Tonu Oim. A Chess Legend Who You Have Probably Never Heard Of
Afternoon everyone, and welcome along to another bit of self indulgence! I hope you get as much pleasure reading it as I did putting it together. ( As usual, I was having so much fun with the games that I got into time trouble and had to throw the material together quickly. The great man is still with us, and hopefully he will understand.)
So, Tonu Oim. ( pronounced toe - new - eem) Who is he? Well, he is the only player to win the World Correspondence Championships twice in the days before engines. And, imho, those were not even his best result!! Go figure.
A quick detour - whilst he was in the process of winning his second world title, he gave a wonderful interview to the editor of Chess Mail Tim Harding - a lovely man and fine historian who has always been very kind to me. In it he had this to say about the emerging influence of computers in c.c.
Do you use computers?
I do not have computers at home, but
my chessclub in Hyrinkää (Finland) has
it. Computers: it is life in our days, we
must accept it.
I am afraid that after 10-15 years that
people will not analyze themselves, but
will use computer for this. The competitions
will be between the computers. I
will try to find the best computer too and
still play. I will still try to find my own
variations because computers don't have
the colour palette and nuances of people.
I understand that others don't want to play
against computers, but I would still do it
and analyse positions.
If it becomes computer against computer,
then we will not be able to determine
the best player in the 21st century.
He took part in what I consider the two greatest tournaments in c.c. history. The Jubilee World Champions tournament - see my blog on the extraordinary Mikhail Umansky.
A game from the event against his friend and rival Grigory Sanakoev.
You will have to right click, save and rotate that one - can't get it to work!!
The other great event was 'The Tournament of Stars'. What a tournament, and what a result!! Every player a G.M. Back then there were not so many. One qualification was to have scored a top three finish in a World championship final. That is how my late friend Keith Richardson got the title - beating two world champions along the way. Look where he ended up in that tournament!!
Whilst I am here I will give the game against Keith.
A technical masterpiece. Oim was incredibly strong in technical positions.
Quickly, a table relevant to some players in this article.
Another picture of Keith, which I like - this is how he was when I knew him, and there is a funny story which relates to me and a match he played in the 4NCL.
So, twice World champion - others tried and failed.
And the 14th Championship which was in progress when i started playing c.c. seriously.
Juan Morgado could seriously play!! He was someone from the c.c. world who's games i studied religiously at the time.
Let's just look at some games. as a Dragon player myself, I have to say tht Oim was quite the dragon slayer! so lets look at some examples.
And this one. Just beautiful!
Two games linked by a picture - hopefully I have sorted the issue!
You could write a nice blog on games between Oim and Sanakoev.
Oim, in the interview mentioned above, says that surpassing the great Prof Zagorovsky was his great ambition as a correspondence player - to achieve what his friend Paul keres had been unable to do with Botvinnik.
A couple more, just because I can!
One against Yuri Sakharovv - an interesting chess figure!
A bit of madness! White has a big improvement at one point - so todays quiz is to see if you can find it!
Let's give a game against a wonderful c.c. player. Sadly he died a couple of years ago.
To finish an o.b. game - just to show that correspondence players could actually play play that form of the game - one for the tactics trainer addicts!
That's all you get!! Lots more in the folder, but i have to go cook dinner, and the beloved wants to go on skype! What can you do? Still, lots here to pass a Sunday afternoon with, and it was nice to e able to make a small tribute to a true legend. NOW you know who he is!!
Take care everyone.
