26 Facts About Bent Larsen

Bent Larsen is considered to be the strongest player born in Denmark and the strongest from Scandinavia until the emergence of Magnus Carlsen.

Bent Larsen had multiple wins over all seven World Champions who held the title from 1948 to 1985: Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer, and Anatoly Karpov, but lifetime negative scores against them.

Bent Larsen suffered from diabetes, and he died in 2010 from a cerebral haemorrhage.

Bent Larsen was born in Tilsted, near Thisted in Denmark, and was educated at Aalborg Cathedral School.

Bent Larsen went on to represent Denmark twice in the World Junior Championship, in 1951 at Birmingham and in 1953 at Copenhagen.

Bent Larsen began playing seriously at the age of 17 when he moved to Copenhagen to study civil engineering, but he never graduated, choosing instead to play chess professionally.

Bent Larsen became an International Master at the age of 19 in 1954, from his bronze-medal performance on board one at the Amsterdam Olympiad.

Bent Larsen won his first of six Danish Championships in 1954, repeating this feat in 1955,1956,1959,1963 and 1964.

Bent Larsen became an International Grandmaster in 1956 with his gold-medal performance on board one at the Moscow Olympiad, where he drew with World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik.

Bent Larsen went into a slump beginning with the 1958 Interzonal.

Bent Larsen reached his top rank in the Elo rating system at the start of 1971, equal third in the world with a rating of 2660.

Bent Larsen played in a lot of strong events, at least as many as any other top player, and repeatedly finished ahead of the top Soviet players.

Bent Larsen was awarded the first Chess Oscar in 1967.

Bent Larsen won the Canadian Open Chess Championships at Toronto 1968 and St John's 1970.

Bent Larsen won the US Open Chess Championship of 1968 at Aspen, Colorado, and that at Boston in 1970.

Bent Larsen always played a very high number of games and in 1954 played a maximum of 19 games.

Bent Larsen won three board medals, one gold and two bronze.

Bent Larsen was 4th in the 2002 Najdorf Memorial knock-out.

Bent Larsen delivered a poor performance and lost all nine games he played.

Bent Larsen was known as a deep-thinking and highly imaginative player, more willing to try unorthodox ideas and to take more risks than most of his peers.

Grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky wrote that Bent Larsen "is a firm believer in the value of surprise", and that led him to resort to "dubious variations in various openings".

Bent Larsen played the Dutch Defence with success at a time when the opening was rarely seen at the top level.

Bent Larsen was content to be described as an aggressive player, stemming from his dislike of draws.

Bent Larsen disputed the notion that he would willingly accept dubious positions in order to complicate tactics, a characteristic he attributed more to Tal.

Bent Larsen was one of seven top grandmasters who wrote chapters for the 1974 book How to Open a Chess Game.

Bent Larsen edited the tournament book for San Antonio 1972.