Robatsch (October 14, 1929) was a leading Austrian player and a noted botanist.
He moved to Graz at the age of 17 to become a student and often frequented the Mountainside Café and joined a local club 'SK Gemeinde' (Municipal chess club) where he quickly advanced to master.
Becoming an International Master (IM) in 1957 and a Grandmaster in 1961, Robatsch dedicated much of his life to serving Austrian chess, representing the nation at eleven Chess Olympiads and one European Team Chess Championship. Up until his last Olympiad in 1994, he played first board on every occasion and returned some impressive results. At the 1960 Leipzig Olympiad, he astounded the chess world by scoring 84.4 per cent and taking the board 1 gold medal, while still only an IM. This was also the year that he became Austrian champion.
While Robatsch played competitively over five decades, the high points of his international tournament career mostly occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He continued to play to a high standard into the late 1990s.
Robatsch displayed a highly combinative playing style in his younger days but like so many others, he adopted a more positional approach later in life. In his opening play he often played experimental moves and this led to some lively and historically important games. The system of opening moves commencing with 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 became a defense that Robatsch often played with the black pieces.
His development as a player was hindered by an interest outside chess: botany. He became a highly esteemed orchidologist and was awarded the title of 'Professor' for his outstanding research work in the classification of different species and sub-species of orchid. He specialized in the study of a taxonomically complex genus of orchids called Epictatis and made significant contributions to the study of this group of orchids even in the final years of his life.
Below is a photo of Robatsch with his registered Cypripedium hybrids (acaule x reninae) It is characterized by lush growth and a very attractive flower.
Robatsch died in 2000, following a long fight with throat and stomach cancer.
In the following exciting game Tahl had to sacrifice his Q to blunt Robatsch’s attack. Robatsch still had the advantage, but couldn’t quite squeeze out the win.
Strange weather yesterday (Monday). Sunday was hot and humid with a cold front forecast to move through in the evening...all the ingredients for severe weather including tornadoes. Fortunately when the front came through (as evidenced by several minutes of strong wind) there were only some light sprinkles.
Monday saw some widely scattered pockets of rain with a few rumbles of thunder. At about 2:00pm it got pretty dark and I thought I heard rain and looked out the front window and saw nothing. Still thinking I heard rain, I looked out the back window and there was a drenching downpour and the patio and picnic table had rain bouncing off of them. I guess the rain has to stop somewhere and at that time it was right over our house.
Who remembers 1961? A chimpanzee named Ham was launched on a test flight into space in on January 31, 1961. Born in Cameroon in approximately 1957; he was captured and brought to a facility in Florida. In July 1959, he was transferred to Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico, to be trained for space flight as part of Project Mercury. His name was the acronym for Holloman Aero Medical.
Ham, along with his partners, including another chimp named Enos (who would become the first and only chimpanzee to orbit the Earth), were trained by spending long periods of time confined in a chair and being trained to operate levers in response to light cues.
After 18 months of training, Ham was selected as the chimp whose life would be risked to test the safety of space flight on his body.
On January 31, 1961, at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Ham was blasted into space, strapped into a container called a couch. During a flight of about 16.5 minutes when he traveled at a speed of about 580 miles per hour to an altitude of 157 miles above the earth, he experienced about 6.5 minutes of weightlessness. Despite the g-forces and weightlessness, Ham performed his tasks correctly.
After he splashed down 130 miles off target his capsule began taking on water. It took several hours for a recovery ship to reach him and miraculously he was alive and appeared relatively calm. However, chimp experts interpreted his facial expression as being one of extreme fear and anxiety. Later when photographers wanted a picture of him in his “couch” he refused to get back into it and even several men could not force him to do so.
After his ordeal he was transferred to The National Zoo in 1963, where he was forced to lived alone for 17 years before being transferred to the North Carolina Zoo where he was allowed to live with other chimps. He died 22 years after his historic flight on January 18, 1983, at the estimated age of 26. On to the chess stuff...
Chess players who were lost in 1961 were Soviet GM Grigory Levenfish (1889-1961) who died in Moscow at the age of 71. Akiba Rubinstein (1880-1961) died in Antwerp, Belgium at the age of 80 and the 1923-24 champion of Scotland, Christopher Heath (1877-1961) who died in London at the age of 83.
