The chess world mourns as legendary German GM Wolfgang Unzicker died of heart failure during a holiday in Portugal on April 20, 2006.

Anatoly Karpov called Wolfgang Unzicker the “world champion of amateurs”. He was born in Pirmasens, Germany, on June 26, 1925, and started to play chess at the age of ten.

Unzicker's career as an international tournament player began after the Second World War. He won the German championship seven times, from 1948 to 1965, and played in twelve Chess Olympiads, from 1950 to 1978 (on board one in ten of them). In 1954 he was awarded the grandmaster title. He represented his country on the national team nearly 400 times.

Unzicker's tournament victories include first place tie (+6 =9) with Boris Spassky at the Chigorin Memorial in Sochi 1965, first at Maribor 1967 ahead of Samuel Reshevsky, first at Krems, and first at Amsterdam 1980, tied with Hans Ree. In 1950, Unzicker shared the prize for best top-board score (+9 =4 -1) with Miguel Najdorf for his performance on first board for the West German team at the Dubrovnik Chess Olympiad. At the Tel Aviv 1964 Chess Olympiad Unzicker scored 13.5 points playing first board for the West German team that won the bronze medal on the strength of a 3-1 team victory over the Soviet Union. Unzicker also shared fourth place (+2 =14 -1) with Lajos Portisch in the 1966 Piatigorsky Cup in Santa Monica, California. Only Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer, and Bent Larsen finished ahead of Unzicker. Unzicker placed ahead of world champion Tigran Petrosian, Samuel Reshevsky, Miguel Najdorf, Borislav Ivkov, and Hein Donner. At Hastings 1969-1970, Unzicker finished second (+4 =5) after Lajos Portisch and before Svetozar Gligoric and world champion Vasily Smyslov. Unzicker finished second (+3 =7 -2) to Viktor Korchnoi at South Africa 1979.

May he rest in peace.

/from chessbase.com/


See his all-time Olympic record: http://www.olimpbase.org/players/cmkmci2i.html

Watch his best games from the Olympiads:

Unzicker-Reshevsky 1-0, Munich 1958 Olympiad
Smyslov-Unzicker 0-1, Tel Aviv 1964 Olympiad