C.B. van den Berg (1924-1971) died in the Netherlands at the age of 47. He was Dutch CC champion in 1943. Jose Joaqin Araiza (1900-1971) died in Mexico at the age of 71. He was Mexican champion in 1957. GM Alexander Zaitsev (1935-1971) died of thrombosis after having a leg lengthened. He was only 36.
In 1971, the first Louis D. Statham (aka Lone Pine) tournament was open to all USCF Masters and Experts and was won by Larry Evans. Second place was a four-way tie among Svetozar Gligoric, James Tarjan, William Martz and Walter Browne. In August, Browne and Evans were US Open co-champions.
The really big news of the year began in June when Bobby Fischer soundly thrashed Mark Taimanov 6-0 in the Candidates match in Vancouver. When Taimanov returned home he was banned from playing outside the country for several years and was stripped of his Honored Master of Sport title. He was a concert pianist and was not allowed to give any more performances. He was also banned from writing any articles and was deprived of his monthly stipend.
Then in July, Fischer beat Bent Larsen in Denver with the score of 6-0. That was followed in October by a +5 -1 =3 trouncing of Petrosian in Buenos Aires. Besides his loss to Fischer, Petrosian also lost his job as editor of 64 chess magazine.
Nobody remembers it, but in 1971, I played in a tournament in Chicago and was approached by a gentleman who introduced himself as Steve Tennant who informed me that he had just received his assignment to a finals section of Chess Review’s 1969 Golden Knights correspondence tournament and I was one of his opponents.
Oddly, Chicago players don’t remember much about the early chess career of Steven R. Tennant, DDS (1948-2017) and he seems to have just mysteriously appeared with a Master’s rating sometime around 1970.
Tennant claimed that he had a photographic memory and most people believed him because he could recall and play over games that were decades old. He was also a big trivia fan and liked to challenge others on trivia subjects.
His USCF rating peaked at about 2380 and was an FIDE Master. In correspondence play he held Master titles with both the USCF and ICCF. His peak years were in the 1970s and 1980s and during that time he played in about every major national tournament with his best showing being second in one National Open and in 1977 he won the Illinois Open Championship to become State champion.
Tennant won the 1977 US Absolute Correspondence Championship and placed highly in others as well as several several Golden Knights, including second place in the 1974 event. In 1979 he was ranked the number 2 in correspondence player in the US. An outstanding blitz player, he was also a good blindfold player. Tennant also competed in backgammon tournaments and was a competitive bridge player.
They say Tennant had a personality that could be abrasive at times and as a result he was involved in a few controversies and had feuds with several organizations as well as governmental agencies.
Shortly after being awarded the International Correspondence Master title Tennant got into a dispute with an opponent over an if move Tennant had sent. Ultimately the ICCF ruled against him. As a result, he refused to accept the ruling or continue the game which resulted in his being forfeited and banned for life from ICCF play.
Few of Tennant’s games are available because most of his original game scores were lost. Here is my game against him from the 1969 Golden Knight finals; it was started in 1971 and finished in June of 1972.
On the February 1972 Chess Review rating list Tennant was the number 7 ranked correspondence player in the United States, classed as an Air Mail Postalite with a 1796 rating. Chess Review titles were: Postal Master (none on the 1972 list), Postal Master Candidate (4 players), Air Mail Postalite (23 players) and First Class Postalite (57 players). I was way down the list in Class A with a 1278 rating.
At the time I thought the ending was drawn, but was totally wrong. Tennant was winning, but then he made a ghastly recording error on his 31st move. After he got my reply, he politely requested that I send him a photocopy of his postcard in order to verify that he had actually played 31.a5. He added that if he had played 31.a5 he had no choice but to resign.
After some consideration I decided that Tennant had far more to lose than I had to gain and so along with a photocopy of his postcard, I offered a draw. He replied thanking me for my “gentlemanly offer” which he accepted.
The opening: In the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez (4.Bxc6), which is not considered white's most ambitious, white damages black's P-structure and gives himself a long-term plan of playing d4, ...exd4, and Qxd4, followed by exchanging all the pieces and winning the pure P ending. Black has good compensation, however, in the form of the B pair.
At the Havana Olympiad in 1966, Bobby Fischer surprised both Lajos Portisch and Svetozar Gligoric with the Exchange Variation and when he did so it set off a storm of Ruy Lopez Exchange Variations being played for several years afterwards. When Fischer played it he revived the variation Emanuel Lasker used to defeat Alekhine and Capablanca at St. Petersburg, 1914, but the variation eventually fell into disuse because black eventually found ways to equalize.
