Iván Bottlik turns 80!

Iván Bottlik was born on 18^th of May, 1934 in Kunhegyes, Hungary. He became a high school mathematics and physics teacher, but he finished his teaching activities after 6 years when he started working in commerce in the field of applied mathematics. He made his debut as a chess author in 1956, and his first articles on chess history were published in 1958. More than 500 publications are from his pen, among them contributions to the history of chess, tournament reports, game analyses, and studies in opening theory. Apart from Hungarian chess magazines, he also cooperated with foreign chess periodicals. Two books have been written by himself (i.e., not co-authored): His book on Gyula Breyer appeared 1999 in German, and the "Short Hungarian Chess History" (Kis magyar sakktörténet) from 2004 is unique: the 64 surveys of the book were also printed on a sheet of 64 stamps, in micro-type but clearly legible with the help of a magnifying glass; see also our page Member Publications.

Iván Bottlik has co-authored dozens of books, he was an expert lector of 10 and a contributor to more than 50 works: dictionaries, encyclopaedias, … "Who is who?" volumes and monographs mention him as collaborator.

He became an International Master of Correspondence Chess in 1967. In the first list of the ICCF  ELO numbers - based on the tournaments before 1987 - he was among the first hundred, but at that time he already didn’t compete any more in CC tournaments.
From 1992 to 1995 he was one of the vice-presidents of the ICCF whose honorary member he is as well.

In his early years Iván Bottlik has composed some endgame studies and problems, you may find some helpmates and pawn endgames in the usual online databases, such as yacpdb.

(According to Tamás Erdélyi)

Another photo of Iván Bottlik - together with Fedir Savchuk (UKR), ICCF Congress Ostrava, Oct. 2003 - is still online, see image 13 on this page.