Bent Larsen (born March 4 1935) is a Danish chess player. He lives in Argentina.

Larsen is considered to be the strongest chess player ever born in Denmark. He has won the Interzonal tournament on 3 occasions (1964 at Amsterdam, 1967 at Sousse in Tunisia, and 1976 at Biel in Switzerland). He became an International Master at the age of 19 in 1954 and two years later gained the rank of International Grandmaster.

In the 1965 Candidates matches he lost in the semi-final to Mikhail Tal, a former world champion. In 1968 he lost the semi-final to Boris Spassky, who went on to win the title, and in 1971 lost the semi-final 0-6 to Bobby Fischer, who also went on to win the title.

In 1988 he lost a game to Deep Thought in the Software Toolworks Championship, becoming the first Grandmaster and the player with the highest ELO rating (by then 2560) to be defeated by a computer in tournament play.

Larsen has continued to play occasionally in tournaments to the present day. In 1999 he finished 7th of 10 in the Danish Championship, and he was 4th in the 2002 Najdorf Memorial knock-out in Buenos Aires. By July 2004 his ELO rating in the FIDE list was 2461.

Larsen was an imaginative player, more willing to try unorthodox ideas than most other top players; and is noted for occasionally employing unusual openings. He is one of the very few modern grandmasters to have employed Bird's Opening (1. f4) with any regularity, and the opening move 1. b3 is sometimes called the Nimzo-Larsen Attack in his (and Aron Nimzowitsch's) honour.

Although Larsen has a negative record against Bobby Fischer, he beat Fischer twice with black pieces. Here's one of his wins in Santa Monica in 1966 (moves given in Algebraic chess notation):

1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5 a6
4. Ba4 Nf6
5. O-O Nxe4
6. d4 b5
7. Bb3 d5
8. dxe5 Be6
9. c3 Bc5
10. Nbd2 O-O
11. Bc2 Bf5
12. Nb3 Bg4
13. Nxc5 Nxc5
14. Re1 Re8
15. Be3 Ne6
16. Qd3 g6
17. Bh6 Ne7
18. Nd4 Bf5
19. Nxf5 Nxf5
20. Bd2 Qh4
21. Qf1 Nc5
22. g3 Qc4
23. Qg2 Nd3
24. Bxd3 Qxd3
25. Bg5 c6
26. g4 Ng7
27. Re3 Qd2
28. b3 b4
29. Qh3 bxc3
30. Qh6 Ne6 0-1

External links

• The chess games of Bent Larsen
• Bent Larsen download 1626 of his games in pgn format.
• 25 critical positions from his games

1935 births | Living people | Chess grandmasters | Danish chess players

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