Stick–to–itiveness Wins the Tournament

    For those who are not familiar with the geography of Poland, Polanica Zdroi is a spa town with a population of over 61,000 that lies in south-western Poland. I checked it out on Google Maps and it looks like a nice place. 

    At the same time as all the hoopla of the Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassy World Championship Match (aka the Match of the Century) that took place in 1972, a tournament in Polanica Zdroi went virtually unnoticed. 

    During August the tenth Rubinstein Memorial took place. It could not be considered especially strong because only 10 of the 16 players had international titles, but Krysztof Pytel, the Polish champion, went on to obtain the IM title in 1975. Also, Evgenij Ermenkov of Bulgaria was to be awarded the IM title in 1974 and the GM title in 1977. He was Bulgarian Champion in 1973, 1975, 1976, 1979 and 1984 (jointly). 

a residential street in the city

    Bernard Zuckerman told how the townspeople besieged the players for autographs wherever they went; the players were also asked for autographs during their games! 

    From the beginning it was a fight for first place between the Czech GM Jan Smejkal and Soviet GM Evgeni Vasiukov. The latter went undefeated while Smejkel lost to Anatoly Lutikov and had doubtful and probably even lost positions in some games (e.g. the featured game!), but his ingenuity and stick–to–itiveness allowed him to overtake Vasiukov. 

    The US representative IM Bernard Zuckerman had a modest result, but he was a well known opening expert, but when he blundered against Polish IM Jacek Bednarski it was Bednarski who receive the prize for the best theoretical novelty.

 

 

    The winner of the following game was Jan Smejkal (born March 22, 1946) who received the GM title in 1972. In the 1970s he was among the world chess elite. He won the Czech Championship in 1973, 1979 and 1986. In 1973 at the Interzonal in Leningrad he finished fourth and so just missed qualifying for the World Championship Candidates Tournament. His opponent was Ervin Haag (1933-2018) of Hungry. He was awarded the IM title in 1960 and the Correspondence IM title in 1961.