced Vladas Mikenas, he looked up a recent article he’d authored, then crushed him in his own Alekhine line, twice!
Nezh is perfectly happy breaking opening rules, throwing forward pawns and ignoring classical tropes. Here his uncompromising opening play bamboozles no less an opponent than Paul Keres. In typical manner when the position slows down and requires torturous manoeuvring, Nezh loses patience and goes for a forcing but hopeless option:
His games are filled with fanciful knight dancing and sacrifices. “There is nothing more enigmatic than a knight,” he said. “Its possibilities surpass any imagination. A knight is presented sometimes as a dragon, as a force that cannot be either held back or tamed.”
In spirit, Nezh was playing along with me at the end of last season when I reached the following position against FM Alan Hanreck:
After Nezh’s death, Tal gave a commentary to the following game, where Nezh shows such great mastery and control of the position that Tal, the ultimate master of power play, holding a seemingly imperious pawn centre, is completely paralysed:
“I feel it would have been more correct to have resigned several moves earlier, or to play Ke8 and let White have the pretty ‘aerial’ mate Bf7. Shortly after these notes were written the chess world heard with regret of the death of the great chess artist Rashid Nezhmetdinov. Players die, tournaments are forgotten, but the works of great artists are left behind them to live on for ever in the memory of their creators. Let this game and notes remain as my modest tribute to the memory of a fine player.”
Nezh could be strategic, patient and calm after all! And still win beautifully. His favourite phrase was “Our day will come.” Age is no obstacle; setbacks are nothing; the beautiful chess is out there, just waiting to be found. So remember, next time you’re in a crazy lost position, ask yourself – what would Nezh do?!
Bibliography
• Alex Pishkin – Super Nezh: Rashid Nezhmetdinov, Chess Assassin (Thinkers’ Press, 2000)
• Cyrus Lakdawala – The Greatest Attacker in Chess: The Enigmatic Rashid Nezhmetdinov (New In Chess, 2022)
• Ray Keene – Learn from the Grandmasters (chapter on Mikhail Tal) (Batsford, 1998)
Video
• Documentary on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BUZ2zyWRh0&t=2325
