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Obituaries |
In this article I write about two chess personalities who passed away recently.
GM Dueckstein (1927-2024) passes away
GM Andreas Dueckstein, was an Austrian grandmaster known as a dangerous attacker who defeated multiple world champions died peacefully on August 28 at the age of 97.
Since February 2024, when he was awarded the honorary grandmaster (GM) title by FIDE, Dueckstein was the oldest living grandmaster. He received the title along with the Estonian GM Iivo Nei, both for their consistently strong results in the 1950s-70s. Since Dueckstein's passing, Nei is now the oldest living grandmaster.
Dueckstein was a three-time Austrian champion (1954, 1956, 1977) and was very active for his country, which he represented in nine Olympiads between 1956 and 1988 and over a hundred international matches. He won two individual gold medals at Olympiads, at Moscow 1956 and at Nice 1974, playing the second board in both.
He played against seven world champions and defeated three of them. His most famous win, against then-reigning champion Botvinnik, was half a year after the Soviet grandmaster had regained his title in a rematch with GM Vasily Smyslov. He famously refused a draw to Petrosian despite being under time pressure, though he ultimately lost the game.
We feature some of the games of the legendary GM in this edition (Note: the frame below contains 4 games).
GM Zenon Franco (1956-2024): the first Paraguayan GM
Zenón Franco was born on 12 May 1956, in Asunción, Paraguay. In 1990, he earned the title of Grandmaster, becoming the only GM from Paraguay until Axel Bachmann achieved the title in 2007.
In the 1982 Chess Olympiad at Lucerne, he won the gold medal at board one by scoring 11/13 points. In the 1990 Chess Olympiad at Novi Sad, he shared first place at board one with 9/12 points.
He wrote several books on chess for Gambit Publications under the name Zenón Franco.