Dr. Steven Tennant - Tartajubow
Result: 1/2-1/2
Site: Golden Knights Postal
Date: 1971
Ruy Lopez: Exchange Variation
Result: 1/2-1/2
Site: Golden Knights Postal
Date: 1971
Ruy Lopez: Exchange Variation
[...] 1.e4 e5 2.♘f3 ♘c6 3.♗b5 a6 4.♗xc6 dxc6 Fischer noted that this recapture is so automatic that most annotators fail to comment on it.
28.♔b6 ♔c8 29.a4 Even better was 29.g4 and black quickly runs out of moves and eventually the K would have to give way. 29...h5 30.h4 gxh4 31.a5 The recording error. Undoubtedly Tennant forgot that he had not yet played g3xh4.
4...bxc6 5.d4 exd4 6.♕xd4 and Fischer said white maintains an enduring initiative.
5.O-O This gets an ! from Fischer who said it causes more problems for black than the immediate 5.d4, adding the Nimzovich is once more proved right that the threat is stronger than the execution. This move was favored by Lasker and Ossip Bernstein and at the time the Dutch master Johan Barendregt. Remember, it was Barendregt who was attacked by Raymond Weinstein while the later was studying psychology in Holland. Weinstein was deported and subsequently murdered his elderly roommate at a halfway house in New York. 5...f6 Gligoric stated that this position had not been seen in modern GM play, and thnaks to Fischer it was necessay to go back to the 1800s to find alternatives, but 5...f6 is probably the best way to defend the e-Pawn. 6.d4 ♗g4 Best according to Fischer. Earlier Lajos Portisch had unsuccessfully tried 6...exd4. 7.dxe5 Against Gligoric, Fischer played a gambit line beginning with 7.c3. It was a move Gligoric had mentioned in a note to a game he had played in 1965. 7...♕xd1 8.♖xd1 ♗xf3 Better than 8...exf4 that Smyslov played against Fischer at Monaco 1967. 9.gxf3 fxe5 10.♗e3 These moves were given by Fischer as the best. He comments that now the maneuver Nd2-c4 allows white to keep up the pressure. 10...♗d6
10...♘e7 11.f4 would, according to Fischer, allow white to keep the initiative.
11.♘d2 ♘h6 Not good, but apparently we were both under the impression that the open g-file after 12. Bxh6 was worth more to black than it is.
11...♘e7 12.♘c4 O-O-O 13.♖d3 b5 14.♘a5 ♗b4 15.♘b3 as in Fischer, R-Rubinetti,J/ Buenos Aires 1970. The position is equal but black soon blundered and lost.
11...♘f6 12.♘c4 O-O-O 13.♖d3 ♖he8 is equal Rodriguez Garcia,M (2166)-Andreu Sin, R (2075)/Balaguer 2003.
12.♘c4
12.♗xh6 gxh6 13.♘c4 ♖g8 14.♔f1 O-O-O 15.♖d3 ♖g6 16.♖ad1 Threatening 17.Nxe5 16...♖e6 and white is better.
12...♘f7 13.f4 exf4 14.♘xd6 cxd6 15.♗xf4 O-O-O 16.♔g2 g5 17.♗g3 ♖he8 18.♖e1 d5 19.exd5 ♖xe1 20.♖xe1 ♖xd5 21.♖e7 ♖d7 22.♖xd7 ♔xd7 23.♔f3 Centralizing the K. 23...♔e6 24.♔e4 ♘h6 25.♔d4 ♘f5 26.♔c5 ♘xg3 27.fxg3 Here I didn't realize that the correct procedure would have been for me to go after the K-side Ps. Simply counting moves would have revealed the correct plan. Black can queen in 10 moves; white in 9 moves. Therefore best was 27...Kf4 27...♔d7 After this black is quite lost.
27...♔f5 28.♔b6 ♔g4 29.♔xb7 ♔h3 30.♔xc6 g4 31.c4 ♔xh2 32.♔b7 ♔xg3 33.c5 ♔h4
33...♔f3 loses. 34.c6 g3 35.c7 g2 36.c8=♕ g1=♕ 37.♕f5 ♔e2 38.♕c2 ♔f3 39.♕xh7 ♕d4 40.♕c2 ♕d7 41.♔xa6 and wins
34.c6 g3 35.c7 g2 36.c8=♕ g1=♕ should be a draw.
31.gxh4 After this the win takes some time, but it's a sure thing. Just one example.. 31...♔b8 32.♔c5 ♔c7 33.a5 ♔d7 34.♔d4 ♔d6 35.♔e4 ♔e6 36.♔f4 ♔f6 37.c3 At some point black si going to run out of P moves and the K will have to give way. 37...c5 38.c4 and wins
31...hxg3 Here Tennant offered to resign as soon as he received verification of this move, but I offered a draw which he accepted.
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