Rob Mieremet / Anefo · CC0
Mark Taimanov
Soviet chess player
1926 – 2016aged 90
Ranked among the world's top twenty chess players for a quarter century, won the 1956 USSR Chess Championship, and reached the Candidates stage of the World Championship twice, in 1953 and 1971, with several opening variations named after him. Remarkably, he sustained a parallel career as a concert pianist alongside his chess.