Mikhail Botvinnk defeated Mikhail Tal to regain the world championship. Bobby Fischer won the US Championship for the 4th time. Boris Spassky won the Soviet Championship.
In December, 1961, US lady champ, Lisa Lane generated a lot of excitement when she was playing in the Hastings Reserve tournament. After she played four games in which she scored one draw, two losses and had one adjourned game, she withdrew claiming she was homesick and in love.
Like most of the people and events mentioned here, Austrian Grandmaster and noted botanist Karl Robatsch (October 14, 1929 - September 19, 2000) have been forgotten.
At the age of 17 he moved to Graz to become a student and while there he often frequented the local chess club where he quickly advanced to Master. He was awarded the IM title in 1957 and the GM title in 1961.
Robatsch played competitively for over fifty years with his greatest successes coming in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In his early years Robatsch was noted for his highly tactical play, but later he adopted a more positional approach. His opening play was often experimental and a system of opening moves commencing 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 was named after him.
Robatsch had a notable career in botany in which he was an highly esteemed orchidologist in which he performed outstanding research work in the classification of different species and sub-species of orchids.
He died in 2000, following a long fight with throat and stomach cancer.
His opponent was Vasja Pirc (December 19, 1907 – June 2, 1980), a Slovenian player best known as a strong exponent of the hypermodern defense now generally known as the Pirc Defence.
Pirc was Yugoslav champion five times: 1935, 1936, 1937, 1951, and 1953. He was awarded the IM title in 1950 and the GM title in 1953. He was also an International Arbiter. He died in Ljubljana in 1980.
A game that I liked (Fritz 17)
[Event "Madrid International"]
[Site ""]
[Date "1961.05.??"]
[Round "11"]
[White "Karl Robatsch"]
[Black "Vasja Pirc"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A53"]
[Annotator "Stockfish/Komodo"]
[PlyCount "63"]
[EventDate "1961.??.??"]
{A53: Old Indian Defense} 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 d6 {In the Old Indian black develops
his B on e7 indtead of g7. Soviet player Mikhail Chigorin pioneered it in the
late 1800s and while it's considered sound, it's never been very popular.} 3.
Nc3 Nbd7 4. e4 e5 5. Be3 Be7 6. h3 (6. Nge2 Ng4 7. Bd2 c6 8. h3 exd4 9. Nxd4
Qb6 10. hxg4 Qxd4 11. Qc2 {White is better. Kuligowski,A (2495)-Vogt,L (2500)
Warsaw 1979}) (6. Be2 O-O 7. f3 c6 8. Nh3 a6 9. a4 a5 10. Nf2 {is equal.
Castrogiovanni,C (2073)-Welling,G (2378) Lodi 2008}) 6... O-O 7. g3 {Highly
unusual. 7.Nf3 is the book move.} Re8 (7... exd4 {is an interesting idea that
leads to a Benko Gambit like position.} 8. Qxd4 c5 9. Qd1 b5 10. cxb5 Bb7 11.
Bg2 a6 12. bxa6 Rxa6) 8. Bg2 c6 9. Nge2 Bf8 {Quite passive.} (9... d5 {This
leads to some complicated play. White's best line appears to be} 10. exd5 cxd5
11. Nxd5 Nxd5 12. cxd5 Bb4+ 13. Nc3 exd4 14. Qxd4 Bc5 {with about equal
chances.}) 10. d5 a5 11. O-O Nb6 12. b3 $16 Nfd7 13. f4 a4 14. f5 {White
already has the makings of a dangerous K-side attack...notice the absence of
black defenders in that neck of the woods!} Nc5 15. Rb1 axb3 16. axb3 Be7 {
Proof that his 9th move was a waste of time.} 17. Qd2 Ra3 18. Nc1 Bd7 19. g4 f6
20. Rf3 {[%mdl 32]} Bf8 {Again?! It doesn't matter much though because black's
situation is already difficult.} (20... Qc7 21. h4 Rea8 22. Rf1 cxd5 23. exd5
Nxb3 24. Nxb3 Nxc4 25. Qe2 Nxe3 26. Qxe3 b5 27. Ne4 Qa7 28. Qxa7 R8xa7 {
Black probably will not get enough compensation for the piece, but at least in
this line he has some play.}) 21. Rg3 Kh8 22. g5 {This overly anxious move
should have allowed black to equalize.} (22. Qb2 Qa8 23. h4 cxd5 24. cxd5 g6
25. g5 {breaks up black's K-side and with most of the black pieces on the
other side of the board putting up a successful defense is not likely}) (22.
