David Ionovich Bronstein
David Ionovich Bronstein February 19, 1924 – December 5, 2006) was a Jewish Soviet chess grandmaster, who narrowly missed becoming World Chess Champion in 1951. Bronstein was one of the world's strongest players from the mid-1940s into the mid 1970s, and was described by his peers as a creative genius and master of tactics. He was also a renowned chess writer.David Bronstein was born in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine, to a Jewish mother and father. Growing up in a poor family, he learned chess at age six from his grandfather. As a youth in Kiev, he was trained by the renowned International Master Alexander Konstantinopolsky. He finished second in the Kiev Championship when he was only 15, and achieved the Soviet Master title at age 16 for his second-place result in the 1940 Ukrainian Chess Championship, behind Isaac Boleslavsky, with whom he became close friends both on and off the chessboard. He would later go on to marry Boleslavsky's daughter, Tatiana, in 1984.