Lajos Portisch

Lajos Portisch is a Hungarian chess player born in 1937. His positional style earned him the nickname of the "Hungarian Botvinnik". He was one of the strongest non-Soviet grandmasters in the 1960s and 1970s. He participated in 12 straight Interzonals and qualified for the Candidates cycle 5 times, although he was not very successful in these matches. He lost in the 1st round against Tal in 1965, Larsen in 1968, and Petrosian in 1974. He advanced to the semi-finals in 1977 after beating Larsen, but then lost to Spassky. In 1980, he got his revenge when he tied the quarterfinal match against Spassky 7-7. He advanced to the semi-finals since he had more victories with black, but then lost to Robert Huebner.

Among his many successes are the tournament in Skopje/Ohrid in 1968 (ahead of Geller and Polugaevsky with a score of 14/19), Hastings 1971, Wijk aan Zee (ahead of Vassily Smyslov), Las Palmas in 1972, San Antonio in 1972 (tied with Karpov and Petrosian), and Wijk aan Zee in 1975 (ahead of Huebner and Geller). Portisch also led the Hungarian chess team to the gold in the 23rd Chess Olympiad held in Buenos Aires with a personal score of 10/14. This was the only Olympiad that the Soviet Union did not win between 1952 and 1990. He participated in 20 Olympiads from 1956 to 2000, more than anyone else in the world.

Download 1984 chess games by Lajos Portisch

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