Sokov, Vasily Alexandrovich

Family and childhood

Vasily Sokov was born on December 26, 1912 ( January 8, 1913 ) in the village of Silnitsy near Rostov ^[1] (now the Rostov district of the Yaroslavl region ^[2] ). Less than five months after the birth of the boy, his family moved to Kronstadt , where his father, Alexander Antonovich, found a place as a hairdresser. However, he did not stay long at this job, quarreling with his master, and having lost his job, he began to drink. The family had to leave Kronstadt and move to the village of Lebyazhye near St. Petersburg ^[3] , from where Alexander Sokov was taken into the army in 1915 ^[2] . Vasya Sokova, at the age of three, was sent to be raised by her mother's cousin in the village of Luzhki, and her mother, Elizaveta Ivanovna, unable to make ends meet on a small land allotment, went to work in the capital (at that time called Petrograd), where she settled to work as a marriage attendant at the Pipe Plant . Long working hours and constrained material conditions did not allow her to often see her son, who grew up in a large uncle's peasant family ^[4] .

After the October Revolution and the end of World War II , Alexander Sokov returned from Austrian captivity in 1919 ^[2] . The united family returned to Silnitsy, where in 1921 Vasya began to attend school. The boy loved books, showed great abilities in mathematics, and soon the teacher already considered him one of the best in the class. Then the boy first became interested in drafts, in which one of the teachers, Dmitry Ivanovich Nikanorov, who organized a drafts club at school, became his first mentor. However, the trouble of the Sokovs was again overshadowed by troubles: the father began to drink again, and after drinking, beat his wife and children (by this time Vasya had two younger sisters). When the boy was thirteen, Elizabeth took the children and left her husband for Leningrad , where in February 1925 she received a room on Mytninskaya Street . She could not find a permanent job, and she was interrupted by daily earnings. Vasya, to the best of his ability, helped around the house and took care of his sisters, but at the same time he began to look for work himself. In the end, he got a job distributing newspapers and magazines, temporarily refusing to continue his studies. At a cost of 5 kopecks, each newspaper sold brought ¾ kopecks to the distributor, and in order to increase meager earnings, Sokov worked for a long time every day, malnourished and lagging behind in physical development. Only in the spring of 1927 he left work ^[5] and in the autumn of that year he entered the sixth grade of the 105th Leningrad school ^[6] . During his days as a press distributor, he first became acquainted with chess, seeing how other guys play in it, and quickly learned the basics of a new game for himself, starting to beat his “teachers” ^[7] .

Beginning of a drafts career

Vasily studied at school until 1929, having graduated from eight classes. There he began to visit the drafts club again, quickly becoming one of its most active members ^[8] , and in the summer he played drafts for a long time in the Tauride Garden . The garden administration sometimes instructed the young draftsman to conduct a simultaneous game session for a monetary reward, but his mother condemned his hobby for drafts, considering them a gamble , and forbade them to play for money ^[9] . Nevertheless, the boy did not give up playing drafts. He studied the departments of drafts problems and theory in the pioneer newspaper " Lenin Sparks " and in the Leningrad literary magazine " Rezets ", trying to compose tasks and studies himself . In 1928, in Leningrad, the city held a checkers championship for the first time among schoolchildren, which included three stages. At the first stage, school champions were determined, who then identified the strongest players in the districts, after which, in turn, converged in the final tournament. Vasily Sokov won all three stages, becoming the champion of Leningrad among schoolchildren ^[10] . He participated in chess competitions, taking second place in the district ^[7] .

In the same year, Vasily brought to the editorial office of Lenin Sparks the task of his own composition. The first time they didn’t accept her, but they told the author which direction to work in order to improve it, and his second visit was successful ^[11] . Already in this first work, Sokov demonstrated a good understanding of the principles of checker composition: in all possible cases, only the necessary white pieces remained on the decoupling board ^[12] . The task was published in the next issue, and in 1930 it was reprinted in the all-union journal “ Chess and Drafts in a Work Club ” ^[13] .

