1. Wolfgang Uhlmann was East Germany's most successful chess player between the mid-1950s and the late 1980s, reaching the 1971 Candidates Tournament.
15 Facts About Wolfgang Uhlmann
1. 2.
Wolfgang Uhlmann continued to play chess into his later years, before dying at the age of 85 in Dresden.
3.
Wolfgang Uhlmann was born on 29 March 1935 in Dresden, Germany.
4.
Wolfgang Uhlmann emerged as a strong player, progressing to the title of German Youth Champion in 1951.
5.
Wolfgang Uhlmann learned the trade of letterpress printing, but his career in chess prevented him from practicing it.
6.
Wolfgang Uhlmann won the 1954,1955 and 1958 East Germany Chess Championships, and in 1956 was awarded the International Master title, and later the Grandmaster title in 1959.
7.
In 1964, Wolfgang Uhlmann shared victory with Lev Polugaevsky at a tournament in Sarajevo and tied for first with former World Champion Vasily Smyslov at the Capablanca Memorial.
8.
Wolfgang Uhlmann was not able to qualify for a Candidates Tournament again.
9.
Wolfgang Uhlmann enjoyed some success in the 1970s and 1980s.
10.
In 2012, aged 77, Wolfgang Uhlmann was a member of the "Old Hands" group of senior previous top players who played the "Snowdrops", a group of young woman masters, in a display match.
11.
Wolfgang Uhlmann died on 24 August 2020, in Dresden, where he had lived his entire life.
12.
Wolfgang Uhlmann was 85, and had entered hospital following a fall; he had been sick for much of his life from complications resulting from his childhood tuberculosis.
13.
Wolfgang Uhlmann is survived by his widow, Christine, two children and two grandchildren.
14.
Wolfgang Uhlmann was acknowledged as one of the world's leading experts on the French Defence, particularly the Winawer Variation, having refined and improved many of its variations and written the book on the opening.
15.
Wolfgang Uhlmann is one of very few grandmasters to have deployed the French almost exclusively in reply to 1.