| Aug-11-09 | | jon01: "The Organizing Committee of the 24th International Chess Tournament “Acropolis 2009” mourns the sudden loss of the Greek chess player Nikos Karapanos, who was participating in the tournament, and expresses its condolences to the family of the deceased." |
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| Aug-12-09 | | thegoldenband: Very sad news indeed. It would be good to see more of Karapanos's games on here, as the handful currently available aren't really a fitting memorial. A search on his full name (Nikolaos Karapanos) reveals a few possible sources. |
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| Aug-16-09 | | Manic: I read about it in the chess column in my local newspaper written by Ian Rogers. Very sad news indeed. It was fitting that his final game was one where he was beating the Israeli IM Dan Zoler in spectacular fashion. Zoler, who according to http://tournaments.chessdom.com/acr... is a doctor, attempted to revive Karapanos. When it was clear that he could not be resusciated, out of respect for Karapanos, Zoler resigned in the final position (he is lost) and withdrew from the tournament. I will submit the PGN of this game to chessgames. There are additional annotations given in the Chessdom link above. [Event "24th ICT Acropolis"]
[Site "Chalkida, Greece"]
[Date "2009.08.10"]
[EventDate "2009.??.??"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Karapanos, Nikolaos"]
[Black "Zoler, Dan"]
[ECO "E00"]
[WhiteElo "2208"]
[BlackElo "2472"]
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 Bb4+ 4.Bd2 c5 5.Bxb4 cxb4 6.Bg2 0-0 7.Nf3 d6 8.0-0 a5 9.a3 Na6 10.Nbd2 Qc7 11.h3 Rd8 12.e4 e5 13.Qe2 b6 14.a4 Bb7 15.b3 Re8 16.Rad1 Rad8 17.Rfe1 exd4 18.Nxd4 Nc5 19.f3 Nh5 20.Nf1 d5 21.cxd5 Bxd5 22.exd5 Rxe2 23.Rxe2 g6 24.f4 Nf6 25.Nc6 Rd7 26.Ne5 Rd8 27.Nc6 Rd7 28.Ne5 Nxb3 29.Nxd7 Nxd7 30.d6 Qc5+ 31.Kh2 Kg7 32.Re7 Qc8 33.Ne3 Nf6 34.d7 Qd8 35.Ng4 Kf8 36.Ne5 Nc5 1-0 White has a forced win in the final position with 37.Rxf7+ Kg8 38.Rxf6! |
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Apr-09-12
 | | whiteshark: < Man plans and God laughs < -Yiddish proverb >> Sometimes when you have a dream, a vision, and you carefully plan how to transform it into reality, life decides otherwise. A man with such a vision was my former trainer, mentor, teammate, and above all the big brother I never had, Nikolaos Karapanos. Karapanos was one of the most loved chess figures in Greece. When he participated in a tournament as a player, or more frequently as a coach, everybody sought out his company, enjoyed hearing his funny stories, and wanted his friendly support. Nikolaos devoted his life to teaching young and upcoming juniors. He was an enormous chess talent as a junior himself, but he never had the will or motivation to become a professional chess player. He was a "man for the team" and not a "man for himself" . He could easily draw or even win against a grandmaster if his team needed him to do so, but he could make a 15-move draw against a 1600 amateur in order to go with him and have a coffee and a pleasant talk about history, poetry, women or football, if he considered him an interesting person! Nikolaos lived an exciting life. His sudden death, during the traditional Acropolis Tournament in the summer of 2009, was a big shock for the whole Greek chess community. The story of his
death was published on chess sites all over the world." - Nikolaos Ntirlis in the preface of "The Tarrasch Defence" |
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Apr-09-12
| | whiteshark: "Nikolaos's vision was to create a chess school. He was one of the most successful trainers in
Greece, so he had clear and strong ideas about how such a school should work. He knew that no
man can achieve anything without the support of people that he respects and trusts. One of those
people from his very close circle was me. Nikolaos told me in 2004: <"Someday you'll become
a good player, but never a great one. But there is no doubt that you can become a great chess
coach!"> Of course Nikolaos always exaggerated in order to make someone feel comfortable with
himself, but he proved that his thoughts about me were sincere as he brought me into his team,
where I started my first lessons with young kids. He knew that I had a special love of opening
theory and that I devoted much of my chess study to that area, so he made me responsible for
analysing the openings he wanted to teach to his most ambitious students." ibid. |
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