chessgames.com
Members · Prefs · Laboratory · Collections · Openings · Endgames · Sacrifices · History · Search Kibitzing · Kibitzer's Café · Chessforums · Tournament Index · Players · Kibitzing

Fedor Bohatirchuk
F Bohatirchuk 
 

Number of games in database: 273
Years covered: 1913 to 1977
Overall record: +125 -59 =89 (62.1%)*
   * Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games in the database.

MOST PLAYED OPENINGS
With the White pieces:
 Sicilian (28) 
    B21 B83 B40 B32 B58
 Ruy Lopez (22) 
    C77 C73 C78 C64 C94
 French Defense (18) 
    C00 C19 C12 C16 C17
 Caro-Kann (15) 
    B17 B10 B18 B13 B14
 French (12) 
    C00 C12
 Bird's Opening (8) 
    A02 A03
With the Black pieces:
 Ruy Lopez (36) 
    C73 C75 C71 C68 C72
 Queen's Pawn Game (18) 
    A46 D02 A40 A45 A41
 Old Indian (13) 
    A53 A55 A54
 King's Indian (9) 
    E64 E67 E69 E80 E94
 English, 1 c4 e5 (8) 
    A21 A28 A23
 Queen's Gambit Declined (7) 
    D31 D30 D37 D35
Repertoire Explorer

NOTABLE GAMES: [what is this?]
   F Bohatirchuk vs N Kopaev, 1938 1-0
   Ilyin-Zhenevsky vs F Bohatirchuk, 1924 0-1
   F Bohatirchuk vs Botvinnik, 1927 1-0
   V Rauzer vs F Bohatirchuk, 1934 0-1
   F Bohatirchuk vs F Duz-Khotimirsky, 1938 1-0
   Lasker vs F Bohatirchuk, 1935 1/2-1/2
   F Bohatirchuk vs Botvinnik, 1933 1-0
   F Bohatirchuk vs E Sadovsky, 1946 1-0
   F Bohatirchuk vs V Nenarokov, 1924 1-0
   F Bohatirchuk vs Botvinnik, 1935 1-0

NOTABLE TOURNAMENTS: [what is this?]
   Ukrainian Championship (1937)
   URS-ch sf Kiev (1938)
   Ukrainian Championship (1936)
   Canadian Championship (1949)
   USSR Championship (1924)
   USSR Championship 1934/35 (1934)
   Amsterdam Olympiad qual-2 (1954)
   Canadian Championship (1951)
   USSR Championship (1923)
   USSR Championship (1927)
   Canadian Championship (1955)
   USSR Championship (1931)
   USSR Championship (1933)
   Moscow (1925)
   Amsterdam Olympiad Final-B (1954)

GAME COLLECTIONS: [what is this?]
   Masterpieces and Dramas of Soviet ch, part I by nizmo11
   Meerbeck 1946 Displaced Persons tournament by jessicafischerqueen
   1951 Canadian championship by gauer
   USSR Championship 1927 by Phony Benoni
   1949 Canadian championship by gauer
   USSR Championship 1923 by Phony Benoni


Search Sacrifice Explorer for Fedor Bohatirchuk
Search Google for Fedor Bohatirchuk

FEDOR BOHATIRCHUK
(born Nov-26-1892, died Sep-04-1984, 91 years old) Ukraine (federation/nationality Canada)
PRONUNCIATION:
[what is this?]

Fedor Parfenovich Bohatirchuk was born in Kiev, Ukraine. He was awarded the IM title in 1954 and the IMC title in 1967. Bohatirchuk's chess career began by watching Mikhail Chigorin and he won the Kiev Championship in 1910, ahead of Efim Bogoljubov.

Bohatirchuk finished third in the Russian Championship of 1912 and third in the USSR Championships of 1923 and 1924. In the USSR Championship of 1927 [rusbase-1] he finished tied for first with Peter Romanovsky. Bohatirchuk achieved clear second (with 7/9) in the 1949 Canadian championship at Arvida and also came second in a USSR Championship qualifying tournament of 1938 - but did not take his place in the finals.