During a visit to Leningrad in 1928, the champion of Ukraine Vyacheslav Lisenko Sokov became one of the participants in the simultaneous game of the Ukrainian master in the Vyborg Culture Center, but he could not stand up to the match on an equal footing, thinking for a long time about each move and making a decisive miscalculation on move 11. After that, he began to study theory more actively, attending courses at the Leningrad Regional Council of Physical Culture, and soon received the rank of draftsman of the 3rd All-Union Category. At this time, he began to play openings more effectively, achieving a good position at the beginning of the game, which was an important addition to his combination vision ^[14] . In the State Public Library, Sokov studied drafts literature, including pre-revolutionary literature, in particular the magazine " Checkers ", published in 1897-1901 by P. N. Bodyansky . Of the Soviet editions, Vasily paid special attention to the books of V. N. Russo “Soviet Drafts” ^[15] , V. K. Lisenko “The First Book of a Draftsman” and N. A. Kukuev “100 Drafts Etudes”. He began to actively play by correspondence, his first match - with Kazan Kalinin - winning with a score of + 4-0 = 2 ^[16] .

In June 1929, a match was held in Leningrad between the Moscow and Leningrad teams of the food workers union, ten people each. On the 7th board in the Leningrad team, 16-year-old Sokov played, having won both games against his Moscow rival Molchanov ^[17] . Vasily Medkov , who headed the guests from Moscow, by that time the reigning champion of the USSR , jokingly told Sokov: “So you and you will soon begin to beat me” ^[18] . Medkov’s prediction came true the very next day, when Sokov defeated him in a simultaneous game held by the champion ^[17] . In the same summer, in one of the blitz tournaments, Sokov, still officially ranked as a third-category player, defeated Igor Timkovsky , the winner of one of the groups of the USSR small championship ^[19] . The photograph of Vasily appeared on the pages of the Leningrad magazine “Young Proletarian”, accompanied by the following text ^[17] :

In the autumn of 1929, Sokov won the food club club tournament, ahead of Leningrad champion L. Rubinstein among 15 rivals, and the next year in the training tournament of the Tauride Garden he took a place higher than M. Polyak, the winner of last year’s USSR small championship. Following the results of the small championship of Leningrad in 1930, he shared 2-3 places with Dmitry Korshunov , half a point behind Yevgeny Tyunev , and received the rank of checker player of the 1st category ^[20] .

In 1931, Sokov got a job as a bookkeeper at a bakery, while also taking courses in planning for the metallurgical industry ^[21] . In the spring of this year, he took part in the main championship of Leningrad and also shared 2-3 places in it, this time with Tyunev, skipping ahead of Mikhail Burkovsky . This result ensured his participation in the fall in the II small championship of the USSR. At the tournament in Moscow, Sokov became the winner in the 3rd group, gaining 10 points out of 11 possible (+ 9-0 = 2) ^[22] .

In 1932, at the end of the courses, Sokov went as a planner to the factory, where his friend and rival in drafts competitions Alexander Stepanov worked as an engineer ^[21] . At the next Leningrad Championship, Sokov won seven games, losing one, and for the first time won the city title ^[23] . A year later, he shared 1-2 places with the Pole at the Leningrad Championship, and then won the tournament of the six strongest first-ranking athletes of Leningrad (according to the biography of 1991 - with the participation of the current USSR champion Dmitry Shebedev ^[24] ), although he lost one game to it same Pole. At the end of the year, speaking for the national team of the Kozitsky plant in the VTsSPS team championship, he showed the best result among all participants on the first checkerboard ^[25] .

Master

Although by 1934 Sokov was still considered a first-category athlete, in view of his successes, he was allowed to participate in the Masters' tournament in Dnepropetrovsk, which was a selection for the V USSR Championship. In the fight against titled rivals, the Leningrader divided 2-5 places, letting forward only the Kharkov master Vladimir Romanov . As a result of the tournament, Sokov received not only a ticket to the final of the USSR championship, but also the title of master . But in the championship finals, held in April 1934, he performed extremely unsuccessfully - having won two games (including one of the future champions Semyon Natov ), lost four and tied the rest in a draw, dividing 13-16 places with seven points with 17 participants . The only rival that Sokov managed to get ahead of was the veteran of the drafts competitions Nikolai Alexandrovich Kukuev. In the biography of Sokov, published in 1952, his game in the final of the V championship of the USSR is evaluated extremely negatively ^[26] :

The authors of the 1991 biography B.M. Gerzenson and S.S. Gersht are not so categorical in their assessment. They note that in the finals of the USSR championship, Sokov encountered an unusual style of play, built on the expectation of inaccuracies in the opponent’s game and the subsequent step-by-step development of small positional advantages due to the proven technique. Sokov, a master of sharp, combinational style, who always played to win from the very beginning, was not ready to withstand such a positional game, which the authors characterize as a “Ukrainian” drafts school ^[27] . The former chairman of the Leningrad chess and drafts section of electricians E. Pishchik took part of the blame on himself and other Sokov’s teammates in his memoirs: he was expected only to win in each game, and he tried to justify these high expectations, leaving no room for retreat ^[28] .

