28 April 2016
Viktor Gavrikov Passes Away
Sad news from Bulgaria.
Viktor Gavrikov, famous grandmaster and Honored trainer of Georgia, passed away on April 27 in Burgas, Bulgaria. He was 58 years old.
Gavrikov was born on July 29, 1957 in Kriulani, now Moldova. At the age of 9 he already was a strong first category player with excellent opening knowledge and sound playing style. A promising young player soon transferred to a school in a bigger city, and began working with famous Moldovan trainer Vyacheslav Chebanenko.
In 1980 Gavrikov, known for his deep opening knowledge, was invited to work with Nana Alexandria, Women's World Championship challenger at that time. The match with Chiburdanidze was tied, and in 1981 Viktor Gavrikov received a title of Honored trainer of Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
In 1981 Gavrikov tied for 4th place in his first USSR championship, and four years later he tied for first with Mikhail Gurevich and Alexander Chernin (Gurevich then won the tie-break tournament). Gavrikov received the right to participate in an interzonal, but failed to qualify for the candidates matches, once again losing on a tie-break – to Chernin this time.
Following the demise of Soviet Union, Gavrikov moved to Switzerland and soon won the national championship of his new home country. He continued to participate in supertournaments, recording victories over Beliavsky, Vaganian, Karpov, Adams, Huebner, and other top players.
Later Gavrikov switched to coaching completely. For many years he worked with grandmasters Yannick Pelletier and Victoria Cmilyte. He collaborated with chess.com website and published a number of articles.
Russian Chess Federation expresses deep condolences to family and friends of Viktor Nikolaevich.
