Klaus Darga, born on 24 February 1934 in Berlin, was one of the best German chess players in the post-war period. He had already learnt chess as a six-year-old, but only started playing tournaments after the end of the war. His first tournament was the Berlin Youth Championship in 1949, where he shared first place but lost the play-off for the title against Paul Bares. In 1950, he took part in the Berlin Championships and finished in a good seventh place out of 18 participants. The 16-year-old’s combative attitude can be seen in the results of the tournament. Out of 17 games, only two ended in a draw.
In 1951, Klaus Darga played in two German U20 Championships. In Leipzig, he tied for third place with Edmund Budrich behind Wolfgang Uhlmann and Reinhart Fuchs. In Hamburg, he won the title of West German youth champion ahead of Walter Metternich. At the 1952 Berlin Championships, Klaus Darga was ‘best of the rest’ behind Rudolf Teschner (14 points from 16 games) with 11 points.
The following year, Darga took part in the U20 World Championships and won his preliminary group ahead of James Sherwin, Jonathan Penrose and Bent Larsen, among others.
Darga also had good results against Larsen in later years. In the A final, he shared first place with Oscar Panno. However, the title went to the Argentinian due to the better tiebreak score.
Darga, Panno, Olafsson
In 1954, Darga won the Berlin Championship and was called up to the German national team for the first time. He took part in a national triangular match against the Netherlands and Yugoslavia and played on the first reserve board at the Chess Olympiad in Amsterdam. Darga played eleven times and scored 5½ points at his first Chess Olympiad. The German team with Wolfgang Unzicker and Lothar Schmid came fifth.
Between 1954 and 1978, Klaus Darga took part in a total of ten Chess Olympiads. In 1963, he won the bronze medal with the team in Tel Aviv. In 1958 and 1968, Darga was the fourth-best player at his board in the tournament.
In 1960, Klaus Darga was part of the German selection for an international match in Hamburg against the USSR. The competition was played under the Scheveningen system, meaning that every player from one team played against every player from the other team. The German team lost heavily by a 13-51 score. Klaus Darga drew against Boleslavsky, Geller, Kotov and Keres, lost against Tal and Polugaevsky and won his game against Tolush.
In addition to the Chess Olympiads, Darga played in the German team in many European Championships and the Clare Benedict Internationals.
In the course of his career, Klaus Darga played 224 international matches for the FRG team. In 1970, the German Chess Federation awarded him its Golden Badge of Honour and the Silver Laurel Leaf of the Federal President.
In 1980, Darga was the captain of the FRG national team at the Chess Olympiad in Malta. However, the German team only came 25th.
Klaus Darga won the German Individual Championships twice, in 1955 in Frankfurt-Höchst and in 1961 in Bad Pyrmont. Darga had already been awarded the title of International Master in 1957. In 1964, FIDE awarded him the title of Grandmaster.
Klaus Darga was very successful in international tournaments in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1957, he won a tournament in Madrid, ahead of Pomar, Unzicker and O’Kelly.
Madrid 1957
At a tournament in Tarragona in the same year, he came third behind O’Kelly and Rossolimo. At the 1957/58 Christmas Congress in Hastings, Darga finished fourth. In 1961, he finished second behind Pachman in Graz. At the anniversary tournament in Bled in the same year, Darga took a middle place out of 20 participants. His game against Fischer ended in a draw.
In 1962, Darga finished in a tie for third place at the tournament in Sarajevo. At the big 2nd Capablanca Memorial in Cuba in 1963, Darga finished in 7th place out of 22 participants, leaving Wolfgang Uhlmann and others behind him. In 1963, Klaus Darga qualified for the following Interzonal Tournament in Amsterdam in 1964, finishing in a tie for second place at the Zone Tournament in Enschede.
Klaus Darga following Reshevsky’s encounter | Photo: Dutch National Archive
Although he was able to defeat Portisch and Spassky, among others, he only finished in the middle of the field, as he did at the 3rd major Capablanca Memorial in the same year.
In 1965, he finished a tournament in Palma de Mallorca in a tie for first place with Pomar and O’Kelly.
Photo: Dutch National Archive
In 1964 and 1967, Klaus Darga played in the Hoogovens tournaments in Wijk aan Zee with good results.
In 1967, together with Bent Larsen, he won the well-attended tournament in Winnipeg, perhaps his greatest success. At the end of the 1960s/beginning of the 1970s, Darga’s tournament appearances became less frequent.
In 1970, Darga was called up to the world team for the USSR versus the Rest of the World competition, but did not play.
Darga had studied Mechanical Engineering and eventually accepted an offer from IBM to work there as a programmer. In the 1980s and 1990s, he played in team competitions for VfL Sindelfingen, including in the Bundesliga. He played his last tournament match in October 2000 in the Württemberg Oberliga.
From 1989 to 1997, Darga succeeded Sergiu Samarian as national coach for the German Chess Federation.
