On June 11th, Finnish Champion (1974 and 1976) IM Pertii Poutianen (1952-1978) died in Helsinki at the age of 25. Finally, on December 12th, IM Ilya Kan died in Russia at the age of 69.
The reclusive Bobby Fischer was having his woes in 1978. He filed a $3.2 million lawsuit against the publishers of an article that was critical of the Worldwide Church of God. He claimed the writers published his conversations with them without his consent. He then accused the church of reneging on their promise to finance his lawsuit.
After winning the World Championship in Iceland, Fischer, who had become interested in the church's radio evangelism programs in the early 1960's and became a financial contributor, moved into a church owned apartment in Pasadena. The 34‐year‐old Fischer seldom left his apartment and then mostly at night.
Fischer had become involved in the legal dispute the previous year when two former Ambassador College students (a husband and wife team) claimed that Fischer had telephoned them and said he had heard that they and other dissident church members were planning to publish a report critical of the church and the Armstrong's (Garner Ted and his father, Herbert W.).
The two students claimed that over the next two months they met with Fischer and he criticized what he described as high living by church officials and complained that the Armstrong's teaching had made church members lose control of their minds and become what he called zombies.
Subsequently, a student group published a 90‐page report on the church and college that contained not only a long, purported interview with Fischer and his criticism of the church, but several articles accusing Garner Ted of sexual misconduct with the college co-eds. The report was also critical of the life style of key church executives who lived in expensive homes and flew in private jets. Questions were also raised about how the church was spending the $60 million in annual contributions it received. That's about $257 million in today's dollars.
In any case, Fischer filed his lawsuit against the student group, claiming that his privacy was invaded because he had not consented to publication of what he said.
Things got even murkier. The original interviewers said Fischer had, before the publication of the report, asked him not to publish his remarks, but at the time of the interview Fischer knew they were going to be published. Further, when Fischer made his request not to publish his comments the report was already being printed.
Then in another twist, after the report was published a woman who was present when some of Fischer's remarks were tape recorded claimed that he had come to her apartment, assaulted her and made her sign a statement that his remarks were not meant to be published. As a result, a warrant was issued for Fischer's arrest on assault charges, but they were dismissed in court after he agreed to make a cash payment to the woman.
Meanwhile, Fischer was going ahead with his lawsuit against the couple who had interviewed him. He also complained that the church, to which he said he had contributed $100,000 (over $400,000 today) had agreed to finance his lawsuit and then reneged. Fischer also had been going around distributing letters attacking various attorneys involved in the lawsuits.
Ambassador College was also having their problems. Besides Garner Ted's dalliances, the church had fallen on hard times financially due to a drop in membership and contributions. In fact, the May/June issue of their magazine, The Plain Truth, was not published because of the financial problems.
In June of 1978, the church sent out a letter to members stating that for all practical purposes Fischer's lawsuit was dead because he had refused to testify when he disobeyed a court order to appear for questioning
Moving on, back to January actually, Viktor Korchnoi defeated Boris Spassky in Belgrade to become world champion Anatoly Karpov's challenger. In October Karpov defeated Korchnoi in Baguio City, Philippines by a score of 16.5 - 15.5.
That match was not without its amusing intrigue when Karpov had a parapsychologist in the audience and Korchnoi claimed the parapsychologist was distorting his brain waves. Korchnoi then hired his own psychics to counteract the negative vibrations.
Korchnoi also accused Karpov of cheating by receiving coded instructions, the nature of which are a mystery, in the form of different flavors of yogurt during the game. The arbiter catered to Karpov's accusations and set a fixed time as to when Karpov could get his yogurt.Additionally, the flavors had to be in writing to the arbiter.
In the midst of all this was the tournament at Tilburg in Holland. The event was established in 1977 and ran continuously through 1994 under the sponsorship of Interpolis, an insurance company. Fontys Hogescholen, a university of applied science, shortly revived the tournament from 1996 to 1998, when the last edition was played.
The 1978 tournament was the second tournament and it was an all grandmaster event. No Russian players participated as Karpov and Korchnoi were playing a match at that time and their proposed replacements were not accepted.
Here is Walter Browne's game against Yugoslav star Ljubomir Ljubojevic in which Browne successfully introduced an opening novelty.
