Miguel Najdorf
- November 2, 2025
Two-time Candidate Tournament participant (1950, 1953)
Chessmetrics Ranking: ranked as high as world number two from 1946-1949
Tournament Career: winner of 16 super-tournaments:
11-time winner of the Mar del Plata Chess Tournament
2-time winner of the Havana Chess Tournament
and a few others…
Chess Olympiads: four silver and three bronze team medals, three gold and one silver individual medal
What earned him this:
Argentinian-Polish chess player Miguel Najdorf was fortunate to be playing for Poland at the Chess Olympiad in Argentina when World War II broke out. He was of Jewish descent. He did not return to Poland, and most of his relatives did not survive the war.
Najdorf settled in Argentina and became fond of the local super-tournament in Mar del Plata, which he won eleven times. He also won other strong tournaments, such as the event in Havana.
His best chess years were right after the end of the war. Najdorf was consistently one of the best in the world and played in the first two Candidate Tournaments. However, he was not invited to the first World Championship tournament after the war in 1948, for which many criticized FIDE.
At the very end of his career, in 1970, he participated in the USSR vs. World match, where he drew 1:1 (=2) on the ninth board with former world champion Tal.
Today, his name is, of course, best known for the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense.
Why he isn’t higher:
Considering he was the world number two for a long time, his results in both Candidate Tournaments were below expectations, finishing in fifth and sixth place.
Best Games:
Glucksberg vs Miguel Najdorf
Warsaw 1930
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Miroslav Janeček graduated in English Philology at Palacký University Olomouc. Currently he works in Prague as a content editor for a large marketing company. His roots are in Opava - the historic and cultural centre of the Czech part of Silesia. That city is also the home of Slezan Opava, the chess club where Miroslav started to play chess, later went on to work as a youth coach and which he to this day proudly represents. As an aspiring chess publicist, he is the main author of articles on ChessDB.cz. In his free time, in addition to chess and writing, he also devotes himself to racket sports, history, and literature.