Postal Nostalgia

    The other day I was going through some of my old games and some played in 1972 caught my attention. For readers who don’t remember 1972, girls were wearing maxi dresses (they reached to the floor, boo!), mini skirts (they reached mid-thigh, hooray!). 

    PONG became the first commercially successful video game. Digital watch made their debut and they were just as clunky as PONG. 

    The popular TV program Star Trek spawned Trekkies and the first Star Trek fan convention took place in New York City. HBO came to television making it possible to watch violence, nudity and obscenity right in the comfort of your own living room. 

    Players lost that year were Victor Soultanbeiff (1895-1972) the former Belgium champion. IM Georgy Lisitsin (1909-1972) died in Leningrad. Sir George Thomas (1881-1972) died in London at the age of 91. Kenneth Harkness (1896-1972) an organizer and creator of the Harkness rating system died on a train in Yugoslavia, on his way to Skopje to be an arbiter at the Chess Olympiad.

    Mikhail Tal won the Soviet Championship. Walter Browne won the National Open (on tiebreaks over Louis Levy) and the National Congress Premier Championship held in Chicago. Browne also won the US Open in Atlantic City. Anatoly Karpov, Tigran Petrosian and Lajos Portisch tied for first in Church’s Fried Chicken International in San Antonio. Finally, on September 2, 1972, Bobby Fischer became the World Champion when he defeated Boris Spassky. 

    It was also the year I played a correspondence game in the Finals of the U.S. Open Postal Championship against USCF Senior Master Arthur Feuerstein, a former (otb) U.S. Championship competitor, with a USCF rating of 2427 which ranked him #14 in the country. Fischer topped the list at 2825 and second place went to Lubomir Kavalek at 2573. I had some pretty good results and my rating was up around 2100. 

    I was primarily a correspondence player though and my postal rating with the USCF (which had absorbed the old Chess Review) was 1280. Feuerstein’s was 1514. The top rated player was a New York player named Reuben Klugman at 1846. 

    Sadly, Feuerstein (born in 1935) passed away on February 2, 2022. 

Feuerstein and I had previously met in 1970 in the semi-finals and I had black. I had a won game (4.75 Pawns to the good) according to Stockfish, but miscalculated a tactical sequence and lost! We met again in the finals and I was determined to do better. The following calamity was the result. 

ChessBase

Tartajubow–Arthur Feuerstein0–1B99U.S.Open Postal Champ Finals1972Stockfish 17

B99: Sicilian Najdorf 1.e4 c5 2.f3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.xd4 f6 5.c3 a6 6.g5 e6 7.f4 e7 8.f3 c7 9.0-0-0 bd7 10.g4 b5 11.xf6 xf6 12.g5 d7 13.a3 b8 14.h4 b4 15.axb4 xb4 16.h3 c5 17.b3 b6 There's not much to say about the opening. I was using The Sicilian Flank Game by Albrec O'Kelly that was published in 1969, sp the opening was pretty up to date. Remember there was no Internet in those days. That was 10 years in the future. 18.f5 Evidently we had reached the end of the book line. This move looked logical to me and it's certainly an aggressive one, but it actually favors black if only slightly. 18.a2 This is the engine's top choice. I played it later, but it was too late to equalize! c4 19.c3 0-0 20.he1 with a completely equal (0.00) position. 18.hf1 0-0 19.f5 Just like in my game this slightly favors black. At least I am not alone in thinking it was a good idea. White should offer to trade Qs with 19.Qf2 with equality. e5 20.g3 d8 More accurate is 20...a5 at once. 21.h5 a5 22.g6 The chances are about even. Manik,M (2385)-Navara,D (2466) Czechia 2001 18.h5 An interesting possibility. c5 19.xc5 xc5 20.hg1 a5 21.g6 fxg6 22.hxg6 h6 with approximate equality. Oleksienko,M (2492)-Grekh,A (2294) Alushta 2005 18...e5 This centralizes the N and gains a tempo by attacking the Q. After the Q moves off the f-file there's no attack along it after fxe6. If it goes to f4 then white has problems. 19.g3 19.f4 a5 20.hf1 a4 21.d2 d7 22.fxe6 fxe6 White's attack has run out iof gas and black has a distinct advantage. 19...d7 20.he1 At this point I realized I did not have an attack and things were not going well, so the point of this move is to exchange Qs. 20.hf1 a5 White has no attack on the f-file so offering to trade Q was in order. 21.g1 xg1 21...a4 22.xb6 xb6 and white is a little better. 23.d4 21...a6 22.d4 with full equality. 22.xg1 g6 23.fxe6 fxe6 and white has hopes of surviving. 20...a5 21.a2 c4 22.e3 xe3+ 23.xe3 Unfortunately the exchange of Qs has mot helped mu y position even a ltlle bit. exf5 After this total collapse is imminent. 24.f1 24.exf5 xh4 25.g3 xh3 26.xh3 xf5 Material is about equal (R vs. B+2Ps, but in the long run black has a decisive advantage. A sample line... 27.g3 g4 28.d5 xg5+ 29.b1 h5 30.c3 f5 31.g1 f3 32.h1 a4 33.xa4 f4 and white cannot compete with black's active play on the K-side. 24...xe4 25.xe4 fxe4 26.c3 a4 27.d2 e3 28.de4 h6 29.e2 hxg5 White resigned. Fritz assigned white a accuracy rating of 29%. Feuerstein's accuracy rating? It was 92%. You can't compete with that! 0–1

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