USSR Chess Championship

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This is a list of all the winners of the USSR Chess Championship. It was the strongest national chess championship ever held, with eight world chess champions and four world championship finalists among its winners. The USSR championship was held as a round-robin tournament with the exception of the 35th and 58th championships, which were Swiss system tournaments.

No.	Date	Place	Winner	Score	Notes
1	4 - 24 October 1920	Moscow	Alexander Alekhine	12/15 (+9-0=6)	Known as the All-Russian Chess Olympiad at the time, this tournament was later recognized as the first USSR championship.
2	8 - 24 July 1923	Petrograd	Peter Romanovsky	10/12 (+9-1=2)
3	23 August - 15 September 1924	Moscow	Efim Bogoljubov	15/17 (+13-0=4)
4	11 August - 6 September 1925	Leningrad	Efim Bogoljubov	14/19 (+11-2=6)
5	26 September - 25 October 1927	Moscow	Fedor Bogatyrchuk Peter Romanovsky	14.5/20 (+10-1=9) 14.5/20 (+12-3=5)
6	2 - 20 September 1929	Odessa	Boris Verlinsky	5.5/8 (+4-1=3), 4/5 (+4-1=0), and 3.5/4 (+3-0=1)	The tournament was conducted in three stages.
7	10 October - 11 November 1931	Moscow	Mikhail Botvinnik	13.5/17 (+12-2=3)
8	16 August - 9 September 1933	Leningrad	Mikhail Botvinnik	14/19 (+11-2=6)
9	7 December 1934 - 2 January 1935	Leningrad	Grigory Levenfish Ilya Rabinovich	12/19 (+8-3=8) 12/19 (+9-4=6)
10	12 April - 14 May 1937	Tbilisi	Grigory Levenfish	12.5/19 (+9-3=7)
11	15 April - 16 May 1939	Leningrad	Mikhail Botvinnik	12.5/17 (+8-0=9)
12	5 September - 3 October 1940	Moscow	Andor Lilienthal Igor Bondarevsky	13.5/19 (+8-0=11) 13.5/19 (+10-2=7)	The Absolute Championship (play-off) 23 March - 29 April 1941 Leningrad/Moscow, Mikhail Botvinnik 13.5/20 (+9-2=9)
13	21 May - 17 June 1944	Moscow	Mikhail Botvinnik	12.5/16 (+11-2=3)
14	1 June - 3 July 1945	Moscow	Mikhail Botvinnik	15/17 (+13-0=4)
15	2 February - 8 March 1947	Leningrad	Paul Keres	14/19 (+10-1=8)
16	10 November - 13 December 1948	Moscow	David Bronstein Alexander Kotov	12/18 (+7-1=10) 12/18 (+10-4=4)
17	16 October - 20 November 1949	Moscow	Vasily Smyslov David Bronstein	13/19 (+9-2=8) 13/19 (+8-1=10)
18	10 November - 12 December 1950	Moscow	Paul Keres	11.5/17 (+8-2=7)
19	11 November - 14 December 1951	Moscow	Paul Keres	12/17 (+9-2=6)
20	29 November - 29 December 1952	Moscow	Mikhail Botvinnik	13.5/19 (+9-1=9)	Botvinnik defeated Mark Taimanov in a playoff.
21	7 January - 7 February 1954	Kiev	Yuri Averbakh	14.5/19 (+10-0=9)
22	11 February - 15 March 1955	Moscow	Efim Geller	12/19 (+10-5=4)	Geller defeated Vasily Smyslov in a playoff.
23	10 January - 15 February 1956	Leningrad	Mark Taimanov	11.5/17 (+8-2=7)	Taimanov defeated Boris Spassky and Yuri Averbakh in a playoff.
24	20 January - 22 February 1957	Moscow	Mikhail Tal	14/21 (+9-2=10)
25	12 January - 14 February 1958	Riga	Mikhail Tal	12.5/18 (+10-3=5)
26	9 January - 11 February 1959	Tbilisi	Tigran Petrosian	13.5/19 (+8-0=11)
27	26 January - 26 February 1960	Leningrad	Viktor Korchnoi	14/19 (+12-3=4)
28	11 January - 11 February 1961	Moscow	Tigran Petrosian	13.5/19 (+9-1=9)
29	16 November - 12 December 1961	Baku	Boris Spassky	14.5/20 (+10-1=9)
30	21 November - 20 December 1962	Yerevan	Viktor Korchnoi	14/19 (+10-1=8)
31	23 November - 27 December 1963	Leningrad	Leonid Stein	12/19 (+6-1=12)	Stein defeated Boris Spassky and Ratmir Kholmov in a playoff.