Despite the failure in the April All-Union Championship, the attitude towards Sokov in Leningrad remained very positive. On the May Day holidays of 1934 on Palace Square, “live checkers”, his party was played with Leo Ramm from the Leningrad Championship ^[28] . And already at the end of that year, taking into account the lessons of the spring championship, Sokov very successfully performed at the VI USSR Championship, which was held in Leningrad. They were offered rivals numerous debut developments, which immediately found their fans among the best Soviet drafts players - later they will write in a collection devoted to the V and VI championships of the country ^[29] :

Sokov did not lose a single game in this tournament; he was only half a point behind the winner, Timkovsky ^[30] , with 11.5 points out of 17 possible. As in April, he managed to beat Natov, and their party became a textbook: at the very beginning Sokov went to a bargain, which in theory was considered unprofitable, and imposed on Natova, a connoisseur of openings, an option that had not been played before, forcing him to improvise. Having given the opponent playing white to capture the center of the board, he managed to surround his position and forced him to surrender, still having seven pieces on the board ^[31] .

In May 1935, Sokov once again defended the title of champion of Leningrad ^[34] , and in the fall, they, with the second winner of the V championship of the USSR Boris Blinder, shared the first place in the demonstration tournament of the seven strongest masters of the USSR, held in Kiev. Meeting with the strongest rivals, the Leningrad man here did not suffer a single defeat ^[35] . In Kiev, he met a local amateur draftswoman and, having left after the tournament in Leningrad, continued to correspond with her, meeting during regular visits to Ukraine. Soon Vasily and El married, and in 1936 they had a son. Already three of them entered the new apartment allocated to Sokov on Mokhovaya . By this time, Sokov had become the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions Championship in drafts, having won the 1st All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions Award in January. In August of the same year, speaking out of competition, he won the championship of the Belarusian SSR, and in December 1937, also out of competition, he won nine meetings and made one draw in ten games of the Georgian championship. Together with his wife, speaking for the national team of the Arsenal plant, in 1936 he became the winner of the team tournament of the giant plants ^[36] .

At this time, Sokov already generously shared his creative developments with others, they brought him analyzes of the parties for verification. At the request of the director of the chess and drafts club, he organized a drafts school, the classes of which were attended not only by amateurs, but also by experienced drafts players, including candidates for the master and even master L.M. Ramm. Checkers coming to Leningrad from other cities also often became guests of Sokov's courses ^[37] .

USSR Champion

At the beginning of 1938, Sokov again became the winner of the personal championship of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions ^[38] , in May he played in the Leningrad-Moscow match in hundred-cell drafts (in particular, having beaten Timkovsky on the first board) ^[39] , and in August he took part in the VII USSR championship, the venue of which was Kiev. Besides him, the tournament was attended by all three champions of two previous championships - Natov, Boris Blinder and Timkovsky, and experts predicted that it was the latter two who would lead the fight with Sokov for first place ^[40] . However, the struggle did not work out - the confidently playing Sokov was two points ahead of his closest rivals ^[41] at a distance of 20 games. He tied with Natov (with whom the draw brought him in the first round, which is why both opponents played especially carefully) ^[42] and Blinder (whom he forced to fight fiercely for half a point) ^[43] , and won in the 18th game over the current champion Timkovsky, proving that he is the strongest player in the country ^[44] .

After winning the championship title, Sokov continued to actively participate in drafts tournaments. For 1939-1940, he played in the championships of Baku, the Gorky region, the Belarusian and Uzbek SSR, the championship of the Ukrainian Council of the Spartak sports community in Dnepropetrovsk and the All-Union tournament of the Spartak sports community in Ivanovo. In all tournaments, he showed excellent results, only once losing the game - this happened at the Belorussian championship, where the champion, who won the tournament with a total victory of 9 points out of 11, was forced to surrender the game to young Veniamin Gorodetsky (future grandmaster). In the newspaper " 64 " on this occasion came out material under the sensational heading "Defeat Sokova" ^[45] . Moreover, even this only defeat Sokov suffered, having received a won position in the course of the meeting ^[46] .

