1. Nicolas Rossolimo was a Russian-born chess player.
17 Facts About Nicolas Rossolimo
1. 2.
Nicolas Rossolimo was awarded the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE in 1953.
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Nikolai Spiridonovich Nicolas Rossolimo was born into an upper-middle-class Russian-Greek family in Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire.
4.
Nicolas Rossolimo's father was Spiridon Rossolimo, a Russian painter and portraitist of Greek ancestry, while his mother nee Xenia Nikolaevna Skugarevskaya was an aristocratic writer and war correspondent.
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Nicolas Rossolimo was a nephew of the famous Russian neurologist and psychiatrist Grigory Ivanovich Rossolimo.
6.
Nicolas Rossolimo lived in Moscow during the mid-1920s, and moved to Paris with his Russian mother in 1929.
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Nicolas Rossolimo was Paris champion a record seven times, and drew two matches in 1948 and 1949 with Savielly Tartakower.
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Nicolas Rossolimo played for France in the Chess Olympiads of 1950 and 1972, and for the United States in 1958,1960, and 1966.
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Nicolas Rossolimo died of head injuries following a fall down a flight of stairs, just after finishing third in his final event, the 1975 World Open.
10.
Nicolas Rossolimo was buried in a Russian Orthodox cemetery in New Jersey.
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The strongest players Nicolas Rossolimo defeated were Efim Bogoljubov, David Bronstein, and former World Champion Max Euwe, against whom he had two wins and a lifetime plus score.
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Nicolas Rossolimo scored draws against four world champions: Jose Capablanca, Max Euwe, Bobby Fischer, and Vassily Smyslov.
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Nicolas Rossolimo won many brilliancy and "best-game" prizes for his beautiful chess games, and has been called an "artist of chess".
14.
Nicolas Rossolimo wrote two books: Les Echecs au coin du feu, a collection of his studies and endgames with a preface by Savielly Tartakower, published in Paris in 1947; and Nicolas Rossolimo's Brilliancy Prizes, self-published in New York in 1970.
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Nicolas Rossolimo made a record of songs in Russian, French, and English, with an album cover designed by Marcel Duchamp and produced by the Kismet Record Company.
16.
Nicolas Rossolimo is the hero of a chapter in the book, Losing Moses on the Freeway.
17.
Nicolas Rossolimo held a brown belt in judo and recorded an album of Russian songs.