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GM George Koltanowski

GM George Koltanowski

Chess FideMaster Bio

FIDE ID
-
Federation Country
Belgium
Titled Year
1988
Birthplace
Antwerp
Born
17 Sep 03
Died
05 Feb 00

George Koltanowski (1903-2000) was a Belgian-born American chess player, best known for his promotional work to popularize chess. He was awarded the titles of International Master and honorary Grandmaster by FIDE (the World Chess Federation).


Born into a Jewish family in Antwerp, Belgium, Koltanowski took up chess at the age of 14. He became Belgian champion in 1923, a feat he would repeat four more times. Throughout the 1930s, Koltanowski traveled extensively, playing in numerous international tournaments.


In 1940, he left Europe due to WWII and relocated to the USA, where he continued to play chess and worked to popularize the game. He did this through exhibitions, books, articles, lectures and a chess column in the San Francisco Chronicle that he wrote for over 52 years, one of the longest-running chess columns in the world.


Koltanowski is particularly remembered for his skill at blindfold chess, where the player doesn't see the positions of the pieces on the board and maintains the game in his mind. He set a world record by playing 34 blindfold games simultaneously in 1937.


Later in his career, he was appointed as an International Arbiter and got involved in chess administration, serving as a Vice President of FIDE for many years. He was inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame in 1998, two years before his death in San Francisco.

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