Ljubojevic (born November 2, 1950) is a Serbian GM and former Yugoslav champion (tied in 1977 and 1982 outright). In 1983 he was ranked third on the world's rating, but he never succeeded in reaching the Candidates Tournament even though he defeated almost every top GM active during his career, including world champions Kasparov, Karpov and Anand.
Walter Browne - Ljubomir Ljubojevic
Result: 1-0
Site: Tilburg
Date: 1978
Nimzo-Indian: Rubinstein
[...] 1.d4 ♘f6 2.c4 e6 3.♘c3 ♗b4 4.e3 O-O 5.♗d3 c5 6.♘f3 d5 7.O-O cxd4 8.exd4 dxc4 9.♗xc4 b6 This move which was a favorite of world champion at the time, Karrpov, is difficult to make progress against and it has become the usual reply these days. 10.♗g5 ♗b7 11.♖e1 ♘bd7 12.♖c1 ♖c8 13.♕b3 This was an innovation by Browne. It was supposed to prevent black's routine 13...Bxc3, but it doesn't. 13...♕e7 Ljubojevic was hoping for complications after Browne played 14.Ne5
13...♗xc3 It's now known that this is a satisfactory way to meet 13.Qb3. Most of the games with this move have ended up drawn. 14.♖xc3 ♕c7 this loses. After the correct 14...h6 the chances are even. 15.♗xf6 ♘xf6 16.♗xe6! winning
13...♗e7 14.♗xf6 ♘xf6 15.♗xe6 fxe6 16.♕xe6+ ♔h8 17.♕xe7 ♗xf3 18.gxf3 ♕xd4 Kramnik,V (2770) -Kasparov,G (2849) London 2000. The position is equal here, but Kasparov soon blundered and lost in 25 moves!
14.♗d5 This move was overlooked by Ljubojevic.
14.♘e5 This is likely what Ljubojevic expected; it's not bad by any means, but it does not yield any advantage either. 14...♘xe5 15.dxe5 ♕c5 16.♗xe6 fxe6 17.♕xe6+ ♖f7 18.♗e3 ♕e7 19.♕xe7 ♗xe7 20.exf6 ♗xf6 with an even position.
14...♗a6 Some annotators thought the B's position on a3 may prove awkward, but this move is the best and it keeps the balance.
14...♗xd5 Risky and not quite correct. 15.♘xd5 ♘xd5 16.♗xe7 ♗xe1 17.♖xe1 ♘xe7 strongly favors white as black does not have enough compensation for the Q. In Shootouts white scored +3 -0 =2, so black may have some remote drawing chances.
15.♕a4 ♗xc3 16.bxc3 Capturing with the R was also good. 16...♘b8 17.♗b3 The threat is d5 17...b5 18.♕a5 Black still has to deal with the threatened d5 18...♕b7 This gets the Q out of the line of the R, but it allows white a decisive maneuver.
18...♔h8 A pass to demonstrate the threat. 19.d5 h6 20.♗f4 ♗b7 21.♕xa7 with a decisive advantage.
18...♕d8 Offering to trade Qs is offers tougher resistance. 19.♕a3 ♗b7 20.♘e5 ♘bd7 White stands well after performing a R lift beginning with 21.Re3 to be followed by Rg3. 21.♘xf7 is interesting, but not quite a strong as the R lift. 21...♖xf7 22.♗xe6 ♘f8 23.♗xf7+ ♔xf7 24.♕b3+ ♖c4 25.♖e5 (25.♕xb5 ♕d5 forcing the trade of Qs equalizes for black.) 25...a6 26.a4 ♘g6 27.♖c5 ♗d5 with equal chances.
19.♗xf6 gxf6 A somewhat better, but still inadequate, defense was offered by 19...Nc6 20.d5 exd5 21.♕b4 ♕d7 22.♕h4 ♔g7 23.♘d4 Ljubojevic's resignation here was not premature.
23.♘d4 ♖fe8 24.♗c2 There is no defense satisfactory against the threat to h2 24...♖e4 25.♗xe4 dxe4 26.♖xe4 ♖c5 27.♖g4+ ♔f8 28.♕h6+ ♔e7 29.♖g8 ♖c8 30.♖e1+ ♔d6 31.♕f4+ ♔c5 32.♖xc8+ ♕xc8 33.♕xf6 White has a mate in 10.
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