NIC Podcast #63 - GM Efim Geller

April 25, 2025
Categories: Podcast

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features the second part of a narration from “The Essential Sosonko”, a collection of chess portraits and stories authored by chess grandmaster Genna Sosonko. The subject of this week’s episode is Ukrainian grandmaster Efim Geller.

Efim Petrovich Geller (1925-1988) was a two-time Soviet chess champion and a six-time Candidate for the World Chess Championship. During the twenty-year period in which he was recognized as being a world top ten player, he faced ten different world champions, scoring victories against eight of them and even coming out with a positive overall score (+39-36=131). A natural attacking player who became more well-rounded as his career progressed, Geller was also known as an opening expert, contributing significantly to the emergence of the King's Indian Defence in top-level play. He was active as a coach, aiding future world champions Boris Spassky and Anatoly Karpov in their respective world championship match preparations. Genna, who ran into Geller several times over the years, paints a compelling portrait of the somewhat "underappreciated-by-history" grandmaster.

Enjoy this week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast!

Related Products
2 Comments
Conrad Thake on May 03, 2025 12:52
Mistake in the write up, Geller died in 1998 not 1988.
I remember Geller playing for the USSR team in his last olympiad - Malta Chess Olympiad 1980,
and what a team it was Karpov, Tal, Polugaevsky, Geller with Balashov and Kasparov!(then 17 years old) as reserves.
I was playing for the Malta B team then aged 17 too. Enjoyed the podcast.
Eric Sakurai on Apr 27, 2025 20:56
Efim Geller was an awesome player and follow is games
Submit your comment