Vsevolod Rauzer: A fanatical researcher

From 1.d4 to 1.e4

In his fascinating and informative book about Soviet Chess Andrew Soltis writes the following about Rauzer: 

How to play the Sicilian Defence!

The continuous stream of new ideas in the Sicilian makes 1..c5 the most popular answer to 1.e4. On this DVD I do give an introduction to the most important Sicilian systems.

Rauzer often said that he got up at 6 A.M. and analysed at a a board until night with short breaks for snacks. 'Unfortunately,' he sighed, 'I can't make myself on theory more than 16 hours a day. My head can't bear it.'" (Andrew Soltis, Soviet Chess, McFarland 2000, p.92)

With his theoretical research Rauzer wanted to prove that 1.e4 is better than 1.d4. Rauzer had reached this conviction after analysing his games from the 7th Soviet Championship in Moscow 1931 where he had played 1.d4 in all his games with White, and after, as he said himself, "a painful series of draws" (quoted in Soltis, p. 93) decided to switch to 1.e4.

Statistically, however, there is no real reason for this change of heart. According to the Mega Database Rauzer won five of the ten games he played with White at the Soviet Championship 1931, three ended in a draw, and in two of them Rauzer lost.

But in 1932, at the city match Leningrad vs Kiev, Rauzer already tried 1.e4. His belief that 1.e4 is better than 1.d4 might have been deluded but it motivated Rauzer to pursue an enormously productive theoretical research and gave the chess world a number of new opening systems. The best known is the Richter-Rauzer Attack in the Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Lg5!?) but Rauzer also found a lot of new ideas against the French, the Spanish and other Sicilian set-ups. Thus, he was the first to try an early f3 against the Dragon, followed by castling queenside and attacking on the kingside.

Biographical information

Beating the Sicilian: Grandmaster Bologan's Repertoire Vol.1

Out of the dozens and dozens of openings played nowadays the Sicilian Defence remains the most fascinating, entertaining and complex opening. Here White understands that Black will not be a patient lamb but will try to get at him at the very first opportunity. This series includes the Sveshnikov/Cheliabinsk Variation, the Rauzer Attack, the Maroczy Bind and a few other minor sidelines. The approach is typical for Bologan’s videos, as he tries to describe, in a compact format, plans and reactions from White’s point of view. Forget about fears concerning the tons of theory in the Open Sicilian and can get straight into the real fight!

Rauzer was born October 16th, 1908, in Kiev, Ukraine. He learned to play chess when he was ten years old, and five years later, at the age of 15, he published a problem composed by him in the Soviet daily Izvestia. In 1929 he played his first Soviet Championship, turning 19 during the tournament.

All in all, he played in six Soviet Championships and achieved his best result in 1933 when he finished sixth with a score of 11½/19. In 1934 Rauzer moved from Kiev to Leningrad, and in 1936 he won a strong tournament in his new hometown, finishing half a point ahead of Ragozin and two points ahead of Löwenfisch — one of Rauzer's biggest successes.

Rauzer must have been a peculiar person. Soltis writes:

Rauzer was, in a word, strange. He was grey-eyed, light-haired, with a high forehead — and so pale he was "almost an albino" according to writer Yefim Lazarev. Rauzer worked as a messenger for a state financial department and seemed to be unable to deal with many problems of everyday life. He was absent-minded and careless but monomanical about chess. "Everything else — food, sleep, personal contact with people, literature, and so on — he considered unnecessary," Konstantinopolsky wrote. (Soltis, p. 92)

Rauzer suffered from psychological problems which got stronger when he grew older. In 1940 he played his last tournament, the semifinals of the Soviet Championships in his old hometown Kiev. At the end of 1940, Rauzer was sent to a psychiatric hospital and one year later, on December 29, 1941 he died.

The following game shows a nice win by Rauzer against his long-time rival Vladimir Alatortsev.

Links

• Remembering Ragozin