Notable Games
Alexander Beliavsky
15 celebrated games · 1389 in the full archive
◈The games that made the legend
Beliavsky – Marjanovic · 1973 · 1–0
From the championship pool of the 1973 World Junior Championship at Teesside — the title the nineteen-year-old Beliavsky won to announce himself to the world: a Najdorf Sicilian against Slavoljub Marjanović squeezed with patience and precision into a winning king-and-pawn ending.
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Tal – Beliavsky · 1974 · 0–1
The 42nd Soviet Championship, 1974 — the title Beliavsky shared with Mikhail Tal himself. Here he beats his eventual co-champion, the former World Champion, with the black pieces, weathering Tal's 15.Bxh7+ bishop sacrifice and converting the extra material to the full point.
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Spassky – Beliavsky · 1975 · 0–1
A Black win over former World Champion Boris Spassky in the Exchange Grünfeld — fittingly in the very variation that carries Spassky's name — from the 1975 Soviet Team Championship, the initiative kept alive from the opening and ground out through a rook endgame.
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Beliavsky – Andersson · 1976 · 1–0
Capablanca Memorial 1976: a direct kingside attack against the famously impregnable Ulf Andersson, the f4–f5 break (16.f5, 18.Nf5) prising open a Scheveningen Sicilian before the white knights swarm in for the win.
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Karpov – Beliavsky · 1977 · 0–1
One of Beliavsky's most prized scalps: defeating the reigning World Champion Anatoly Karpov with the black pieces, in the Open Ruy Lopez, at the 1977 tournament marking the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution.
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Beliavsky – Petrosian · 1978 · 1–0
Vilnius 1978: breaking down the legendary prophylaxis of former World Champion Tigran Petrosian in a Queen's Indian, the h4–h5–h6 pawn thrust and the d5–d6 wedge cracking open Black's fortress.
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Beliavsky – Kasparov · 1979 · 1–0
Schooling a sixteen-year-old Garry Kasparov at the 47th Soviet Championship, 1979 — the future World Champion's Classical Benoni met with cool positional play and a superior endgame.
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Beliavsky – Larsen · 1981 · 1–0
The showpiece of Beliavsky's tournament victory at Tilburg 1981 and often called his finest attacking game: a Caro-Kann against Bent Larsen lit up by the knight offers 15.Ng6 and 16.Nf5 and the sacrifice 20.Rxe6+, a 23-move king hunt to the bare king.
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Beliavsky – Timman · 1981 · 1–0
Also from his triumphant Tilburg 1981: taking the White side of the sharpest line in all of chess — the Najdorf Poisoned Pawn — and outgunning Jan Timman in the resulting complications (10.f5, 22.Rxf6).
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Beliavsky – Geller · 1983 · 1–0
The 50th Soviet Championship, 1983: a ferocious kingside pawn-storm (7.g4, 8.h4–h5) against the veteran Efim Geller in a Queen's Gambit Declined, the blows 23.Rxe6 and 28.Bxh7+ forcing resignation in 29 moves.
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Smyslov – Beliavsky · 1986 · 0–1
A 21-move demolition of former World Champion Vasily Smyslov, with the black pieces, at the 1986 Chigorin Memorial in Sochi: Beliavsky meets Smyslov's early queen raid in the Dutch with 9…Qa5 and 10…b5, and after 17…b3 a mating net snaps shut around the white king.
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Beliavsky – Gelfand · 1992 · 1–0
Linares 1992: meeting Boris Gelfand's aggressive Winawer Countergambit in the Slav head-on, Beliavsky returns the sacrificed material for a raging initiative (18.e6, 19.e7) and mates in 24 moves (24.Rxg6).
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Beliavsky – Anand · 1993 · 1–0
Linares 1993 — aptly in the Queen's Gambit Accepted line that bears the tournament's name: a wild fight against Viswanathan Anand, the future undisputed World Champion, where a cascade of pawn promotions on both wings (36…d1=Q, 39.b8=Q, 40.cxb8=Q+) leaves Beliavsky on top.
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Kramnik – Beliavsky · 1993 · 0–1
Groningen 1993: a Black win over the eighteen-year-old Vladimir Kramnik, another future World Champion, in a King's English — Beliavsky wins the queens off with 18…Nxe3 and grinds the resulting endgame for 81 moves with the technique that made him so hard to beat.
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Carlsen – Beliavsky · 2006 · 0–1
Three decades after beating Tal, Beliavsky completes his set: with the black pieces he outplays a fifteen-year-old Magnus Carlsen at the 2006 NH Hotels tournament in Amsterdam — the last of the nine undisputed World Champions, from Smyslov to Carlsen and all but Fischer, to fall to him.
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