#Ussr
8 entries across 1 section of the encyclopedia.
Players
8- Player Boris Gelfand
The grandmaster from Minsk who reached the World Championship match at forty-three — a Soviet-trained classicist whose career bridged the era of Karpov to that of Carlsen.
- Player Anatoly Karpov
Ten years world champion before he ever lost the title, and the player who made positional restraint a winning strategy.
- Player Boris Spassky
The tenth world champion, whose 1972 Reykjavík match with Bobby Fischer brought chess into global politics — and out of it again.
- Player Garry Kasparov
Twenty years atop the rating list, fifteen years world champion, and the player who turned opening preparation into a science.
- Player Mikhail Botvinnik
The father of the Soviet chess school — world champion in three non-consecutive reigns, and the mentor of Kasparov, Karpov, and Kramnik.
- Player Mikhail Tal
The Magician from Riga — the eighth world champion, whose unsound sacrifices and breakneck calculation gave attacking chess its modern grammar.
- Player Vasily Smyslov
The seventh world champion — a positional virtuoso whose harmony of pieces was the model the next two generations studied.
- Player Viktor Korchnoi
The Soviet defector who twice challenged Karpov for the world title — and the longest-active world-class player in the modern era.