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#about_Kotov

🔸 Alexander Kotov
🔸 Soviet Chess Grandmaster and Chess Author

♦️ Alexander Alexandrovich Kotov was a Soviet chess grandmaster and author. He was a Soviet chess champion, a two-time world title Candidate, and a prolific writer on the subject of chess.

▪️ Full name: Alexander Alexandrovich Kotov
▪️ Country: Soviet Union
▪️ Born: 12 August 1913
Tula, Russian Empire
▪️ Died: 8 January 1981 (aged 67)
Moscow, Soviet Union
▪️ Title: Grandmaster
▪️ Peak rating: 2510 (July 1971)

♦️Kotov developed a sharp style, was definitely not afraid of complications on the chessboard, and willingly entered into them against even the greatest of opponents. He favoured the closed openings with White, and was a terror with the Sicilian Defence as Black.
♦️ In Kotov's 1971 book Think Like a Grandmaster, he described a situation when a player thinks very hard for a long time in a complicated position but does not find a clear path, then, running low on time, quickly makes a poor move, often a blunder.

♦️ A memorable game by Kotov against Tigran Petrosian in USSR Championship 1949. Petrosian, later World Champion, loses a game he would never forget, falling into an opening trap and resigning in only 13 moves.👇🏼
🔴 Alexander Kotov vs Tigran Petrosian
🔴 USSR Championship (1949), Moscow URS, rd 1, Oct-17
🔴 Queen's Gambit Declined: Exchange. Positional Variation (D35)

♦️ Review and download PGN file👇🏼

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