Benjamin Blumenfeld

Benjamin Blumenfeld (24 May 1884, Vilkaviškis – 5 March 1947, Moscow) was a Russian chess master.[1]

Benjamin Blumenfeld
Бениамин Мордхелевич Блюменфельд
Born	(1884-05-24)May 24, 1884 Vilkaviškis, Russian Empire
Died	March 5, 1947(1947-03-05) (aged 62) Moscow, USSR
Citizenship	USSR
Occupation	chess player
Known for	Blumenfeld Gambit

He was born in Vilkaviškis, in the Suwałki Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Lithuania). In 1905/06 he tied for second/third with Akiba Rubinstein, behind Gersz Salwe, in St. Petersburg (the fourth Russian championship). In 1907 he tied for second/third with Georg Marco, behind Mikhail Chigorin, in Moscow.[1]

In 1920 he took eighth in Moscow (Russian Chess Olympiad, 1st URS-ch). The event was won by Alexander Alekhine. In 1925 he tied for second/third with Boris Verlinsky, behind Aleksandr Sergeyev, in the Moscow championship.[1]

He invented the Blumenfeld Gambit (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nf3 b5).[1]

In 1945 Blumenfeld defended PhD thesis on psychology, based on cognition in chess.[1] At the time, it was one of the very first attempts to do research into chess psychology.