Qb2 Ra8 {This allows black to keep the Q available on the K-side.} 23. h4 cxd5
24. exd5 Nc8 25. N1e2 Qc7 26. b4 {With no immediate breakthrough on the K-side
available white can shift his attention to the other side.} Na6 27. Rc1 {
White has a dominating position on all three sector-s: Q-side, center and
K-side.}) 22... cxd5 23. cxd5 Be7 {Again?! This time the consequences are much
more serious!} (23... fxg5 24. Bxg5 Be7 {This time it's OK!} 25. h4 Rf8 {
Black has managed to get his pieces to the defense of the K-side and as a
result his position is now stable.}) 24. g6 Bf8 {As has been seen several
times in this game! AT least here it serves a defensive function.} (24... h6 {
is obvioulsy bad on account of} 25. Bxh6 gxh6 {Other moves avoid mate but are
quiet hopeless.} 26. Qxh6+ Kg8 27. Qh7+ Kf8 28. Qf7#) 25. Rg4 h6 26. N3e2 {
[%mdl 32] Headed to where the action is.} Qa8 27. Ng3 Ra1 28. Rxa1 Qxa1 {
A superficial glance at the position might suggest that black is doing OK:
material is equal and he has a lot of activity on the Q-side. However, engine
analysis makes it clear that white's advantage (2 - 4.5 Pawns) is a winning
one. The reason is that white's brewing K-side attack is going to prevail.} 29.
Kh2 {Freeing up the N which as it turns out does not have any need to join in
on the attack.} Re7 {What's the point? Black has defended everything on the
K-side.} 30. Nh5 {Oddly, black can't take any action against white's b-Pawn
because the N on c5 is pinned. Black is pretty much helpless.} Kg8 31. Bxh6 {
[%mdl 512] Removing the f-Pawn's defender and destroying the K's house.} Qd4 {
The N cannot be taken.} (31... gxh6 32. Nxf6+ Kg7 33. Nh5+ Kg8 34. g7 Rxg7 (
34... Bxg7 35. Qxh6 {mates in 4} Kf8 36. Rxg7 Rxg7 37. Qxg7+ Ke8 38. Qg8+ Ke7
39. f6#) 35. Nxg7 Kf7 36. Qxh6 Qb2 37. Qh5+ Ke7 38. Qh4+ Kf7 39. Qh7 Nxb3 40.
Ne6+ Ke8 41. Qg6+ Ke7 42. f6#) 32. Qe1 {There's nothing forcing to be done
regarding the attack, so this nifty little move prepares to add the Q to the
assault with Qh4} (32. Qe1 Qb2 (32... gxh6 33. Nxf6+ Kh8 (33... Kg7 34. Ne2 Qb2
35. Nh5+ Kh8 36. Qh4 Qxe2 37. g7+ {wins}) 34. Qh4 Qd2 35. Ne2 Qxe2 36. g7+ Bxg7
37. Qxh6+ Bxh6 38. Rg8#) 33. Nxf6+ gxf6 34. Bxf8 Kxf8 35. Qh4 {wraps it up.})
1-0
I recently saw a forum discussion where a player was advocating playing the Modern Defense because it's a universal defense that black can play against whatever move white opens with. The writer said the advantage of Modern is you don't need to study and learn many opening lines. While it may be true that you can play it against any white opening move, the idea that you don't need to learn any theory is mistaken. Maybe not as much as in the Najdorf Sicilian, but you have to learn some theory nevertheless. I'm not exactly sure what the Modern Defense is. I think it's what we used to call the Robatsch Defense named after Karl Robatsch (October 14, 1929–September 19, 2000), a leading Austrian player and a noted botanist. What about the Pirc, named after Vasja Pirc (December 19, 1907–June 2, 1980) a leading Yugoslav (Slovenian) player? ECO classifies the Modern Defense as B06 and codes B07 to B09 are assigned to the Pirc. My Modern Chess Openings, 10th edition, groups them together and calls it the Pirc–Robatsch Defense. As I understand it, the main difference between the Modern and the Pirc is that in the Modern, Black delays developing his knight to f6 which gives white the opportunity of playing c2-c3 which is supposed to limit the effectiveness of black's B on g7. Transposition possibilities abound with either defense. After 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7, in addition to being a Modern or Pirc, it can morph into a King's Indian, Dragon Sicilian or something else which means black simply can't apply the same strategy in all situations. Also, after 1.e4 g6 white can, besides 2.d4, play 2.Nf3, 2.Nc3, 2.c4 or just about anything reasonable move. Another example is the King's Indian Attack. One site says the advantage of playing this is that it can be set up unhindered and it can lead to excellent