Being a radiologist and director of a research institute, Bohatirchuk was seconded to a German medical research facility when Kiev fell to the Germans in September 1941. He moved to a number of cities, including Krakow, Berlin and Potsdam and finally ended up in the American controlled city of Bayreuth in May 1945. For a time, he lived in Munich playing in German chess events under the name of 'Bogenko' so as to avoid repatriation to the USSR.

Bohatirchuk emigrated to Canada in 1948, became a naturalized citizen and played for Canada in the Olympiad of 1954 on fourth board, accumulating 8.5 points out of 15 team games. In his seventies, he took up correspondence chess.

References: http://www.olimpbase.org/, https://web.archive.org/web/2016030...

Wikipedia article: Fedir Bohatyrchuk. See also <https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-m...

Last updated: 2023-11-17 20:29:40

Try our new games table.

 page 1 of 11; games 1-25 of 273  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves YearEvent/LocaleOpening
1. F Bohatirchuk vs V Nenarokov  1-0331913KievC49 Four Knights
2. Levenfish vs F Bohatirchuk  ½-½551923USSR ChampionshipD02 Queen's Pawn Game
3. F Bohatirchuk vs K Vygodchikov 1-0471923USSR ChampionshipC49 Four Knights
4. A Kubbel vs F Bohatirchuk 1-0501923USSR ChampionshipC62 Ruy Lopez, Old Steinitz Defense
5. P Romanovsky vs F Bohatirchuk 1-0261923USSR ChampionshipC64 Ruy Lopez, Classical
6. F Bohatirchuk vs S F Lebedev 1-0381923USSR ChampionshipA55 Old Indian, Main line
7. F Bohatirchuk vs A Ilyin-Zhenevsky 1-0291923USSR ChampionshipA52 Budapest Gambit
8. A G Guetsky vs F Bohatirchuk  1-0381924Ukrainian ChampionshipD67 Queen's Gambit Declined, Orthodox Defense, Bd3 line
9. S Tikhenko vs F Bohatirchuk 0-1101924Ukrainian ChampionshipD37 Queen's Gambit Declined
10. Bogoljubov vs F Bohatirchuk 1-0251924URSC62 Ruy Lopez, Old Steinitz Defense
11. F Bohatirchuk vs I Rabinovich 1-0351924USSR ChampionshipB03 Alekhine's Defense
12. Bogoljubov vs F Bohatirchuk 1-0281924USSR ChampionshipA81 Dutch
13. F Bohatirchuk vs S von Freymann  1-0571924USSR ChampionshipC49 Four Knights
14. A Ilyin-Zhenevsky vs F Bohatirchuk 0-1521924USSR ChampionshipC62 Ruy Lopez, Old Steinitz Defense
15. N Grigoriev vs F Bohatirchuk 0-1421924USSR ChampionshipC68 Ruy Lopez, Exchange
16. F Bohatirchuk vs P Romanovsky  0-1571924USSR ChampionshipD15 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
17. F Bohatirchuk vs V Nenarokov 1-0381924USSR ChampionshipB45 Sicilian, Taimanov
18. Levenfish vs F Bohatirchuk  ½-½371925MoscowD67 Queen's Gambit Declined, Orthodox Defense, Bd3 line
19. F Bohatirchuk vs Tartakower  ½-½621925MoscowB13 Caro-Kann, Exchange
20. Spielmann vs F Bohatirchuk  ½-½211925MoscowC26 Vienna
21. F Bohatirchuk vs N Zubarev 1-0241925MoscowC12 French, McCutcheon
22. Saemisch vs F Bohatirchuk  ½-½471925MoscowD35 Queen's Gambit Declined
23. F Bohatirchuk vs Bogoljubov ½-½711925MoscowB40 Sicilian
24. S Gotthilf vs F Bohatirchuk  ½-½541925MoscowD67 Queen's Gambit Declined, Orthodox Defense, Bd3 line
25. F Bohatirchuk vs Capablanca 0-1281925MoscowB83 Sicilian
 page 1 of 11; games 1-25 of 273  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | Bohatirchuk wins | Bohatirchuk loses  

