Moishe Mendel (Mieczysław) Najdorf (NIGH-dorf) was born in Warsaw. He was a pupil of Savielly Tartakower. At the age of 20, he had become a Polish National Master. He played for Poland in the Chess Olympiads of 1935, 1937, and 1939. Najdorf was playing at the Buenos Aires Olympiad in 1939 when World War II broke out, and decided not to attempt to return home, taking Argentine citizenship (1944) and adopting the first name Miguel. His family members died in German concentration camps. In 1950, he was one of the 27 players to whom FIDE first awarded the official International Grandmaster title.
In 1943, he set the record for simultaneous games played. He played 202 players, scoring +182 -8 =12. In 1947, he played 45 games simultaneously blindfolded, then a record, scoring +39 -2 =4.
In the late 1930s and 1940s he established himself as one of the world's best players. He won Budapest (1936) (tied with Lajos Steiner), Buenos Aires (1939) (tied with Paul Keres), Buenos Aires Circulo (1941) (tied with Gideon Stahlberg), Mar del Plata (1942), Mar del Plata (1943), Mar del Plata (1944) (tied with Herman Pilnik), Mar del Plata (1946) (three points ahead of Stahlberg), Prague (1946), Rio de Janeiro (1946), Mar del Plata (1947), and Venice (1948). In 1949, he drew matches against both Reuben Fine (each scoring +2 =4 -2) and Petar Trifunovic (each scoring +1 =10 -1).
Najdorf was a strong contender to be included in the FIDE World Championship Tournament (1948), particularly since he had won Prague (1946), which had been conceived of as a qualifying tournament for the world championship, but he was not invited. Chessmetrics ranks him the No. 2 player in the world in March 1948, behind only Botvinnik and ahead of the other four participants: Paul Keres (#4), Max Euwe (#6), Vasily Smyslov (#7), and Samuel Reshevsky (#12).
In the 1950s Najdorf competed in several major international events, including two Candidates tournaments. He won the Argentinian championship eight times (1949, 1951, 1952, 1955, 1960, 1964, 1967, 1975) and he continued to promote chess in his adopted country until his death in 1997.
Shortly before his 60th birthday, he was still strong enough to play ninth board for the World team in the USSR vs. Rest of the World (1970) match. He tied former world champion Tal, each scoring +1 =2 -1.
A profound theorist, he contributed many opening ideas, notably one of the most popular chess openings of all time, the Sicilian Najdorf (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6), which is played in about 3% of all games.
Wikipedia article: Miguel Najdorf
Chessmetrics March 1948 rating list: http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/...
Kibitzing