attacking chances on the K-side. So can a whole bunch of other openings. I've been down this playing systems road. Way, way back it was the Stonewall Attack, then years later it was the KIA. I bought a book on it and the first thing the author said was white's strategy will be dictated by black's setup and there were chapters on how to correctly play against black formations like the K-Indian, Q-Indian, French, Sicilian, etc. Then there was the Torre Attack, another good 'system.' Guess how the book was arranged? There were chapters on how white needs to play against a wide variety of black formations. The KIA and Torre are decent openings, but they still required a lot of study and memorization in order to play them correctly. The same could be said of the Colle. Back to the Modern...what if white plays 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 and now, instead of 2.Nc3 or 2.Nf3, he plays 3. c4. Isn't the game headed for a K-Indian with all its different options for both sides? Even though 1...g6 is universal, it seems like there is a lot of theory to be studied because black can't just willy-nilly play the same moves against anything white plays. Even if white cooperates and plays, say, 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Be2 O-O 6. O-O, arriving at this position:
According to my Rybka2 opening book black has 12 responses, the most popular being 6...c6 followed by 6...Bg4 and 6...c5. All three lead to a different type of position that will require different handling by both sides. Let's say black chooses the most popular 6...c6. The Rybka2 book lists 7 reasonable replies by white and, again, black's strategy will depend on which move white chooses. All this shoots down the idea that by playing the Modern, or any opening 'system,' you can avoid learning variations and a lot of theory. At least if you want to play correctly. The following game by by a couple of class players demonstrates the point. Instead of transposing into the Old Indian Defense, black continues with a mishmash of moves seen in different defensive setups and soon gets into trouble.
I came across this miniature the other day and was just as intrigued by it as I was when I first saw it.
Miquel Quinteros
Browne’s opponent, Miquel Quinteros (December 28, 1947 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine GM who won the championship of Argentina at the age of 18 and in 1969 took eighth place at the Mar del Plata Zonal. In 1972, he tied for second/third place at the São Paulo Zonal which earned him a place at the Interzonal in Leningrad the following year where he finished 11th-12th. In 1975 he also qualified for the Manila Zonal in 1976 where he only managed 14th. Quinteros had several high place finishes in other events though and played six times on the Argentine Olympic team. In 1987, he was barred from playing in FIDE events for three years because he played in South Africa, a FIDE-sanctioned country. Quinteros was the first GM to visit South Africa since 1981 and he gave simultaneous exhibitions several cities.
In 1988 the FIDE Congress was in Thessaloniki where they conducted their grimy political business. You know, the show trials, kangaroo courts, bribes, back room deals etc. The big question was, would Quinteros, who by the way was an old friend of Bobby Fischer and who had been one of the most active players in the world, actually be stripped of the grandmaster title and banned from playing chess for the rest of his life?
Sidebar: Other burning questions were would World Champion Kasparov be disciplined or censured for his public utterance that "FIDE is like the Mafia" and would the proposed "Code of Ethics" be passed. This Code of Ethics, which seems like an oxymoron when speaking of FIDE, provided that a player could be suspended from playing chess for a period up to four years for any of a wide variety of reasons, including "any violation of the laws of chess", such as an illegal move. Can you believe that last one? One should not be surprised that when it was all over none of these things passed.
