Originally posted by TyrannosauruschexI was at chessville reading a few of their quotes and the some of the greats were praising a player I never heard of. I am no chess specialist but still it intrigued me. I went to wikipedia and the praising continued. Then I clicked on a link and found this game. 😲
Beauty, eh. Where did you find out about this game? I havent come accross it before.
This is what I read and got me interested on him.
Nezhmetdinov, this nondescript short man, wearing the same suit for years and living on several cups of extremely strong tea a day, was burning himself with the best fire in the world, the search of Eternal Beauty, did not belong to the elite. For this he was too much of a genius. – Lev Khariton
Rashid Nezhmetdinov, with whose games I made my first acquaintance through the excellent books by Koblentz, has ever since my youngest chess days been my greatest secret hero. Why "secret"? Well, because there was simply no point in praising the beauty of his games to my mates since none of them had ever heard of Nezhmetdinov. Only from a certain Mr. Korchnoi did I earn an approving nod. – Richard Forster
Well, color won't matter. Nezhmetdinov can play any opening. Somewhere he will sacrifice a pawn for the initiative. Then he will sacrifice another. Then he will sacrifice a piece for an attack. The he'll probably sacrifice another piece to drive your king in the center. Then he will checkmate you. – Unknown trainer to his student, Alexey Suetin
With the passing of time, tournament tables tend to lose interest but some games played in these tournaments live forever, and in this respect Nezhmetdinov was one of the most richly endowed players. – Nigel Davies
The greatest master of the initiative. – Lev Polugaevsky (on Nezhmetdinov)
Nobody sees combinations as Rashid Nezhmetdinov. – Mikhail Botvinnik
Sunk in thought for a long time, I understood that I was to say good-by to all hope and was losing a game that would be spread all over the world. – Lev Polugaevsky (on a loss to Nezhmetdinov)
When I lost to Nezhmetdinov!! – Mikhail Tal (on the happiest day of his life)