32	25 December 1964 - 27 January 1965	Kiev	Viktor Korchnoi	15/19 (+11-0=8)
33	21 November - 24 December 1965	Tallinn	Leonid Stein	14/19 (+10-1=8)
34	28 December 1966 - 2 February 1967	Tbilisi	Leonid Stein	13/20 (+8-2=10)
35	12 - 27 July 1967	Kharkov	Lev Polugaevsky Mikhail Tal	10/13 10/13	The tournament was a 126-player Swiss.
36	30 December 1968 - 1 February 1969	Alma-Ata	Lev Polugaevsky	12.5/19 (+7-1=11)	Polugaevsky defeated Alexander Zaitsev in a playoff.
37	6 September - 12 October 1969	Moscow	Tigran Petrosian	14/22 (+6-0=16)	Petrosian defeated Lev Polugaevsky in a playoff.
38	25 November - 28 December 1970	Riga	Viktor Korchnoi	16/21 (+12-1=8)
39	15 September - 17 October 1971	Leningrad	Vladimir Savon	15/21 (+9-0=12)
40	16 November - 19 December 1972	Baku	Mikhail Tal	15/21 (+9-0=12)
41	1 - 27 October 1973	Moscow	Boris Spassky	11.5/17 (+7-1=9)
42	30 November - 23 December 1974	Leningrad	Alexander Beliavsky Mikhail Tal	9.5/15 (+6-2=7) 9.5/15 (+6-2=7)
43	28 November - 22 December 1975	Yerevan	Tigran Petrosian	10/15 (+6-1=8)
44	26 November - 24 December 1976	Moscow	Anatoly Karpov	12/17 (+8-1=8)
45	28 November - 22 December 1977	Leningrad	Boris Gulko Iosif Dorfman	9.5/15 (+4-0=11) 9.5/15 (+4-0=11)
46	1 - 28 December 1978	Tbilisi	Mikhail Tal Vitaly Tseshkovsky	11/17 (+5-0=12) 11/17 (+6-1=10)
47	29 November - 27 December 1979	Minsk	Efim Geller	11.5/17 (+6-0=11)
48	25 December 1980 - 21 January 1981	Vilnius	Lev Psakhis Alexander Beliavsky	10.5/17 (+8-4=5) 10.5/17 (+6-2=9)
49	27 November - 22 December 1981	Frunze	Garry Kasparov, Lev Psakhis	12.5/17 (+10-2=5) 12.5/17 (+9-1=7)
50	2 - 28 April 1983	Moscow	Anatoly Karpov	9.5/15 (+5-1=9)
51	2 - 28 April 1984	Lvov	Andrei Sokolov	12.5/17 (+8-0=9)
52	22 January - 19 February 1985	Riga	Viktor Gavrikov Mikhail Gurevich Alexander Chernin	11/19 (+4-1=14) 11/19 (+6-3=10) 11/19 (+5-2=12)
53	4 - 28 February 1986	Kiev	Vitaly Tseshkovsky	11/17 (+6-1=10)
54	4 - 29 March 1987	Minsk	Alexander Beliavsky	11/17 (+7-2=8)	Beliavsky defeated Valery Salov in a playoff.
55	25 July - 19 August 1988	Moscow	Anatoly Karpov Garry Kasparov	11.5/17 (+6-0=11) 11.5/17 (+6-0=11)
56	22 September - 16 October 1989	Odessa	Rafael Vaganian	9/15 (+5-2=8)
57	18 October - 3 November 1990	Leningrad	Alexander Beliavsky Leonid Yudasin Evgeny Bareev Alexey Vyzmanavin	8.5/13 (+5-1=7) 8.5/13 (+4-0=9) 8.5/13 (+6-2=5) 8.5/13 (+5-1=7)
58	1 - 13 November 1991	Moscow	Artashes Minasian	8.5/11 (+7-1=3)	Minasian won this Swiss-style tournament on tiebreak over Elmar Magerramov.

Most wins:

• 6 titles: Mikhail Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal
• 4 titles: Tigran Petrosian, Viktor Korchnoi, Alexander Beliavsky
• 3 titles: Paul Keres, Leonid Stein, Lev Polugaevsky, Anatoly Karpov

[edit] References

• Soltis, Andrew (1999). Soviet Chess 1917-1991. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-0676-3. 
• The Soviet Chess Championship 1920-1991
• RUSBASE (part V) 1919-1937,1991-1994
• RUSBASE (part IV) 1938-1960
• RUSBASE (part III), 1961-1969,1985-1990
• RUSBASE (part II) 1970-1984bg:Първенство по шахмат на СССР

de:Liste der UdSSR-Meister im Schach es:Campeonato de la URSS de ajedrez pl:Mistrzostwa Związku Radzieckiego w szachach pt:Campeonato de xadrez da União Soviética ru:Чемпионат СССР по шахматам