Vladimirs Petrovs


Vladimirs Petrovs was a :Latvian Russians|Latvian Russian chess player.
He was born in Riga, in the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire. Though he learned the game of chess relatively late, at age thirteen, Petrovs made rapid progress. By 1926, at age 19, he won the championship of Riga and finished third in the national championship. He placed 2nd–5th, behind Isakas Vistaneckis, in the first Baltic Championship at Klaipėda in 1931. Petrovs won a match with Movsas Feigins in 1931, won a match against Vladas Mikėnas in 1932, and narrowly lost a match to Rudolf Spielmann in 1934.
Petrovs tied for first with Fricis Apšenieks in 1934, and won the Latvian Championship in 1935 and 1937. He won at Helsinki in 1936, and tied for first with Samuel Reshevsky and Salo Flohr at Kemeri in 1937, ahead of Alexander Alekhine, Paul Keres, Endre Steiner, Savielly Tartakower, Reuben Fine, Gideon Ståhlberg and others. This was Petrovs’ finest tournament achievement. Later the same year, he finished last at Semmering. Petrovs placed 3rd-5th at Łódź in 1938, behind Vasja Pirc and Tartakower, and third at Margate in 1938, behind Alekhine and Rudolf Spielmann, defeating Alekhine in their individual game. In 1939, Petrovs placed 8th of 16 at Kemeri–Riga, and won at Rosario, ahead of Erich Eliskases and Mikenas.
Petrovs played for Latvia in all seven official Chess Olympiads from 1928 to 1939. He also played at the unofficial Olympiad at Munich 1936.
He won two individual medals: gold in 1931 and bronze in 1939. He achieved a particularly brilliant result playing on top board at Buenos Aires: he was undefeated, drawing with world champion Alekhine, former world champion José Raúl Capablanca, and the young superstar Keres, and won against Vladas Mikėnas, Roberto Grau, Tartakower, and Moshe Czerniak.
In 1940 the Soviet Union annexed Latvia. Petrovs finished 10th out of 20 in the 1940 USSR Championship, taking equal third at Riga in 1941, and second in several strong tournaments: Moscow in 1941, behind Isaak Mazel; Moscow in 1942, behind Igor Bondarevsky, and Sverdlovsk in 1942, behind Viacheslav Ragozin.
When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Petrovs was unable to return to his wife and daughter at home in Latvia. He remained in Russia and was arrested on 31 August 1942 under Article 58 for criticising decreased living standards in Latvia after the Soviet annexation of 1940. Petrovs was sentenced to ten years in a corrective labor camp. In 1947 his death was announced, but only in 1989 it became known that he had died at Kotlas in 1943 from pneumonia.
A rapid chess tournament, the Vladimir Petrov Memorial, was held in his memory in Jūrmala in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Notable games

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*