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Jørgen Bent Larsen (born March 4, 1935, Tilsted) is a Danish chess player.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Challenging for the world title 3 Chess style 4 Notable chess games 5 External links

He graduated in Civil Engineering, but decided to become a chess professional. He represented Denmark twice in the World Junior Championship, in 1951 and 1953. Since the early 1970's, he has lived in Buenos Aires with his Argentinian wife, and for part of the year in Las Palmas, Spain.

Larsen is considered to be the strongest chess player ever born in Denmark, and likely in Scandinavia as well. He has won the Interzonal tournament on three 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. During the period from 1964-1971, he and Bobby Fischer were the two strongest non-Soviet players. Larsen won the Chess Oscar in 1967.

His first Interzonal was Portoroz 1958, but he did not advance. In the 1965 Candidates' matches he first defeated Borislav Ivkov, but lost in the semi-final to Mikhail Tal, a former world champion. He won a playoff match for alternates against Efim Geller at Copenhagen 1966. In 1967 he won the Sousse Interzonal, but lost the semi-final to Boris Spassky, who went on to win the title. In 1970 he was second in the Palma de Mallorca Interzonal, then defeated Wolfgang Uhlmann. But then he lost the semi-final 0-6 to Bobby Fischer, who also went on to win the title.

Larsen later claimed in a Kasparov.com interview (1998) that his one-sided loss to Fischer was due in part to his condition during the match: "The organizers chose the wrong time for this match. I was languid with the heat and Fischer was better prepared for such exceptional circumstances... I saw chess pieces through a mist and, thus, my level of playing was not good."

In 1973 he failed to advance from the Leningrad Interzonal. In 1976 he won the Biel Interzonal, but lost his 1977 match to Boris Spassky.

He represented Denmark six times in Olympiad play, always on first board. Those events were: Amsterdam 1954, Moscow 1956, Munich 1958, Havana 1966, Lugano 1968, and Siegen 1970.

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, but in the 2000 event he was forced to withdraw when he became seriously ill with an edema, requiring brain surgery. He has played in only a few tournaments in Buenos Aires since then. He was 4th in the 2002 Najdorf Memorial knock-out. By July 2004 his ELO rating in the FIDE list was 2461.

He is known as a deep thinking and highly imaginative player, more willing to try unorthodox ideas and to take risks than most of his peers. This aspect of his play can even manifest itself in his choice of openings. He is one of the very few modern grandmasters to have employed Bird's Opening (1. f4) with any regularity, and has long been associated with the move 1. b3, a system commonly known as Larsen's Opening or the Nimzo-Larsen Attack in his (and Aron Nimzowitsch's) honor. He played the Dutch Defence with success at a time when that opening was rare at the top level. He also was the first top player to successfully use the Grand Prix Attack against the Sicilian Defence (1.e4 c5 2.f4), spurring its popularity. He played the rare defence 1.e4 d5 to defeat World Champion Anatoly Karpov, and this even led to a name change to the Scandinavian Defence; it had been commonly called the Center Counter. He used the Grunfeld Defence (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5) with success, and co-authored a groundbreaking 1979 book on this opening and similar structures with Steffen Zeuthen (ZOOM 001 -- Zero Hour for Operative Opening Modules). His book of 50 Selected Games (1968) is renowned for its pithy annotations which delve into chess psychology and use of rare openings, in a way rarely seen from top players.

• Bent Larsen vs Boris Spassky, Amsterdam Interzonal 1964, Bird's Opening (A03), 1-0 Larsen successfully played unusual openings in this tournament, and here he uses one of them to knock off a top Soviet, on his way to winning the tournament.
• Svetozar Gligoric vs Bent Larsen, Zagreb 1965, Sicilian Defence, Scheveningen Variation (B83), 0-1 Gligoric launches a dangerous-looking attack, but Larsen finds an inspired defence. Larsen had a strong head-to-head dominance over the top Yugoslav player of that era.
• Bobby Fischer vs Bent Larsen, Santa Monica 1966, Ruy Lopez, Open Variation (C82), 0-1 Fischer has a promising position but miscalculates and is punished in drastic style by Larsen's counterattack.
• Bent Larsen vs Tigran Petrosian, Santa Monica 1966, Sicilian Defence, Accelerated Dragon Variation (B39), 1-0 Larsen unleashes a queen sacrifice to defeat the World Champion; what player could ask for more!?
• Mikhail Tal vs Bent Larsen, Eersel 1969, match game 6, Sicilian Defence, Richter-Rauzer Variation (B65), 0-1 Larsen was dangerous with the Black pieces, and here he shows a former World Champion why.
• Mikhail Botvinnik vs Bent Larsen, Leiden 1970, Dutch Defense, Classical Variation (A90), 0-1 Another former World Champion can't hold a long endgame.
• Bobby Fischer vs Bent Larsen, Palma de Mallorca Interzonal 1970, Sicilian Defence, Velimirovic Attack (B89), 0-1 This was the only game Fischer lost in a stretch of over a year, from mid-1970 to late 1971.
• Anatoly Karpov vs Bent Larsen, Montreal 1979, Scandinavian Defence (B01), 0-1 Larsen springs a rare opening on the World Champion, and is rewarded with success.

• FIDE rating card for Bent Larsen
• Bent Larsen at ChessGames.com