Florencio Campomanes, the man everyone hated, proved that whatever people thought of him he was a master politician when things began to turn ugly. There was a hot debate on an African proposal. Actually, the Africans were acting as lackeys for the American representative Jerry Bibuld who proposed that Quinteros be both banned for life from playing chess and stripped of the grandmaster title. A couple of guys from Africa, Dr. Ebigwei of Nigeria and De Silva of Angola, both were in favor of the lifetime ban on Quinteros plus a one year suspension on GM Karl Robatsch of Austria, but thanks to the rep from Monaco who argued strongly against the ban calling the entire proceeding against Quinteros a "kangaroo court" conducted by persons who were not lawyers, with no right by the accused to appear in his own defense, and based upon an alleged violation of a proposed FIDE statute was just plain wrong.
Campomanes suggested that the matter be postponed until the 1989 General Assembly meeting but that met with strong protests from the Africans so Campomanes called a brief recess to be followed by a special session to further debate the issue. Apparently nobody was willing to sacrifice their afternoon just to ban Quinteros from playing chess for the rest of his life and Robatsch for a year so there was no further discussion of the matter.
The whole flap was a result of resolution which said that any internationally titled person who played or participated in any chess competition in South Africa could be banned from chess for life. Quinteros’ crime was that he again went to South Africa after having been suspended from FIDE competition for three years by the 1987 FIDE General Assembly. Quinteros received 125,000 Rand for his second appearance which he said was more than he got from a whole year of playing chess so he went anyway. This would have amounted to about $35,000 in today’s buying power; it was a princely sum in those days. Robatsch received a similar amount.
If you have ever wondered just how good a GM is, even a garden variety GM like Quinteros, I once saw him playing time handicap games at $20 a pop against a local master. The master had 5 minutes on his clock while Quinteros had only one. In the 3-4 games I watched the master lost all of them.
Oh, yeah…I almost forgot. Here’s the game.
Borislav Ivkov (born November 12, 1933) is a Serbian GM. He was a World championship candidate in 1965, and played in four more Interzonal tournaments (1967, 1970, 1973, and 1979) and won the Yugoslav Championship three times: (1958 joint, 1963 joint, 1972). He was also the first World Junior Champion in 1951. The 4th Capablanca Memorial was held in Havana at the Habana Libre hotel from August 25 to September 26, 1965 under the patronage of Che Guevara who was the director of the Cuban National Bank and Minister of Industry. It was the first international tournament in which Bobby Fischer would be participating since the Curacao Candidates in 1962. Fischer agreed to attend for a $3,000 appearance fee.
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba were still severely strained, though communications were easing and at first it seemed Fischer would have no trouble traveling there because the State Department often permitted newsmen and correspondents access to Cuba and other off limits countries even if ordinary citizens were denied visits. But the State Department wouldn’t fall for the line that Fischer was a legitimate columnist and therefore denied him a visa. As a result, Fischer ended up playing by telex from the Manhattan Chess Club which ended up costing the organizers over $10,000 which is a whopping $85,000 in today’s dollars.
This tournament would mark the first time Fischer would be facing a number of the strongest Soviet players after he had hurled accusations against them for conspiring to keep him from winning the Candidates Tournament to challenge Botvinnik in 1963. The surprise of the tournament turned out to be Yugoslavia’s Borislav Ivkov who was on a roll...he had recently finished tied first with Wolfgang Uhlmann and a full point ahead of Petrosian at Zageb. Earlier in this tournament Ivkov had defeated both Smyslov and Fischer and after 17 rounds Ivkov and Smyslov were tied for the lead a full point ahead of Geller and a point and a half ahead of Fischer. In round 18, Ivkov won, Smyslov drew, Geller won, Fischer lost. That put Ivkov half a point ahead of Smyslov and one ahead of Geller. Then in round 19, Ivkov and Geller drew their games while Smyslov lost to one of the tailenders, Eleazar Jimenez. With two rounds to play Ivkov was a point ahead of Smyslov and Geller and 2 ahead of Fischer and Kholmov.
In round 20 Smyslov and Geller met and played the inevitable draw, while Ivkov was facing one of the hapless last place finishers Gilberto Garcia whom he was absolutely crushing...until he got into severe time pressure, blundered and lost. Ivkov’s surprising loss left the door open in the last round for Geller and Smyslov. Geller only got a draw, but Smyslov won and as a result took first place. And Ivkov? He lost in the last round to Karl Robatsch. However, Ivkov did manage to win the Capa Memorial 20 years later, in 1985.
