27 April 2017

Gennady Timoshchenko Turns 70

The famous grandmaster celebrates his birthday.

Gennady Timoshchenko was born on April 27, 1947, in Chelyabinsk. He picked up chess at 9, and quickly became on the the leading young players of USSR, studying under famous trainer Leonid Gratvol, whose other pupils include Anatoly Karpov, Evgeny Sveshnikov, Alexander Panchenko, and Semyon Dvoiris.

Being a young master, Gennady Timoshchenko co-invented an opening bomb, together with Evgeny Sveshnikov giving life to the Chelyabinsk Variation. The players did not believe the old books' conclusions, refuted old lines, and found numerous new ideas. 

In 1972 Timoshchenko shared first place with Tseshkovsky at the RSFSR Championship. In 1973 he advanced to the USSR Cup Final, but lost the deciding match to Oleg Romanishin. After that he was drafted in the army, where he won the Army Championship of USSR and was able to travel to international tournaments, quickly becoming an international master. 

First place at the Rubinstein Memorial in 1980 gave Timoshchenko a grandmaster title. It was at that time that Timoshchenko became one of the coaches of Garry Kasparov, who was about to challenge the World Championship title. The next six years were mostly dedicated to this work.

Following the demise of USSR, Gennady with his family emigrated to Slovakia. For many years he coached the national team of Slovakia and helped many European talents. 

Gennady Timoshchenko wrote a high-level opening manual “Sicilian Defense. Chelyabinsk Variation”, in which he verified a number of variations on a supercomputer.

Russian Chess Federation congratulates the famous grandmaster, trainer, and theoretician on his jubilee, wishes him health and creative achievements!