In this long forgotten tournament the entry list included two (at the time) National Masters who had won the East Coast and West Coast Qualifying Tournaments: Craig Chellstorp and Kim Commons, both of whom had never had an opportunity to compete for FIDE ratings.
US players Edmar Mednis, Andrew Soltis, Kenneth Rogoff and William Martz were USCF Senior Masters (2400+) while Arthur Bisguier was a GM.
Of the foreign players, Bruno Parma and Herman Pilnik were GMs. Peter Biyiasas and Enrico Paoli were IMs. Cavit Uzman was a Turkish National Master.
A GM norm required an 8.5-2.5 score which nobody achieved. An IM norm was 7.5-3.5 which was achieved by Kenneth Rogoff.
Before the tournament started there was an incident involving Herman Pilnik of Argentina. He was met at the airport by a local organizer and on the way to the playing site their car was struck and overturned and it came to rest partially hanging over a steep embankment.
The driver and his wife, who was a passenger, were hospitalized while Pilnik emerged with a lot of cuts and bruises, but he still played his first round game as scheduled and defeated Soltis.
One wonders if Pilnik, who passed away in Caracas, Venezuela in 1981, ever concluded that visiting the United States was a bad idea.
Back in 1945, Pilnik was involved in a car accident on his way to Los Angeles to play in the Pan American tournament in Hollywood. In that accident Pilnik was the driver.
He had lost his plane reservation and so rented a car to drive from Dallas, Texas to Los Angeles, a distance of of over 1,400 miles!
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| A bandaged Pilnik |
In Arizona, Pilnik struck a parked and unlighted truck at night. In this accident he spent two days in a hospital in Yuma, Arizona and missed his first-round game against Reshevsky. He finally arrived three days late still wearing bandages.
I was going to present the game between Commons and Martz which won the brilliancy prize, but decided against it. Martz’ Q-sac was not at all speculative because he got adequate compensation and the resulting position was no more that equal. Additionally, Martz later missed the best continuation and the game dragged on for nearly 30 moves.
More exciting was watching GM Arthur Bisguier getting thrashed by a virtually unknown Turkish Master. It’s surprising how quickly the FIDE 2430 rated GM found himself in trouble against Uzman who was unrated with the FIDE. After the event Uzman’s FUDE rating was 2235, Bisguier’s was 2420.
As a matter of record, the top rated FIDE players in 1973 were: World Champion Fischer (2780), Karpov and Tal (2660), Spassky (2655), Korchnoy and Portisch (2650), Petrosian (2640), Botvinnik (2530), Polugayevsky (2635), Larsen (2620), Smyslov (2610), R. Byrnem Geller and Stein who had passed away in July (2605) and Huebner (2600).
Cavit Uzman–Arthur Bisguier1–0C44Norristown InternationalNorristown, PA USA06.1973Stockfish 16
C44: Ponziani Opening 1.e4 e5 2.f3 c6 3.d4 exd4 4.c3
A gutsy move by the Turkish Master offering a tactician like Bisguier the
Goring Gambit where white sacrifices one or two Pawns in return for a lead in
development and typically follows up by putting pressure on f7 with Bc4, Qb3
and sometimes another common motif is Ng5, while Nc3–d5. f6 This one way,
transposing into a variation of the Ponziani, black can decline the gambit. 4..
.d5 is also a good reply. 5.e5 e4 6.e2 6.xd4 h4 7.g3 A strange
error form a Master! xg3 8.fxg3 e4+ 9.e2 xh1 Black is clearly better.
Skytte,R (2392)-Nielsen,P (2662) Denmark DEN 2009 6...f5 7.xd4 7.exf6
is an interesting line that seems to result in equality after d5 8.bd2 xf6 9.xe4 dxe4 10.xe4+ e7 11.g5= Garsky,V (2253)-Siraj,S (1998) Nova
Gorica SLO 2023 7...xd4 8.cxd4 d5 Bisguier quickly finds himself in hot
water after this move which opens up the position. The proper move was 8...c6 8...b4+ 9.d1 b6 10.f3 g5 11.c2 e6 12.xf5 Zaitsev,M (2463)-Bartel,
M (2158) Dortmund GER 2007. Black is facing an uphill battle. 9.exd6 xd6 10.f3 Fearless...white realized the coming check holds no danger for him. h4+ 11.d1 11.g3 Believe it or not this move is actully better, but who
would actually play it OTB? xg3+ 12.hxg3 xh1 13.fxe4 fxe4 14.f4
The engines prefer white by nearly two Ps, but I suspect most players would
not want to play this position with either color! 11...0-0 Threatens to
win with ...Nf2+. 12.fxe4 fxe4 Materially black has a P vs Nm and freer
development, but whits'K is surprisingly safe. 13.h3 Prevents Bg4. f2 14.e1 At first glance things look grim for white. By the way, the text is an
excellent defensive move. 14.b5 meets with a quick refutation... g4+ 15.hxg4 xh1 and wins 14...g3 15.c3 White simply has to complete his
development. It's odd, but there is no good R move with a discovered attack on
white's Q. 15.e3 attacking the R is a bit more precise. After xb2 16.c3 h5+ 17.c1 b6 18.c4+ Black's attack has come to nothing and white's
K is safe, so now his material advantage is the major factor. 15...f5
This defends the P, but 15...c5 offered him better chances. 15...c5
This leads to complications galore. 16.c4+ h8 Now things gey really
tricky. 17.f1 e3 18.xe3 g4+ 19.hxg4 xg2 20.f2 xf2 21.e2 h2 22.d5 White should win...should! 16.e2 The tempting 16.Bc4+ only equalizes. g6 16...a6 This is a "pass" to demonstrate white's threat. 17.xg3 xg3 18.e3 xb2 19.xg3 17.xg3 xg3 18.e3 xg2 19.xg2 xg2 Black is a R
down...the rest is meaningless. 20.c1 f8 21.a4 f3 Well, maybe not
totally meaningless. Black has a threat. 22.a3 22.a5 A "pass" to
demonstrate the threat. xe3 23.xe3 xh1+ 24.d2 xa1 Black wins. 22...f7 23.c3 c6 24.h4 g4 25.d2 g3 26.f1 g2 27.f2 g1+ 28.c2 a1 29.g2 Prevents ...Qg1 xh4 30.h2 Prevents Qh1. e7 31.c5 a2 32.c3 f7 33.f2 b1+ 34.d2 a2 35.b4 White threatens Rf8+ with mate to follow. h6 35...d3 36.f8+ xf8 37.f5+ e8 38.e5+ f7 39.e7+ g6 40.g5+ h6 41.xg7# 36.xb7 d3 37.xc6 h1 38.c8+ Black resigned. Very precise
play by Uzman! 38.c8+ h7 39.f5+ h8 40.c8+ g8 41.xg8+ xg8 42.f7+ h8 43.g2 d1+ 44.xd1 c2+ 45.xc2 h7 46.g2 mates next move. 1–0
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