Vasily Smyslov

Born in Moscow in 1921, Vasily Smyslov became a Soviet grandmaster who challenged for the World Chess Championship eight times between 1948 and 1985, finally winning the crown in 1957 and holding it until 1958. He tied for first at the USSR Championships twice, accumulated a record 17 Chess Olympiad medals, and claimed ten golds across five European Team Championships. He kept competing past sixty even as his eyesight failed, composing problems nearly until his death in March 2010, three days after his eighty-ninth birthday. Outside the board, he trained as a baritone and performed publicly, s…