Chess,com has a nice article on Ivkov HERE. 1) Smyslov 15.5 2-4) Ivkov, Geller and Fischer 15.0 5) Kholmov 14.5 6) Pachman 13.0 7) Robatsch 12.5 8) Donner 12.0 9) Bilek 11.5 10) Parma 11.0 11-12) Szabo and Pietzsch 10.5 13-14) O'Kelly and Tringov 10.0 15) Jimenez 9.5 16) Ciocaltea 9.0 17) Doda 8.0 18-19) Lehmann and Wade 7.5 20) Cobo Arteaga 5.5 21-22) Perez and Garcia 4.0
%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
{Queen's Gambit Declined} 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. e3 c5 5. dxc5 Bxc5
6. b3 {An experiment that doesn't turn out especially good. Normal is 6.a3 in
order to eventually play b4.} 6... O-O 7. Qc2 Nc6 8. a3 Bb6 9. Bb2 Re8 10.
Nc3 d4 11. Rd1 {Not 11.exd4? e5!} 11... e5 {Here, although it costs a tempo,
white's best plan was to play 12.b4 and then place his N on e4.} 12. e4 {Black
now has two interesting lines; the one he plays and 12...Bf4 hjoping for
13.exf4?! e4! In either case black has a strong initiative.} 12... Ng4 13.
Na4 Ba5+ 14. b4 Nxb4 15. axb4 Bxb4+ 16. Rd2 {The correct defense was 16.Bc3}
16... Bd7 17. Bc1 {Better was 17. Nc3} 17... b5 {Even stronger would have been
17...d3!} 18. Nb2 Rc8 19. Be2 {Ivkov's next move is rather slow and allows his
opponent to equalize. With 19...Ne3! he could have kept up the pressure. Afet
20.fxe3 dxe3 21.O-O exd2 he stands well.} 19... Be6 20. O-O {Ivkov avoids
taking the R because if he does while he would be the exchange up and have a
couple of nice Ps (a7 and d3) as compensation white has the two Bs. Playing
around with the position after 20.. .Bxd2 yielding no significant advantage
for black!} 20... bxc4 21. Nxc4 Qc7 22. Qa4 { What to play? Enticing but wrong
is 22...Bxc4 23.Qxb4 Bxe2 24,Rxe2 and black has two Ps for a B and an unclear
position.} 22... Bxd2 23. Bxd2 Bxc4 {Black has a R and two Ps vs a B and his
a- and d-Pawns look formidable. However, both Komodo and Stockfish evaluate
the position as no more than equal.} 24. Rc1 Qc6 25. Rxc4 Qxe4 26. Rxc8 Rxc8
27. Qd7 Rf8 28. Bf1 Nf6 29. Qc7 Nd5 {Here white could (and probably should
have) taken either the a- or e-Pawn} 30. Qd7 Nf4 31. h3 Qb1 {Garcia has
battled his opponent to a standstill in what has been a complicated game and
now with 32.Bxf4 and 33.Qxa7 he probably could have drawn.} 32. Be1 {This
should lose outright, but Ivkov is in some time pressure. } 32... e4 33. Qf5
Ne6 34. Bd2 g6 35. Qf6 exf3 36. g4 {Black has the game in the bag after
36...Qd6 and white is dead lost. If 37.Bh6 Rb8 and white is helpless.} 36...
d3 {A quick move in time pressure that's worth a bunch of question marks.}
37. Bc3 {It's mate in three. Q real tragedy for Ivkov.} 37... (37 38. Bc3)
1-0
It doesn’t seem that long ago, but 1975 was 50 years ago. I wasn’t into music, but the disco craze was in full swing, mood rings became a popular fad and at the age of 19, Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft.
The world’s top rated players were 1) Bobby Fischer (2780), 2) Anatoly Karpov (2705), Vikto Korchnoi (2665), 4-6) Tigran Petrosian, Lev Poligayevsky (2645), and Mikhail Tal (2645), 7) Lajos Portisch (2635), 8-9) Bent Larsen and Boris Spassky (2625), Robert Huebner and Ljubomir Ljubojevi (2615).
