Ruy López de Segura Ruy López de Segura Rodrigo (Ruy) López de Segura (c. 1530 – c. 1580) was a Spanish priest and later bishop in Segura whose 1561 book "Libro de la invención liberal y arte del juego del Axedrez" was one of the first definitive books about modern chess in Europe, preceded only by Pedro Damiano's 1512 book, Luis Ramírez de Lucena's 1497 book (the oldest surviving printed book on chess), and the Göttingen manuscript (authorship and exact date of the manuscript are unknown). He was born in Zafra near Badajoz, and he studied and lived in Salamanca. In 1560 he won
Ruy Lopez (also called the Flohr–Zaitsev Variation) was advocated by Igor Zaitsev, who was one of Karpov's trainers for many years. A Karpov favourite, the Zaitsev remains one of the most important variations of the Ruy Lopez. With 9...Bb7 Black prepares to put more pressure on e4 after 10.d4 Re8 11.Nbd2 Bf8 when play can become very sharp and tactical. One drawback of this line is that White can force Black to choose a different defence or allow a draw by repetition of position with 11.Ng5 Rf8 12.Nf3. Karpov tried 9...Nd7 several times in the 1990 World Championship match, but Kasparov achieved