Here's Kholmov taking care of teenager GK:

This word is in use in a newer Russian language. In 1951 they used a word "devki" (girls,chicks).

The story mentioned by <Caissanist> included in Russian version published on http://www.e-reading.club/chapter.p....

"The Lithuanian chess master (Russian) R. Kholmov was fined for unsportsmanlike conduct displayed at the Soviet Union Spartakiad. He was drunk during the Spartakiad and was removed from the chess squad by the heads of the Lithuanian delegation.

At the meeting that was held in Lithuanian Sports Societies and Organizations office, members of the Presidium of the Sports Council, as well as representatives of chess players, strongly criticized R. Kholmov, who, according to "Sports", did not work and systematically was drunk.

Kholmov was asked to be disqualified for one year for this, but it was later decided to impose a conditional disqualification for one year only. It was decided that R. Kholmov had already been punished by not giving him the title of grand master."

I personally knew other Lithuanian team member, 3 times Lithuanian champion, Leonid P Maslov, who was super heavy drinker.
My post about Leonid Maslov:

I found about one more instance of Kholmov's suspension in the article about Lithuanian 1961 chess championship in the "Draugas", May 12, 1961, p. 2:

V. Mikėnas came out the winner in 1961 Lithuanian Chess championship. He scored 9.5 points out of 13. He was followed by I. Vistaneckis and D. Lapienis (8.5 each).

He was robbed of an interzonal place by the Soviet chess authorities !

What is your source for " there was always going to be a separate zonal " ?

It makes it sound like the 1975 tournament Karpov won after Portisch had finished first

innumerous statements by players who were involved, starting with Korchnoi's memoirs. Well contemporaneous sources, it's true I don't have Shakhmatny i SSSR here, but let's see, Schach-Echo 21/1963 reports about the semifinals of the championship and it says a placement in the first eight in the championship earns a place in the zonal, to be played in February 1964. But in fact they quote from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Again according to Korchnoi the players were considering going on strike at having to play another tournament ( but were dissuaded by Spassky and / or his trainer )

<15)
Q: A Russian grandmaster was once suspended from tournament play for a year because of conduct unbefitting a chess player-that is, drinking too much. He is ... ? A: Ratmir Kholmov>

That's not mentioned in the Bio. I googled a bit looking for more on this and found this Bill Walls page on chess and vices:

billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/vices_and_ch- ess.htm

<Ratmir Kholmov (1925-2006) was a Soviet Grandmaster (1960) and Lithuanian champion 10 times, from 1949 to 1961. He was an alcoholic. He was once suspended for a year from tournament play because of conduct unbecoming a chess master (drunk in public).>

This changes the story somewhat from drinkING to one specific incident. (Wall pads this page out unmercifully by giving separate listings for each chess player he knows of that smoked. That's so common, they could have all been listed in one paragraph.)

Hmm, Kholmov was 10-time Lithuanian Champion, the bio doesn't mention that either.

But this still doesn't tell us exactly when this happened.

Keep looking, and we get this, which finally explains it:

https://dgriffinchess.wordpress.com...

<Throughout his career, he had a (deserved!) reputation for drinking heavily; it seems that certain elements of his childhood ‘hooliganism’ stayed with him throughout his life. Thus, in 1951 he was banned for a year, losing his monthly Master of Sport stipend, as a result of a drinking escapade with his old rivals Tarasov and Nezhmetdinov.>

It also mentions that his win over Fischer was partly motivated by a fear of getting in trouble for spending half the previous night in the bar if he lost.

Khalmov himself admits to his drinking:

<‘It’s true that I used to drink, and drink a lot, so to say. Would I have achieved more sporting successes if it hadn’t been for the drinking? I guess so, because afterwards there’s always a certain moral breakdown, somewhere inside you realize that you’re doing something wrong. No, it’s not the headache on the next day, it’s just that I would feel ashamed of myself, I cursed myself and played less confidently, because with all my heart I felt I was deviating from moral principles.>

He also gives the full color (of course, from his side alone) of the incident leading to his suspension:

<‘I underestimated myself in those days, believing that all the other chess players were potentially stronger. So it turned out that Bronstein played a world championship match in ’51 and I was disqualified in the same year. For what? We were sitting around at a tournament, that’s Tarasov, Nezhmetdinov and me, drinking, and two chicks came up to us. Well, Rashid was kind of in the way, he was about fifteen years older than Tarasov and me. You turn off the tape recorder now, turn it off, can you imagine if my wife reads this...

‘Anyway, basically, Rashid was flushed, he was drunk, of course, he went out to the balcony and started throwing crockery off it – vases and plates. When Nezhmetdinov drank he had all kinds of psychoses, he’d lie down under a tram or do some other dumb thing. On this occasion nothing would have happened, other than the noise of the plates, but Kotov had to stick his nose into it. He started asking questions and whatever. There was an uproar, and the police came. To cut a long story short, they summoned all three of us to Moscow, to see Rodionov, who was chairman of the Sports Committee. Nezhmetdinov grovelled before him and they decided to pardon him as he was a party member, but Tarasov and I were disqualified for a year. They also cancelled my stipend, which I received as a member of the national team.>