Sokov did not forget about chess, in which he received the first category as early as 1934, and later the title of candidate for master (he was also predicted to receive the title of master in addition to the checker ^[48] . Grandmaster Grigory Levenfish , who often met with him both at the checkerboard and at the chessboard (for these friendly matches, a regulation was even worked out - four games in checkers and then in chess), wrote ^[49] :

Sokov was also highly active in popularizing checkers. He gave lectures in Leningrad, Moscow, the capitals of the Union republics and major cities - Gorky, Ivanovo, Dnepropetrovsk. Everywhere he generously shared theoretical ideas, helped in the analysis of games and variations. Moscow masters, accustomed to the secrecy of the pre-revolutionary champion S. A. Vorontsov , who had kept his secrets until the last days of his life, were struck by Sokov’s knowledge and openness. In many cities of the USSR, draftsmen after his visits left notebooks with original Sokov analyzes, which were later used in tournaments ^[50] . The champion took an active part in organizing the drafts life in Leningrad, leading the drafts qualification commission of the chess-drafts section of the trade unions, analyzing batches of candidates for raising the rank, taking part in the work of the city section under the committee on physical education and sports ^[45] . Sokov’s interest in the hundred-cell drafts, which remained a novelty for the USSR in those years, didn’t diminish: in 1939 he shared 1-2 places in the Leningrad championship with Lev Ramm, he welcomed the publication of the same year’s manual on the hundred-cell drafts of V. Gilyarov - the first in the Soviet Union ^[51] . In the Leningrad Championship on the big board, Sokov won 7 out of 11 games and tied three times - including with Ramm, who, according to analysts from the 64 newspaper, had a simple win in this game. Sokov suffered his only defeat in the third round from M. Markovich ^[39] .

In total, from 1930 to 1941, Sokov played in 42 tournaments in Russian and international drafts, winning 32 of them (including ten times becoming the champion of Leningrad). Of the 499 games held, he won 281, tied 204 times, and only 14 (or 2.8% of the total) lost ^[51] . Since 1935, Sokov’s results are even more impressive: in 24 tournaments played, there are 20 clean first places and four divided 1-2 places ^[52] . In the early 2000s, the professional base of Russian drafts parties included 154 Sokov tournament games of theoretical importance; of these games, the Leningrad master won 95, lost 8 and tied 51 ^[51] .

Vasily Sokov's results in personal and team tournaments in Russian drafts, 1930-1941

The results are presented according to the book of V. V. Reshetnikov and G. P. Trotsky “Vasily Sokov” (M., 1985) ^[53] . Prizes in demonstration and qualification tournaments, as well as in competitions where Sokov performed out of competition, are not highlighted in color.

The last years of life

In late spring 1941, a daughter was born in the Sokov family, who was named Marina - this was already the fourth child of Vasily and Eli. Elya left the maternity hospital on June 5 ^[54] . On June 21, Vasily gave the last session of the simultaneous game in the chess-checker club of the Tauride Garden, and the next day the Great Patriotic War began ^[55] . Sokov was given a deferment from conscription due to the situation with his family, but nevertheless, on August 6, he left for the army ^[54] . Drafted by the Dzerzhinsky RVC , arrived at the unit (Military Forwarding Station of PRB 36 WHSD) on August 7 ^[56] .

Vasily Sokov participated in battles at the Red Bor , at Sinyavinsky swamps , at the Neva Dubrovka ^[55] . In 1942, he was part of the reconnaissance ski unit ^[57] . At this time, his family remained in the besieged Leningrad . In May 1942, the youngest sister, Vasily Yulia, died of starvation, and in March 1943, the youngest daughter, Marina ^[54] . On the same days, part of Sokov, who lost half the composition of the killed and wounded, was sent to Leningrad for reformation, and he was temporarily assigned to the fire department of the headquarters of the Leningrad Front to continue his service. Sokov’s duties at the new duty station included extinguishing fires, combating incendiary bombs and watch at the observation post at the Winter Palace ^[55] .

In his spare time on duty, Sokov was allowed to conduct sessions of simultaneous playing checkers and chess and lectures in hospitals ^[58] . When the 17th city chess championship was organized in besieged Leningrad, despite the bombing and deprivation, Sokov was invited to participate in it. Sometimes he spent his games after sleepless nights - for example, on the night before the game with tournament leader F. I. Sklyarov (head physician of a city polyclinic) he put out eight incendiary bombs. However, despite the difficulties, Sokov managed to take the second place out of 11 participants in the Leningrad Championship, leaving only Sklyarov ahead ^[59] .

