Vlastimil Hort (* Wednesday, 12 January 1944 in Kladno - † Monday, 12 May 2025 in Eitorf)

He was a Czechoslovakian-German chess grandmaster who played for Czechoslovakia until 1986 and has since competed for Germany.

Memories

"2025 is the year of farewells. After Robert Hübner and Boris Spassky, Vlastimil Hort, another great player and outstanding chess personality, has now died. Vlastimil Hort was one of the world's best players in the 1970s. After moving to Germany, he delighted television viewers with his enigmatic humour in the ‘Chess of the Grandmasters’ programmes. 

2025 is the year of farewells. After Robert Hübner and Boris Spassky, Vlastimil Hort, another great player and outstanding chess personality, has now died. Vlastimil Hort was born on 12 January 1944 in Kladno in what was then Czechoslovakia. He learnt to play chess at the age of five in a hospital, where a caring doctor played with him. His great talent soon became apparent. At the age of 16, Vlastimil Hort was called up to the Czechoslovakian national team for the first time for a Chess Olympiad in 1960.

In 1965, FIDE appointed him a grandmaster. Vlastimil Hort soon became one of the best players in the world and was called up to the world selection for the legendary USSR versus the rest of the world match in 1970. At the peak of his career, Vlastimil Hort finished 6th in the world rankings in 1977 together with Mihail Tal and Lev Polugajevsky. As a candidate, Vlastimil Hort played for the World Championship. In 1977, he was very unlucky to lose to Boris Spassky after he ran out of time in a winning position in the penultimate game. Prior to this, Hort had granted the sick Spassky a time-out because he did not want to win the match due to his opponent's illness. In 1979, like many other players, Vlastimil Hort left Czechoslovakia after the country's leadership was brought back ‘on course’ in the wake of the Prague Spring and the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies.

Vlastimil Hort found a new home in the Federal Republic of Germany. With his charming manner and Bohemian humour, he quickly made many friends, but never lost touch with his old homeland. After the political change in 1990, he was able to see his former friends in person again.

Vlastimil Hort celebrated countless successes in chess. He won the Czechoslovak chess championship six times and the German championship three times. Between 1960 and 1992, Hort took part in 14 Chess Olympiads, eleven times for Czechoslovakia and three times for Germany.  At the 1972 Chess Olympiad in Skopje, Hort won the individual silver medal at his board. He also won the silver medal with the Czechoslovakian team in Lucerne in 1982. In the course of his career, Hort won over 80 tournaments.

Vlastimil Hort played for many years in the national league for the SG Porz team and lived in Cologne. It wasn't far from here to WDR, where Hort was the permanent commentator on the chess programme ‘Schach der Großmeister’ together with Helmut Pfleger. Hort's enigmatic humour with many aphorisms and funny stories not only attracted many loyal viewers among chess fans. In addition to his outstanding games, Vlastimil Hort also shared many amusing experiences and stories about chess in his books.  Vlastimil Hort later moved to Eitorf, where he lived with his wife Brigitte.

In recent years, Vlastimil suffered more and more from his progressive diabetes. In the end, he could no longer walk and had to give up playing chess, his simultaneous presentations and his travelling, which had always given him great pleasure.

In January 2025, Vlastimil Hort had to say goodbye to his good friend Robert Hübner. Hübner and Hort had played many tournaments and team competitions together and Hübner was a regular guest of the Hort couple in Eitorf because he appreciated the conversations with Brigitte and Vlastimil and Brigitte's cooking.

Vlastimil Hort was an extremely friendly and spontaneous person who loved chess immensely. He enjoyed showing games and telling stories in front of the camera at ChessBase in Hamburg. Sometimes he got on the train in Eitorf, travelled to Hamburg, made recordings and travelled back the same day.

He often called spontaneously, wanting to know what was going on in the chess world. Sometimes he couldn't solve a chess problem that he liked to work on, despite trying for a long time. ‘Bittäh, can you quickly type that into Maschinäh. It's only five stones...’

In the last few weeks, Vlastimil lost more and more strength and confidence. On 12 May 2025, he closed his eyes forever.

We will all miss him very much..."  by André Schulz

"So ging es mir auch mit dem super sympathischen Vlastimil Hort, den wir nach
Ende des Simultanturniers auch noch bei Speis und Trank bis weit nach Mitternacht
geniessen durften. Es war wohl der gelungenste Schachabend, den ich je erleben
durfte. Ich kenne keinen beliebteren Schachspieler auf unserem Erdenball."
 Kurt Utzinger