Hrtha: Spotlight on Lyudmila Rudenko
Her League member and Her News columnist, Hrtha Rajiv, spotlights Lyudmila Rudenko’s career, the first woman recipient of the International Master Fide title awarded in 1950.
By Hrtha Rajiv - Great Valley Middle School - HL Member & HN COLUMNIST
Lyudmila Rudenko Google Doodle
Lyudmila Rudenko was the second Women’s World Chess Champion. She also held the titles International Master and Woman Grandmaster. Born on July 27, 1904 in Ukraine, Rudenko learnt to play chess at the age of ten.
1926 was a landmark year for Rudenko as she played her first chess tournament while studying economics in Odessa. By 1928 when she won the Moscow Women's Championship, she had already gained a reputation for her piece sacrifices and energetic play. At the Moscow Championships, she won all twelve games, including one against a future Women's World Champion. After moving to Leningrad (now known as Saint Petersburg), she went on to win the 1932 and 1936 Leningrad Championships.
During World War II, in 1941, Rudenko took a break from chess to perform a heroic deed of evacuating the children of factory workers. After the death of Vera Menchik, the first Women’s World Champion, in 1944, she competed in the championship for the Women’s World Champion title. She was considered the underdog, but she put on a great performance by winning the title with a score of 11.5/15.
Just a year after this stunning victory, she would go on to win the Soviet Women's Championship. A year after this achievement, Rudenko lost her world title to Elisaveta Bykota. Even after this loss, until her death at 81 in 1986, she would continue to be an avid chess player. Here is a game of hers that I thought was a great demonstration of an attack: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1281907
Lyudmila Rudenko