In January 1944, the 900-day blockade of Leningrad was broken . The Soviet troops, which went on the offensive, drove the Germans away from the city, and young soldiers of the Leningrad garrison, including Vasily Sokov, were mobilized to strengthen them. According to the biography of 1985, he again went to the front on February 6 ^[58] (according to archival data, the Red Army soldier Vasily Sokov arrived at the military unit of the economic department of the headquarters of the Leningrad Front on February 4 and left on February 7 ^[60] ).

As part of the 189th Infantry Division ^[61] , the Sokov battalion participated in battles in the Narva direction. In one of these battles, for the village of Putki (Estonian SSR, Viru County ^[61] ), Red Army soldier Sokov was killed by a shell fragment ^[62] - this happened on March 3, 1944 ^[63] .

Vasily Aleksandrovich Sokov was buried in a fraternal cemetery in Estonia (near the village of Sinimäe , Ida-Virumaa ), where a monument was erected to him ^[64] . According to the “Book of Memory” published in 1996, the burial site is the village of Putki ^[65] .

The first post-war championship of the USSR, held in 1945, was dedicated to the memory of Sokov ^[63] , his name was given to the chess and drafts club of Narva ^[66] . Subsequently, three biographies of Sokov were published in the USSR - in 1952, 1985, and 1991, including selected parts, sketches, and analysis of theoretical heritage ^{[51] [66]} . In-person tournaments (in particular, which became a regular tournament in Narva ^[67] ) and correspondence competitions (one of them, organized by the commission of correspondence tournaments of Leningrad, headed by V. Ya. Baykov, were also held many times ^[68] ) were dedicated to Sokov’s memory. Currently, his memory is devoted to the final stage of the World Cup in drafts-64 ^[69] .

Sokov’s playing style was so highly valued that many years after his death, among Russian drafts players, they were considered an extremely flattering recall of the word “plays Sokowski” ^[70] . The biographers of Vasily Sokov celebrate his love of improvisation and creativity during the checkers game. In particular, his words are cited from an article in the final bulletin of the VII USSR championship: “Each party must be played , each party must be created” (author's emphasis) ^[71] . Sokov’s game is called “sparkling” ^[51] . Rivals were offered a competition in fantasy, a deep miscalculation of options; From Sokov’s point of view, the center of gravity of the struggle in the party did not fall to the debut, but to the middlegame and endgame, which made it easier for him to move away from the accepted opening canons, if such a withdrawal later promised a difficult, tactical-rich position ^[72] . In particular, he willingly created such positions if he knew that the opponent preferred a calm, clear game ^[73] . Boris Feldman points out that improvisation could start from the very first moves in the game, confounding the opponents sophisticated in theory - for example, in one of the games with Sokov, Igor Timkovsky thought for 50 minutes after the opponent’s third move ^[51] . The result of this ability to make an opponent “think independently” was the transience of many of Sokov's games, which ended in his victory even before move 20 ^[74] . On the other hand, the love of exacerbating the position sometimes led to the fact that Sokov himself was not able to see the best option - occasionally this led to defeats (an example is the game with Gorodetsky mentioned above), but more often to lost wins ^[75] .

Despite Sokov’s love for improvisation, the characterization of his style as purely improvisational and combination would be incorrect and one-sided: if necessary, he could play an extremely correct, thought-out positional game, manifesting himself not only as a tactician, but also as a strategist ^[76] . He not only did not neglect the opening preparation, but also devoted more time to it than other drafts players. His credo in relation to theory is reflected in another quote: “All theoretical options are divided into two groups: those in which errors have already been detected, and those in which they have not yet been identified.” According to close friends, Sokov assigned 260 days a year to work on the theory, leaving a hundred to participate in tournaments ^[51] . He developed whole new game systems, in contrast to the traditional ones, providing asymmetric flank development ^[77] . The next section provides a number of theoretical developments in the history of Russian drafts related to the name of Sokov.

Vasily Sokov's debut repertoire was extremely wide, he used all the known principles in the games, introducing something new into each, which made it impossible to purposefully prepare for the game against him (for comparison, the first USSR champion Medkov for white always started only with move 1.c3 -d4, not recognizing any other options) ^[78] . It is known that Sokov was preparing to print a collection on the theory of checker openings, but out of 12 notebooks with his drafts only one survived - with options for the city ​​party ^[79] . Together with Lev Ramm and Dmitry Korshunov, he made an important contribution to the theoretical development of the opening, known as the Leningrad defense and built on the idea of ​​giving the center to white, then conducting an environment from the flanks ^[80] . The same three drafts players also developed the Novo-Leningrad defense based on a similar idea, further improved by Sokov in 1938 ^[81] . One of the more actively studied by him began (first used by him at the age of 19 at the team championship of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions ^[82] ) is named in his honor - Sokov's game (or defense) :

1.c3-d4 f6-g5 2.b2-c3 e7-f6 !?