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 1 OF 5 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Jun-25-04  Gypsy: This player has been an intriguing enigma for me ever since I almost got arested for trying to borrow a book about him (Eight Games of GM Bogatyrchuk) from Accademic Library. It was at a diffrent place and time, but to this day I am not sure whether I almost got into troubles because the book was written by Pachman, or because it was published by Nazis during WWII, or because it was about Bohatyrchuk, or perhaps because of all of the above.
Jun-25-04  WMD: Or because theft from a library is a criminal offence.
Jun-25-04  Gypsy: <Or because theft from a library is a criminal offence.> You lost me. Am I supposed to take this as a joke or as an insult <WMD>?
Jun-25-04  Gypsy: I asked IM Lawrence Day on his pages about Bohatirchuk. Here I repost Day's reply.

<IMlday: Rest assured that young Ukrainians are setting up a Bohatirchuk revival; I have had communication with them. His views on democracy, radiology and Old Indian or Big Clamp theory in chess were spectacular and inspirational for future generations, especially me as he was the 'icon' to Ottawa chess back when I was learning the game there. In his prime, late 1920's, he was among the strongest Soviet GM's. During WW2 he ran the Red Cross in the Ukraine: a humanist caught between Stalin and Hitler. Choose this evil or that? No way. He eventually ended up in Ottawa, teaching radiology and gerontology, and in chess inspiring me, as little kid.

Golly! Pachman has a book about 8 Games of Bohatirchuk! That is amazing. I'd like to see it. What Bohatirchuk told me was that the Soviets sabotaged his 1949 GM title with the spokesman a young avowed communist, one Ludek Pachman, as their Czech mouthpiece. Pachman's coming to grips with the evils of Sovietism , circa 1968 frankly amused the aged doctor. At the time i didn't see much funny about Pachman's arrest. But he did. I'd read Pasternak's Nobel-winning "Dr. Zhivago" and seen the movie and then Dr. Bohatirchuk casually dropped that he himself was the doubly-conscripted image for the main protagonist. Double wow eh.. major-league freakers.

In his prime he would have cleaned my clock, but 1967-1970 the score was balanced at +1, -1, =1. Seems impossible though since he was Ukraine Champion in 1911. Such amazing longevity! >

