November 26, 2005
Chess loses a fighter
By David R. Sands

Russian-born U.S. grandmaster Igor Ivanov, one of the best players on the North American scene in the 1980s and 1990s, died of cancer earlier this month at his Utah home at the age of 59.

Ivanov will be remembered as a fine sportsman and coach as well as one of the hardest-working players in the game in his prime. In the late 1980s and mid-1990s, he regularly won the season-ending U.S. Chess Federation Grand Prix award, an honor based on an accumulation of good results from big events such as the U.S. Open and the World Open down to weekend Swisses in small towns where first prize for a grueling three days of work might be a couple hundred bucks.

November 27, 2005
Legendary champion Ivanov dies
By Jack Peters, International Master

Perennial Grand Prix champion Igor Ivanov died Nov. 17 at his home in Utah. He was 58.

Ivanov was the premier chess master on the American circuit in the 1980s and 1990s. He would compete in three or four weekend tournaments every month, usually with great success. He won the Grand Prix, an annual points competition that rewards habitual prizewinners, eight times in nine years, beginning in 1982.

Ivanov played in few international events and neglected to earn the grandmaster title that he surely deserved in the 1980s. His most notable international achievement was a tie for fourth place, a half-point behind former world champion Boris Spassky, in the 1982 Interzonal in Mexico. In recognition of his tremendous skill, the World Chess Federation recently awarded Ivanov the GM title based on results long ago.

November 20, 2005

I am saddened to say good-bye to you. When my mom told me that you had passed away, I was shocked and lots of thoughts jammed in my mind…

I cannot believe that our last tournament together on October 29 was the last time I met you. As in other tournaments we played in, you once again used my Bird system even though you had told me many times that opening is pathetic. It just showed how kind you were to me.

Igor, I am sorry and really regret that I didn’t come on ICC to play you on Wednesdays. I will never have that opportunity again. When I took lessons with you, you knew the thing I liked most was playing ping-pong with you all day long and shared a cool watermelon after the ping-pong matches, definitely no chess.

Feelings of grief and relief overcame me when I heard of your passing—grief for Elizabeth’s loss, for my sense of loss, for the chess community’s loss of a legend—but relief that you no longer had to endure whatever pain you felt in your final months of life. I have hope and faith that you are now in a much better place.

Though it had been nine years since we last spoke, we interacted in my imagination and memories far more regularly. The sight of a chessboard, a now daily occurrence as I walk past the chess players at Harvard Square, will remind me of you, as will many conversations about growing up. When people learn that I played chess competitively, I always liked to brag that I had private lessons from a Russian International Master. Indeed, even in my admissions essay to Harvard Law School, I mentioned you by name and recounted how I prepared with you for my first foray into the Denker Tournament of High School Champions. You have been a part of my life since the day we met, and you will continue to be so.

It was in the 80's when I lived in Montreal/Canada and played frequently in the Swiss tournaments at the Specialist Chess Club. Soon after I heard about his staying in Canada, I saw him played in the first section of the Swiss tournaments. Since that time, it was no longer Jean Herbert or Kevin Spraghett who carried the first prize all the time any more, but this new chess player from the USSR.

He sat respectfully at the board, he was a true gentleman of the game and of life.
Some years later he disappeared from the Montreal chess life. Later on I heard he settled down in the US, and suddently he died.

My story about Igor is at http://stevekusaba.blogspot.com/