Abe Yanofsky: Canada's first grandmaster

by Max Berchtenbreiter
3/26/2020 – Today, Canada has a number of strong players, the best-known are probably Eric Hansen and Evgeny Bareev. But in the 20th century Canada had only one really strong player: Daniel "Abe" Yanofsky, the son of Polish immigrants and Canada's first grandmaster. On March 26, 2020 Yanofsky would have celebrated his 95th birthday. Max Berchtenbreiter dedicated a portrait to him.| Photo: Abe Yanofsky and Max Euwe (Dutch National Archive)

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Foto: WikipediaIn the 20th century chess was anything but huge in Canada and the large country had only a few strong players. There was, however, one prominent exception: Daniel "Abe" Yanofsky (26 March 1925 - 5 March 2000).

Born in 1925 in what is now Poland, Daniel Yanofsky, known as Abe, came to Winnipeg with his family at an early age and was considered an exceptional talent at a young age. At the age of 14 he took part in the 1939 Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires, the last before the outbreak of the Second World War. In Buenos Aires he made a name for himself, among other things with a beautiful attacking game against the Peruvian Alberto Dulanto that way played in the preliminaries.

 

 
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1.e4 With this game Yanofsky caught the attention of the chess world. The final combination also caught the eye of World Champion Alexander Alekhine who invited the 14-year old Yanofsky to analyze the game with him. And with his strong performance on board 2 for Canada Abe Yanofsky made a name for himself in Buenos Aires. e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Nbd7 6.Nf3 Be7 7.Nxf6+ Nxf6 8.Bd3 c5 9.dxc5 Qa5+ 10.c3 Qxc5 11.0-0 0-0 12.Re1 Rd8 13.Ne5 b6? Black seems to lack a sense of danger. Black is not yet fully developed but opens another diagonal. Moreover, the rook on a8 is a "lose piece" and might easily fall victim to a double attack. Yanofsky uses Black's error to launch a strong attack. 14.Bxf6!? maybe immediately Qf3 was even stronger - White wins at least an exchange. 14.Qf3 Rb8 14...Rd5 15.Bc4 Bb7 16.Bxd5 Bxd5 17.Qf4 15.Bxh7+ Nxh7 15...Kxh7 16.Bxf6 Bxf6 17.Qh5+ Kg8 18.Qxf7+ Kh7 19.Re3 16.Qxf7+ Kh8 17.Ng6# 14...Bxf6 14...gxf6 15.Qh5 Rxd3 16.Qxf7+ Kh8 17.Nxd3 Qd6 18.Re3+- 15.Bxh7+! the typical sacrifice. Kf8 15...Kxh7 16.Qh5+ Kg8 17.Qxf7+ Kh7 18.Re3 Qxe5 18...Qxe3 19.fxe3 Bxe5 20.Qh5+ Kg8 21.Qxe5+- 19.Rh3+ 16.Qh5 White is a pawn up but keeps the initiative. 16.Qf3 Bb7! 17.Qxb7 Bxe5± 16...Bxe5 17.Rxe5 Qc7 18.Be4 Bb7 Now White has a number of winning moves. Young Yanofsky concludes with a nice finish! 19.Bxb7 Qxb7 20.Qh8+ Ke7 21.Qxg7 Rg8
On first sight it seems as if White had blundered. However, he has a stong counter: 22.Rxe6+ Kxe6 23.Re1+ Black's king is exposed and will be mated. Kd6 24.Qf6+ Kc5 25.Re5+ Kc4 26.b3+ Kd3 27.Qd6+ Kc2 28.Re2+
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Yanofsky,D-Dulanto,A-1–01939C10Olympiad-08 Preliminaries A7

However, the early death of his father and his service in the Navy during the war delayed his further career. But in the second half of the 1940s Yanofsky participated in several top tournaments in Europe, including the famous Staunton Memorial in Groningen in 1946, which started the era of Soviet dominance in chess. In Groningen the 21-year-old Yanofsky defeated the eventual tournament winner Mihail Botvinnik, who was to become World Champion two years later, and this win is probably Yanofsky's most famous game.

 
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1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 Qc7 12.Nbd2 cxd4 13.cxd4 Nc6 14.d5 Nb4 15.Bb1 a5 16.Nf1 Bd7 17.Bd2 Rfc8 18.Bxb4 axb4 19.Bd3 Bd8 20.Qd2 Qa5 21.Ne3 b3 22.a3 Qa4 23.Nd1 b4 24.Ne3 bxa3 25.Rxa3 Nxe4 26.Qd1 Qb4 27.Rxb3 Qa4 28.Bc2 Nc5 28...Nf6 29.Rc3 Qb4 30.Qb1 g6 31.Rc4 Qb7 32.b4 Na6 33.Rxc8 Rxc8 34.Bd3 Nxb4 35.Re2 Ba5 36.Rb2 Rb8 37.Nd2 Qa7 38.Ndc4 Qc5?
For a long time Yanofsky had been doing rather well against the future World Champion but now he has to defend a slightly worse position. However, Botvinnik, too, was not perfect: 38...Qc5 is a tactical error. 38...Kg7 and the bishops give Black the slightly better position. 39.Nxa5! Qxa5 40.Nc2 White regains the piece and remains a pawn up. However, the position is still complicated. Nxd3 41.Rxb8+ Kg7 42.Ne3 Qd2 43.Qf1 Nc5 44.Qd1 Qc3 45.Rb6 Ba4 46.Qf3 Qe1+ 47.Kh2 f5?? Botvinnik wants to drum up counterplay but this provokes a mating attack by White! 48.Rxd6 f4 49.Nf5+! Kf7 49...gxf5 50.Qh5+- 50.Qg4 Ne4 51.Qh4 gxf5 52.Qxh7+ Ke8 53.Qg8+ With this game Yanofsky finally established himself as a top player. The later fame of his opponent is only one reason why it is the most famous game of the Canadian.
1–0
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Yanofsky,D-Botvinnik,M-1–01946C99Staunton Memorial15

Foto: Kanadischer SchachverbandWith 8.5 out of 19 Abe achieved a respectable result in Groningen. But he suffered another loss against Miguel Najdorf against whom he had also lost at the Olympiad in Buenos Aires 1939. In fact, the Mega Database 2020 shows that Najdorf was a kind of Angstgegner for Yanofsky: they played nine times and Yanofsky only managed five draws: he did not win a single game but lost four.

Deciding against a career as chess professional

After his trip to Europe Yanofsky had to make a decision that many strong amateur players had to make at the time: whether to become a chess professional or whether to remain an amateur. Yanofsky for a classical career and studied law in Oxford. But he still played chess and he did not lose much of his strength. Thus, he won the British Championship 1953 with a 1.5 point margin. His exceptional position in Canadian chess is shown by his eight national championship titles. In 1959 he even won in Fischer-style and had a perfect score of 11/11. In 1964 Yanofsky became grandmaster. Apart from playing he also tried his hand as an author and for a long time he had a weekly chess column in the Winnipeg Free Press.

Yanofsky was a lawyer by profession and a strong amateur chess player but he also had a lot of other talents and interests. For example, he became involved in local politics and, in his role as a financial politician, created the foundations for the construction of a new hospital in his hometown. In this hospital he died of cancer in 2000.

Translation from German: Johannes Fischer

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Max Berchtenbreiter, born 1994, has been playing chess for almost 20 years, and since the season 2017/2018 the International Master he has been playing in Germany's second league for the Münchener Schachclub 1836. Currently, Max writes his PhD about Modern History at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.

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