Sokov himself considered three sequels for the whites, which he analyzed for both white and black, up to 10-18 moves; of the continuations, he considered the third strongest for White, but in the case of an inaccurate game, he pointed to a number of strong continuations for Black with equal play or even advantage ^[83] :

• Option 1. 3.c3-b4 d6-c5 4.b4-a5
• Option 2. 3.g3-f4 d8-e7 4.c1-b2
• Option 3. g3-h4!

In practice, Sokov achieved significant success in this beginning, which L. Rubinstein (author of the 1952 biography) associates with the effect of surprise: move 2. ... e7-f6, which was traditionally regarded as an unsuccessful, “clogging” black flank, provoked the opponent to try find an immediate rebuttal, which took a lot of time and put the player in a difficult position by the middle of the game ^[84] .

For a long time, Sokov's favorite first move for White was 1.a3-b4, which historically was considered either simply bad or even knowingly losing. Back in 1926, Vyacheslav Lysenko wrote that, although the latter opinion was exaggerated and White achieved a draw at such a start, it was difficult for them in the middle of the game. However, thanks to Sokov, this debut, currently known as the game of Bodyansky , was generally rehabilitated ^[85] . An example of the successful realization of White’s potential at the beginning of Bodyansky is Sokov’s game against another Leningrad draftsman Dmitry Korshunov in the VI USSR championship.

Sokov managed to rehabilitate several less popular options:

• In the city party after 1.c3-d4 d6-c5 2.b2-c3 f6-g5 3.c3-b4 g5-h4 4.b4: d6 e7: c5 5.g3-f4 d8-e7 6.a1-b2 c7 -d6 7.b2-c3 b6-a5 8.d4: b6 a7: c5 a position was formed on the board that was considered uncomfortable for white. Sokov managed to prove the practicality of the seemingly weak move 9.h2-g3 . Applying it for the first time in 1931 in the correspondence party, in 1940 he included it in his lecture in Moscow, and since then this move has been used in practice by other drafts players ^[89] .

• In the city party, Sokov also managed to rehabilitate one of the options for blacks. After 1.c3-d4 d6-c5 2.b2-c3 f6-g5 3.c3-b4 g7-f6 4.b4: d6 e: c5 5.g3-h4 f6-e5 6.h4: f6 e5: g7 batch comes to a position that has long been assessed as more advantageous for white. Sokov came up with a new development system for Black: 7.h2-g3 h6-g5! 8.a1-b2 g5-h4 9.b2-c3 g7-f6 10.g3-f4 h8-g7 with very good counterplay. He considered the game equal after option 8.g3-h4 g7-f6 9.a1-b2 f6-e5 10.d4: f6 g5: e7 ^[91]
• Sokov managed to strengthen the game for Black in the so-called disastrous beginning : after moves 1.c3-d4 f6-e5 2. d4: f6 g7: e5 3. a3-b4 he introduced the move 3. ... e-f6 in recent years. According to L. M. Ramm, this move impedes White surrounded by Black’s position, and although at the same time he somewhat overloads the left flank of Blacks, this drawback is not critical. Sokov himself applied this move in several games of the Leningrad Championship of 1941, and the next time this option was successfully revived already in 1950 by Moscow draftsman V.N. Romanov, who won two victories with his help ^[92]
• In the opening, the count-corner , where Black was supposed to get a weak game, Sokov was able to equalize their chances and force White to force a draw: 1.c3-d4 b6-a5 2.d4-c5 d6: b4 3.a3: c5 f6- g5 4.b2-c3 g7-f6 5.c3-d4 g5-h4 6.g3-f4 f6-g5 7.c5-b6 a7: c5 8.d4: b6 a5-b4 9.b6-a7 b4-a3 10 .f4-e5 e7-d6 11.e3-f4 g5: e3 12.d2: f4 f8-e7 13.f2-g3 h4: f2 14.g1: e3 h8-g7 15.h2-g3 g7-f6 16.e5 : g7 h6: f8 17.a1-b2 e7-f6 18.b2-c3 f8-g7 19.g3-h4 f6-e5 20.f4-g5 e5-f4 ^[93]

Among other debut novelties developed by Sokov:

• The development system of White’s left flank in Filippov’s game : 1.e3-d4 d6-c5 2. f2-e3 f6-g5 3. g1-f2 ^[94] (a possible refutation is 2. ... c7-d6 3.c3-b4 f6- g5! - was proposed in 1960 by the analyst P. P. Mazurk in the journal “Checkers” ^[95] )
• The new system in wagering (first applied in 1934): 1.c3-d4 d6-c5 2. g3-h4 c7-d6 3. h2-g3 ^[94]
• Another new system in wagering, which L. Ramm calls the “Sokov system”: 1.c3-d4 d6-c5 2. b2-c3 c7-d6 3. g3-f4 ^[96] . As an option - 3.c3-b4 b6-a5 4.d4: b6 a5: c7 5. e3-d4 , giving Black the center that White would later cover from the flanks ^[97]
• White exchange in the reverse city game : 1.c3-b4 f6-e5 2.e3-f4 g7-f6 3.b4-a5 f6-g5 4. g3-h4 g5: e3 5.f2: f6 e7: g5 6.h4 : f6 f8-g7 7.h2-g3 g7: e5 8.g3-h4 in order to surround the center occupied by blacks from the flanks ^[98]
• Black's early capture of the center in a jamb : 1.c3-b4 f6-g5 2.g3-f4 d6-e5 3.f4: d6 c7: e5 (as an option - a similar exchange after intermediate moves 2. ... g7-f6 3.b2- c3) ^[97]
• Another black system in the jamb, in which, as Sokov proved, Black gets an equivalent position: 1.c3-b4 f6-g5 2.g3-f4 g5-f6 3.b2-c3 d6-c5! 4.b4: d6 e7: c5 ^[97]
• The radical development of the pattern of development of black at the intersection : 1.c3-d4 d6-e5 2.b2-c3 e7-d6 3.e3-f4 b6-c5 4.d4: b6 c7: a5 ^[97]
• The unusual black system in Cowlen’s game (demonstrated in the 1934 masters tournament): 1.g3-f4 f6-e5 2.h2-g3 b6-c5 3.c3-b4 a7-b6 4.b4-a5 b8-a7 ^[97]

Sokov was able to theoretically substantiate and reinforce his personal tournament experience and the random finds made before him by other drafts players. Black's move 3. ... f8-e7 at the intersection is an example. Despite the fact that it was still used by Arkady Ovodov in the 1900 game, later this game, although it ended in a black victory, included a miscalculation on their part already on the fifth move, which means the absence of a well-thought-out analysis that would be behind this move: 4 .a1-b2 b6-c5 5.d4: b6 a7: c5? 6.c3-b4 f6-g5 7.f2-e3? e7-f6! 8.g3-h4 e5: g3 9.h2: f4? f6-e5! 10.h4: b6 c7: a1. White resigned ^[99] .

After 30 years, Sokov and Dmitry Korshunov, setting out to verify the correctness of move 3. ... f8-e7 for Black at the intersection, played a series of games, including by correspondence, which provided a better analysis. Having proved the practical value of this move, Sokov later often used it in the game, including at the 1934 Masters tournament in Dnepropetrovsk against I. Gordon ^[71] .

Tasks

Sokov’s first draft task was published in 1928 in the pioneer newspaper Lenin Sparks (see The Beginning of the Drafts Career ) . Subsequently, six more problems of his authorship appeared in the same newspaper. Five problems of Sokov were published in the journal Rezets in 1929, and from 1930 to 1934 four more ^{[100] appeared} in Chess and Drafts in a Work Club . One of Sokov’s tasks received the third prize at the Lenin Sparks competition. In the response to it, it was indicated that of the competitive entries for locking a simple one on the a7 field, she is the best ^[101] .

On the whole, the work of Sokov as a drafts composer showed a rather early transition from tasks to sketches, and since 1935 he did not publish any more drafts tasks. In the biography of Sokov, published in 1952, L. A. Rubinstein explained this transition by the fact that Sokov, as a drafts practitioner, the genre of the task seemed divorced from the reality of the drafts party between equal rivals ^[100] . At the same time, draftsman Nikolai Pustynnikov , who knew Sokov closely, recalled that he never completely refused to write drafts and, seeing their impracticality, at the same time appreciated their potential for developing creative imagination. According to Pustynnikov, theoretical work distracted mainly from Sokov’s tasks, but even in 1939, already being the champion of the USSR, he worked on problems in the new for the USSR stockcell drafts ^[102] . One of Sokov’s tasks this year won the fifth prize at the “ 64 ” newspaper competition, while the other two were kept by Pustynnikov and were first published only at the end of 1964 in his column in the journal “Checkers” ^[103] .

