Florin Gheorghiu (born 6 April 1944) is a Romanian chess player and has been a university lecturer in foreign languages. Born in Ploiești, on 6 April 1944, while the American bombers attacked the country's capital, his prodigious talent for the game was evidenced by his many early achievements; he became an International Master in 1963 and Romania's first Grandmaster just two years later. He earned the title of World Junior Champion in 1963, at Vrnjacka Banja, and has been the national champion of Romania on nine occasions. Gheorghiu was a lecturer in French at the University of Bucharest and he also speaks English, Russian, German, and Spanish.

Chess career

When playing at his peak on the international tournament circuit, he was many times a winner. His victories included: Hastings 1967–68 (with Hort and Stein), Reykjavik 1972 (with Hort and Ólafsson), Orense 1973, Torremolinos 1974 (with Torre), Lone Pine 1979 (with Gligorić, Liberzon, and Hort), Novi Sad 1979, Biel 1982 (with Nunn) and Lenk 1990. He was always a formidable opponent at the U.S. Open tournament and finished first in three successive years—1979, 1980 (with Fedorowicz) and 1981 (with Christiansen and three others). In his home country, there were few who could rival his dominance of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. He won the Romanian Championship nine times (1960, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1973, 1977 and 1987). In 1970 he was equal first with Victor Ciocâltea, and after a subsequent tie-break match (5-5) the latter was awarded the champion title. Despite these successes, Gheorghiu has seldom been regarded a serious contender for the world chess championship title. Although he regularly participated in the cycle and at other prestigious events, his placings at four Interzonal Tournaments (world championship qualifiers) confirmed that he was not as strong as the world's elite players at the time, but could nevertheless perform consistently well at a high level. At Petrópolis 1973 he finished 14th, at Manila 1976 10–13th, Riga 1979 5–6th, and at Moscow 1982, he came 12th. At the Riga Interzonal, he only narrowly failed to qualify for the Candidates Matches. Overall, he participated in nine Zonal and four Interzonal tournaments. Playing for Romania in team competitions, he amassed 459 games in 64 contests (including friendly matches with other nations), summing up to an overall result of 145 wins, 272 draws, and 42 losses. This included playing in every Chess Olympiad between 1962 and 1990, usually on first board. Further details are given in the table below. Gheorghiu is renowned for his success against the reputedly solid Nimzo-Indian Defence. The variation comprising an early f3 for White (which is allied to the Sämisch Variation) became his trademark weapon, improving on the games and development work of Lajos Portisch and Gyozo Forintos before him. The system is now referred to as the Gheorghiu Variation in many chess opening manuals and has been employed by tactical experts such as Alexei Shirov.

Notable games

Here is how Gheorghiu, playing White, beat future world champion Bobby Fischer at the Havana Olympiad in 1966. This was the only competitive game that Fischer ever lost to a player younger than himself.