Jun-25-04  Gypsy: I will try to trace down a copy of the book. Thinking about the Pachman's "8-Games" book, it only now dawns on me how unique a piece of history it likely is. There probably is only a half-dozen exemplars in existence, if that. And, in all likelihood, none of the books have been outside of its University vault since 1945 or so.
Jun-26-04  Calli: <Gypsy> Great posts! Appreciate you sharing your knowledge of this man. Did Dr. Bogatyrchuk ever write about life?
Jun-26-04
Premium Chessgames Member
  IMlday: When I went to my first American tournament in NY on the July 1-4 holiday space I made sure I had time to visit the big library and check out Bohatirchuk games not available in Ottawa or Toronto. There were some but not many I didn't have already. The Soviets were keen to erase him from history as a persona non grata. Drafted to doctor to the retreating Nazi army he ended up in Poland for a while. As an ordinary garden-variety Ukrainian nationalist he opposed Stalin, so the Nazis were enthusiastic and the Soviets appalled. As the war winded down he retreated West. The train was bombed, so much of the trip was on foot until he reached Allied-controlled territory. Weirdly this was deja vu. When WW1 broke out he was at Mannheim, on borrowed money, playing a tournament. The 'Russians' got interned. He got to play Alekhine a lot. It took about a year or more to get back to Kiev via Switzerland, Italy, boats, Bulgaria (?) etc. The embassy in Switzerland had fronted him money--he had none--but when he finally arrived home the gov't forgave all his loans and he resumed med school. Some vacation tournament eh. Part of the ongoing 'Bohatirchuk Project' is hunting down the games he played in Germany and Poland. With the KGB wanting to assassinate him, he used pseudonyms, but Dutch researcher IM Welling has tracked them down with some admirable detective work. In his later years the Dr. wrote his memoirs, but in Russian. The translation is also ongoing. A memorial festival to be held in the Ukraine is also in the works. Aside from chess there will (hopefully) be a seminar gathering in radiology for science, and political discussion of democracy. Back in Czarist times, Bohatirchuk recalled, he and most young intellectual Kievians were hoping for Ukrainian independence with a Western style of democracy like the US or France. However, looking back somewhat nostalgically, he figured that Czarist times were actually better than the Bolshevik, then Fascist systems that followed. Anyway, for the new Ukraine that makes him a figure way way ahead of his time and they are interested in uncovering his suppressed history. If the first half of his life was wildly exciting Dr. Zhivago stuff, the second half was blissfully tranquil. His house was on the Rideau Canal in a beautifully quiet part of Ottawa. I think it did have bullet proof glass because there was a non-hole with mandalic ripples surrounding it. He did medical research at University of Ottawa; radiology was the scientific frontier in the 1950's. Absolutely not into weapons--understandable considering his life story--he was looking into gerontology, aging, and how to prevent it.. He certainly demonstrated it. I first saw him about 11 when I played in a simul for kids. I was going to play Sicilian but looking at what he was playing, 2.b4!?, I quickly switched to French. We all lost regardless. He had a strange physique, short but with an extra large head and lots of unkempt Einstein-style white hair. (to be continued)
Jun-26-04
Premium Chessgames Member
  IMlday: (part 2)

In the 60's he only played once a month
in club team matches. I gradually worked my way up to board two and sat beside him when Ottawa won the Ontario teams event in 1966. In 1967 I entered university so I was on the Carleton team playing against him instead of beside him. Never having been very healthy I was stuck in bed for two weeks before our first encounter. I spent all the time studying the White side of the Ruy Lopez Steinitz Deferred. It was the first and only time that I wore a suit and tie for a chessgame, a variation inspired by Ray Keene's tuxedo against Botvinnik. I won. He took it in good humour. A year later he won. The next year we were cautious of each other and had a tranquil draw. But his eyesight was giving out and that was about the end of his over-the-board play. Pretty amazing career though eh. As a sprout he was watching Mikhail Tchigorin trying to decide after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 d6 3.Nc3 whether Black could risk playing 3..g6 making a kingside target and taking the square from the Knight. Tchigorin concluded not and stuck with Old Indians (..Be7). After 65 years Bohatirchuk was still ticking away and showing me Old Indians and Big Clamps. Something almost mystical about that--a thread running through history.. that's why Chess Canada sold chess books plus one work of fiction: Herman Hesse's Masters of Light (aka Magister Ludi or The Glass Bead Game). Hesse's earlier books were about 'finding it' while his last book was about passing it on to the next generation. For me, Bohatirchuk was the link to Tchigorin and Tchigorin opened up the King's Gambit as a whole realm of adventure. The clamps too, they're all Tchigorin's originally. Against Botvinnik, Bohatirchuk had iirc 3.5-1.5; two wins and three draws. (?) Anyway when he was about to to play Botvinnik for the World Championship, David Bronstein was asked if he was scared and said: Na, I'll just play like Bohatirchuk.

(A note on spelling his name. As a journalist I often have this problem. Generally I use reader-friendly phonetics, even Dreyev instead of Dreev. However if someone emigrates, or makes it known how he himself spells his name, then I use that. Bohatirchuk spelled it like that, closest English phonetics.}

Jun-26-04  Gypsy: <IMlday> The book (or manuscript?), if it still exists, is in Czech (Osm partii velmistra Bohatyrcuka). It hopefully still resides in the vaulted archives of one of the Czech Universities. I never put my hand on the book; it was listed as one of their chessbooks by a mistake; its existence was supposed to be kept secret. I am sure the librarians quickly corrected their mistake after I made my ill-fated request to borrow it. (It feels so surreal to recall all that now some 30-years later.) I will contact the current University President about your interest and I will Cc <chessgames.com> so that they can get you also into the loop. With any luck, we will unearth it.