Etudes

Sokov's drafts sketches began to appear in children's newspapers in 1929. In particular, they were published in Lenin Sparks and The Young Proletariat . His sketches appeared in the “adult” Leningrad press, including Rezets, and in all of them there were 12 published in 1929. The first sketches of Sokov were often uncomplicated and even univariate (there were occasionally mistakes in the analysis), and later he sometimes reworked them, complicating and publishing them as new independent works. One example is a study published in The Young Proletariat in 1929, and in a revised form appeared in the 64 newspaper 12 years later ^[104] .

As Sokov improved his composer's skills, a general tendency was visible in his sketches - there were almost no forced endings, Black usually had aggressive counterplay, which brought his sketches closer to the endings of real games ^[105] . In 1932, Sokov’s study, based on the skillful use of “quiet” first moves, took second place in the All-Union competition. Arbitrator of the competition N. A. Kukuev commented on the decision as follows: “The young talented author managed to show in one sketch a whole bunch of different interesting opening ideas” ^[106] .

In the all-Union competitions of 1933 and 1934, Sokov's studies again took second places (both times he lost the first prize to D.M. Kalinsky , leaving B.M. Blinder in third place), and his other works in these competitions received commendable reviews. Finally, in 1935, two Sokov etudes received first and fourth prizes at the All-Union competition, respectively. Later, in 1940, Sokov said that the idea of ​​a winning etude was born from him with an additional analysis of an earlier work, during which he managed to find a more interesting and rich continuation than what was originally proposed. In this work both white and black play sharply ^[109] .

In 1937 and 1938 in all-Union competitions, Sokov's studies were also awarded first places. The sketch-winner of 1938 (this year Sokov also became the champion of the USSR) was later included in Kukuev's book “125 Drafts Etudes” ^[112] . The idea of ​​this minimalistic composition arose in the analysis of the party V. Baykov - A. Verete. The analysis notes that the seemingly obvious move 1.e1-f2 leads to a loss of pace and ultimately to a draw, therefore White needs to force the game ^[113] .

One of the last published sketches of Sokov, which he considered one of the peaks of his composer's work, appeared in the newspaper “64” just before the war. Sokov dedicated it to the memory of another prominent Russian draftsman - Alexander Shoshin ^[115] .

Sokov's sketchy thinking extended not only to checkers, but also to chess. Thus, analyzing the games of the 12th All-Union Chess Championship in the autumn of 1940, he proposed in the newspaper "64" an original "sketchy" way to win for the white in the game of Petrov - Panov . A sketch of his own composition participated in the competition of the newspaper “64” and was awarded the 3rd honorary review ^[117] .

A complete compilation of all of Sokov’s famous drafts sketches (including those never before published, found in his personal notebook, which was kept by the champion’s wife) was included in his biography published in 1985 ^[118] . Although in general this large-scale work received positive reviews, the problemologist A. Bakumets found errors in the analysis of 15 studies, calling the authors of the book Reshetnikov and Trotsky amateurs. The analysis of studies was incomplete in the next biography of Sokov, which was released in 1991, and in two of them, as in the book of Reshetnikov and Trotsky, incorrect decisions were generally given. In the newspaper “Evening Omsk” a competition was announced to find the right solutions to these studies, which in one of the cases was extremely difficult and took quite a long time ^[66] . By that time, it was accidentally revealed that the reason for the insufficiently qualitative analysis in the 1985 book was also a problem with time. As it turned out, the authors of the book only two weeks before putting it into the set were able to transfer a selection of sketches to the Leningrad master Igor Alekseev for analysis and preparation for printing; despite all his efforts, two weeks of intensive work was not enough to fully process more than two hundred tasks ^[119] . Already at the beginning of the new century, the grandmasters V. A. Pesotsky and E. A. Stepanov , using the Master program, the champion of Russia in drafts among computer programs, found refinements or enhancements to several more Sokov's studies ^{[66] [120]} .

• Gerzenson B.M. , Gerst S.S.Magic of Russian drafts. - L .: Lenizdat, 1991 .-- 176 p.
• Reshetnikov V.V. , Trotsky G.P. Vasily Sokov. - M .: Physical education and sport, 1985. - 208 p.
• Rubinstein L.A. Vasily Sokov. - M .: Physical education and sport, 1952. - 128 p.
• Sidlin A. Sokov pages // How to learn to play checkers. - M .: Physical education and sport, 1951. - S. 165-175.