Career
Abram Yakovlevich Model was born in Daugavpils, Latvia. Then he lived in Saint St. Petersburg (Petrograd, Leningrad). He shared third place in the 1927 Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Chess Championship.
He was an early coach of Mikhail Botvinnik.
He anonymously challenged Leningrad"s top players, including Ilyin-Genevsky, Botvinnik, Ragozin, Rokhlin and Leonid Kubbel, to a telephone simultaneous exhibition as "Master X", quickly gaining the upper hand in most games, and scoring seven wins and three draws.