<Anyway when he was about to to play Botvinnik for the World Championship, David Bronstein was asked if he was scared and said: Na, I'll just play like Bohatirchuk.> It is hard for a life-long westerner to appreciate how audacious (or reckless) was such a flip from Bronstein. Stalin era still reigned supreme. When I queried russia chessplaying emigrees for information on Bahatirchuk, they always got incredibly conspiratorial--hushed voice, gleaming eyes, and a sense of talking about this un-expressable greatness. But no concrete information ever came out. The blackout of information on this particular persona-non-grata overcame even the usually efficient grape-wine mechanisms.

Jun-26-04  Gypsy: <Great posts! Appreciate you sharing your knowledge of this man. Did Dr. Bogatyrchuk ever write about life?> Thanks <calli>. I also feel that I would love to read this guy's own views on life. Even Pasternak's novel comes a very distant second when you consider a life like that.
Jul-17-04  Gypsy: It seems that in May 1944 Bohatirchuk got to Prague and played an 8-game training match against local players (Pachman, Kottnauer, Podgorny, Prucha,...). Young Pachman wrote a short pamphlet about the match and then it all got lost and forgotten during the end-of-war excitement. These games/notes have indeed now resurfaced and I have translated them. IM Day should have it all at his end sometimes next week (I am just trying to figure out the best transmission format).

Bohatirchuk's victory was grand +7 -0 =1. He was helped a bit by luck, +6 -2 =0 or +6 -1 =1 would have been more accurate refflection of his dominance.

For me, an absolutely fascinating aspect of doing the translation was to check with our Opening Explorer here. Fifty years of subsequent chess praxis proved Bohatirchuk play profoundly visionary and Pachman's opening assesments stunningly accurate.

Bohatirchuk played several original lines, anticipating the earliest games here in our database (in those lines) by between 15 and 48 years. Also Pachman's assesments of alternative continuations are stuningly prescient, especially when compared with the winning, drawing and loosing percentages of games that were all played well after this ancient match. (I found only one too optimistic assessment of his. In the Ukraine Variation of Old Indian, Pachman sees an advantage for white in one of the lines he proposes, but his own subsequent game with Boleslavski clearly goes to about = chances from the opening.)

Pachman calls Bohatirchuk a perfect defensive player and tries hard to bend his mind around Bohatirchuk's puzzling restrained but flexible style. What Pachman could not know back then was that Bohatirchuk was an ancestor to the hedhehogs as Karpov, Andersson, or Suba, and to the the spiders like Adams. And, I guess, he is a main missing link to them from Chigorin and perhaps even Steinitz.

(Forgive the rant, I am just decompressing after finishing the work.)

Jul-20-04  Gypsy: <Against Botvinnik, Bohatirchuk had iirc 3.5-1.5; two wins and three draws. (?)> Actually, +3 -0 =1 in this database.
Jul-20-04  Calli: <Gypsy>
Some interesting info:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/csarchiv...
Jul-20-04  Gypsy: Wow, Russians do take their chess seriously!! Thanks <Calli>, I think at least a couple of lines deserve direct postings here.
Jul-20-04  Gypsy: «You will never beat Botvinnik again!»
by Krylenko
Chairman of Soviet Chess Organisation
Minister of Justice
Jul-20-04  Gypsy: «I would hang this man myself in the centre of the city!» Mikhail Botvinnik
Jul-20-04  Calli: Botvinnik: A great chess player but seemed brainwashed by Soviet thinking. Despite his intelligence, he followed the party line totally.

Krylenko was killed in one of Stalin's purges a couple of years later.