Bobby Fischer and FIDE failed to agree on the terms, some of which were quite radical, for Fischer’s defense of his world title. It’s just my opinion, but I believe he had a fear of losing to Karpov.
Fischer did not play from 1973 to 1991. He re-emerged to play a match against Boris Spassky in 1992, making the ridiculous claim he was still the World Champion and he was defending his title. He then retired from chess permanently. By that time chess had moved on, Fischer was a washed up champion and it was no great loss.
A number of players died that year. The best known being Paul Keres, Friedrich Samisch, Lajos Steiner, Nicolas Rossolimo, Karel Opocensky, Hans Johner, Vladimir Vukovic, Georg Kieninger, Abraham Baratz, Norman T/ Whitaker and John Morrison.
In US chess news, the US Championship and World Championship Zonal tournament took place in the small college town of Oberlin, Ohio. Walter Browne won with a score of 8.5-4.5. Also qualifying for the Interzonal was Kenneth Rogoff. Local favorite, Dr. Milan Vukcevich of Mentor, Ohio, just missed qualifying; he finished 3rd with 7.5-5.5, a half point behind Rogoff.
Today’s game comes from the Louis D. Statham Masters-Plus Championship (aka Lome Pine) that was won by Vladimir Liberzon. This was the fifth annual Lone Pine tournament and it set a world record in the number of International Grandmasters participating.
.
Statham had invited literally every Grandmaster in the world to compete and guaranteed them that their air fare would be paid even if they failed to win a prize. It was unfortunate that the number of GMs was reduced due to politics. For example, three string Czech players were forced to withdraw: Jan Smejkal, Vastimil Jansa and Miroslav Filip. The reason? Their federation could not be given a guarantee that dissident Czech GM Ludek Pachman, who at the time was Stateless, would not be playing.
For those not familiar with Jansa, he had won the strong Atlantic Open on tiebreaks ahead of Matanovic, Bisguier. Zuckerman and 8almazi in New York City the previous November and his 2540 rating tied him for places 36-41 in the world. As for Pachman, he did not play at Lone Pine.
The surprise winner of this game was Norman Weinstein (born in 1950) who was awarded the IM title in 1973, the same year he won the US Open Championship. His opponent was GM Leonid Shamkovich ( 1923-2005) who was originally a Soviet player, but in 1965 he emigrated to the US by way of Israel and Canada. He lived in Brooklyn.
A game that I liked (Fritz 17)
[Event "Lone Pine"]
[Site ""]
[Date "1975.04.13"]
[Round "1.11"]
[White "Norman Weinstein"]
[Black "Leonid Shamkovic"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B56"]
[Annotator "Stickfish 17.1"]
[PlyCount "66"]
[EventDate "1975.04.13"]
{B71: Sicilian Dragon} 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6.
f4 g6 7. Nxc6 bxc6 8. e5 Nd7 9. exd6 exd6 10. Be3 Be7 {Best. At the time 10...
Qe7 had often been played, but it was eventually realized that white obtained
a lasting advantage after 11.Qd4 Bg7 12.Qxg7 Qxe3+} 11. Qd2 O-O 12. O-O-O Nf6 {
One annotator gave this a question mark amd called it a fatal mistake, but
that is hardly the case. The most precise is 12...d5 with good play.} 13. h3
Be6 14. Kb1 {Also good was 14.g4 at once, but Weinstein plays to limit black's
opportinity counterplay before commencing his own attack.} Qa5 {In a later
round Austrian GM Karl Robatsch played the equally good 14...d5, but black
lost that game also.} (14... d5 15. g4 Bb4 16. Bg2 Qa5 17. a3 Ne4 18. Bxe4 Bxc3
19. Qxc3 Qxc3 20. bxc3 dxe4 {Weinstein,N (2465)-Robatsch,K (2455) Lone Pine
1975. The position is equal, but black lost in the ending.}) 15. b3 Qa3 {
After this move black begins experiencing difficulties. Better was 15...d5
with equal chances} 16. g4 {White now launches a very strong attack. Another
good plan was supporting the advance of the f-Pawn with 16.Bd3} Rab8 17. f5 {
[%mdl 512]} gxf5 {This loses quickly, but even a better move, say 17...Bd5
would, not have helped much.} 18. Bd4 Nd7 19. Qh6 {White is clearly winning.}
Ne5 20. Bd3 Kh8 21. gxf5 Bxb3 22. cxb3 {Threatening mate with f6.} f6 23. Rhg1
Rf7 24. Rg2 Qb4 25. Qe3 Rff8 26. Rdg1 Rg8 27. Kb2 Qa5 {At forst glance it may
appear that black has been able to consolidate his position a bit, but
Weinstein finisjes him off in an efficient manner.} 28. Rxg8+ Rxg8 29. Rxg8+
Kxg8 30. Bxe5 dxe5 31. Bc4+ Kf8 32. Qg3 Ke8 {Black could have prolonged the
game a bit with 32...Ba3+, but the outcome would have been the same.} 33. Qg8+
{Putting vlack out of his misery.} Bf8 {Black lost on time.} (33... Bf8 34.
