Born in
Chernihiv, he learned how to play at the age of 13. Savon competed in the
Soviet championship eleven times, from 1961 (at age 21) to the last championship in 1991. His best result was his first place in the 1971 championship with an undefeated 15/21. Only an
international master, he finished 1.5 points ahead of former world champions
Mikhail Tal and
Vasily Smyslov. Future world champion
Anatoly Karpov finished another half point back. Taimanov and Bernard Cafferty, in their book on the Soviet championships, described Savon's win "the least plausible result for decades". He did, however, achieve other good results in international competition; at
Debrecen in 1970 (1st= with
Bilek), at
Sukhumi 1972 (2nd after Tal), at
Vilnius 1975 (1st=), at
Portorož 1977 (2nd= with
Hort, after Larsen) and at
Kyiv 1978 (2nd=).
FIDE awarded Savon the International Master title in 1967, and the
International Grandmaster title in 1973. In the latter year, he finished eighth out of 18 at the
Petropolis Interzonal. He shared the title of
Ukrainian Champion with
Gennady Kuzmin in 1969. In 1980 while at a chess tournament at Dnepropetrovsk, Savon suffered a serious head injury. It has led to a significant decline in his playing strength. He died in
Kharkiv at the age of 65. ==Notable games==