Jul-20-04  Gypsy: At one point I came accross a thought that a soviet-style system could have succeded if it were composed of people like Botvinnik. The flaw of that thought is that Botvinnik would not stand another Botvinnik in the same land. He took a resolute preemptive action against any, real or perceived challenge to his top-dog possition (Levenfish, Bronstein, ...) When Botvinnik did not feel challenged, he was a humorless but benevolent king. Most understood that and kept safe by giving Botvinnik wide berth (Ragozin, Flohr, Keres, ...).
Jul-20-04  Calli: I see. Botvi was the man at the top of the pyramid. Its easy to embrace the system if you are in that spot. Whats the line from the movies? "Its good to be King!"
Jul-20-04  sneaky pete: <Calli> That line is from Mel Brooks'<History of the World, Part I.> The king is Louis XVI.
Jul-20-04  Calli: <SneakyP> thanks!

Here is an interesting article on the KGB, Bohatyrchuk, chess

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...

(For some reason I am Googling up a storm today)

Jul-25-04
Premium Chessgames Member
  chessgames.com: Many thanks to Honza Cervenka for supplying us with over more 100 games of Bogatyrchuk.
Jul-25-04  Gypsy: Way to go, <Honza>!
Jul-27-04
Premium Chessgames Member
  chessgames.com: IM Day submitted an error correction:

<Bogatyrchuk spelled his name in English as Bohatirchuk for forty years. Canadians, knowing this, will not be able to find him in the database with KGB pro-obscurity mis-spelling. -- Lawrence Day>

We're willing to change the name to Bohatirchuk if that's what is most commonly accepted. How does Chessbase, and New in Chess spell the name? Are there any other spellings to consider?

All opinions are welcome.

Jul-27-04
Premium Chessgames Member
  IMlday: I don't know enough about computers to know if there is a way to get the various spellings to lead into the same file. In my experience with chessbase Viktor/Victor Korchnoy/Korchnoi/Korchnoj they seem to have the same problem. Bohatirchuk's case is even more complex because after WW2 and before settling in Canada he played in Europe under aliases, eg, Bogenko, to evade Soviet assassins. Chess 'detective' Gerard Welling, a Dutch IM, has traced these games down. There are other GM's with made-up names, eg: Andras Adorjan and Alexander Graf. Databases will probably always find difficulty with such a name change.
Jump to page #    (enter # from 1 to 5)
search thread:   
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 1 OF 5 ·  Later Kibitzing>

NOTE: Create an account today to post replies and access other powerful features which are available only to registered users. Becoming a member is free, anonymous, and takes less than 1 minute! If you already have a username, then simply login login under your username now to join the discussion.

Please observe our posting guidelines:

  1. No obscene, racist, sexist, or profane language.
  2. No spamming, advertising, duplicate, or gibberish posts.
  3. No vitriolic or systematic personal attacks against other members.
  4. Nothing in violation of United States law.
  5. No cyberstalking or malicious posting of negative or private information (doxing/doxxing) of members.
  6. No trolling.
  7. The use of "sock puppet" accounts to circumvent disciplinary action taken by moderators, create a false impression of consensus or support, or stage conversations, is prohibited.
  8. Do not degrade Chessgames or any of it's staff/volunteers.

Please try to maintain a semblance of civility at all times.

Blow the Whistle

See something that violates our rules? Blow the whistle and inform a moderator.


NOTE: Please keep all discussion on-topic. This forum is for this specific player only. To discuss chess or this site in general, visit the Kibitzer's Café.

Messages posted by Chessgames members do not necessarily represent the views of Chessgames.com, its employees, or sponsors.
All moderator actions taken are ultimately at the sole discretion of the administration.

Spot an error? Please suggest your correction and help us eliminate database mistakes!
Home | About | Login | Logout | F.A.Q. | Profile | Preferences | Premium Membership | Kibitzer's Café | Biographer's Bistro | New Kibitzing | Chessforums | Tournament Index | Player Directory | Notable Games | World Chess Championships | Opening Explorer | Guess the Move | Game Collections | ChessBookie Game | Chessgames Challenge | Store | Privacy Notice | Contact Us

Copyright 2001-2025, Chessgames Services LLC