Henrique Mecking
Mecking in 1978 | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | Henrique Costa Mecking 23 January 1952 Santa Cruz do Sul, Brazil |
| Chess career | |
| Country | Brazil |
| Title | Grandmaster (1972) |
| FIDE rating | 2553 (March 2026) |
| Peak rating | 2635 (January 1977) |
| Peak ranking | No. 3 (January 1978) |
Henrique Costa Mecking (born 23 January 1952), also known as Mequinho, is a Brazilian chess grandmaster, and was one of the leading players in the world in the 1970s. He was a chess prodigy, drawing comparisons to Bobby Fischer, although he did not achieve the International Grandmaster title until 1972. He won the Interzonals of Petropolis 1973 and Manila 1976. His highest FIDE rating is 2635, achieved in 1977, when he was ranked number four in the world. He became the third-ranked player in the world in 1978, behind only World Champion Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi.
He is the first Brazilian to become a grandmaster. Despite winning his first national championship at the age of 13, he played in very few tournaments. He won at Vršac in 1971 and finished third with Robert Byrne (after the co-winners Karpov and Korchnoi) at Hastings in 1971–72. In 1975, he twice shared second place behind Ljubomir Ljubojević, firstly at Las Palmas with Ulf Andersson and Mikhail Tal, and then at Manila with Lev Polugaevsky, Bent Larsen and Helmut Pfleger.
He was considered a contender for the World Championship in the mid-1970s; however, his chess career was interrupted by a serious illness (myasthenia gravis).
Mecking played for Brazil in the Chess Olympiads of 1968, 1974, 2002 and 2004.