Qf7+ Kd8 35. Qxf8+ {White mates...} Kc7 36. b4 Qb6 37. Be6 Qf2+ 38. Kb3 Qb2+
39. Kxb2 e4 40. Qc8+ Kd6 41. Qd7+ Ke5 42. Ne2 e3 43. Qd4#) 1-0
One of the longest tournament series is Sarajevo which used to be in Yugoslavia, but today is in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Chess has long been very popular there and even today visitors comment on the street games that are commonly seen.
The list of great players in the Sarajevo tournaments is as long as your arm: Spassky, Petrosian, Keres, Kotov, Simagin, Szabo, Eliskases, Larsen, Andersson, Lobron, Darga, Robatsch, Benko, Browne, R. Byrne, Seirawan, Pirc, Velimirovic, Adorjan, Csom, Ribli, Sax, Smejkal, Hort, Jansa, Kavalek, Yusupov, Vaganian, Romanishin, Bareev, Van der Wiel, Piket, Bacrot, Miles, Short, Adams, Leko, Radjabov, Topalov and many others.
The winner of the first tournament was Stojan Puc (1921-2004) in 1957, plus he tied with Ludek Pachman for first in 1960. The most first prizes went to Viktor Korchnoi (1969, 1984 shared and 1998) and Lajos Portisch (1962 shared, 1963, and 1986 shared). Several players have won the tournament twice: Kasparov, Ivkov, Gligoric, Pachman, Puc, Ciric, Georgiev, Psakhis, Ivan Sokolov and Movsesian.
In spite of all the great players who have played there, as far back as the 1972 tournament Paul Keres complained that the tendency for Grandmaster draws was prevalent and the new goal of the GM was no longer to checkmate the enemy King, but to score points.
Back in the 1960s (or was it the 1970s, I am not sure) Nicolas Rossolimo bitterly complained that by FIDE rules in effect at the time he had become listed as "inactive" which made it almost impossible for him to get invitations to tournaments. He also complained that despite his many previous successes in international tournaments, many brilliancy prizes and Queen sacrifices, that when he went to publish a book of his best games, he was told by publishers that they were not interested because he "did not score points."
Rossolimo was so frustrated that he added he thought that in each tournament a committee should be formed to judge the games and award points based on beauty. Under this crazy system in some cases it could be possible for the loser to score more points than the winner if he played more beautifully!
Sarajevo had a reputation for a high number of Grandmaster draws, but the 1972 tournament was a refreshing exception.
The winner of the following game was the great Hungarian GM Laszlo Szabo (March 19, 1917-August 8, 1998, 81 years old).
Szabo was born in Budapest and at the age of eighteen, he won the Hungarian Championship for the first of nine times (1935, 1937, 1939, 1946, 1950, 1952, 1954, 1959, and 1967/68).
Before World War II, he worked in the foreign exchange department of a Budapest bank. During World War II, he was in a Hungarian Forced Labor unit where he was captured by the Russian army and was a prisoner of war until after the end of the war.
Following the Second World War, he began to compete in major international events and ontinued to play in tournaments and promote chess in his country until his death in 1998. Unofficially Chessmetrics assigns him a high rating of 2726 in 1946 which ranked him number 6 in the world behind Botvinnik, Najdorf, Euwe, Kers and Smyslov.
His opponent, Vlastimil Hort (January 12, 1944), is a Czech GM who during the 1960s and 1970s was one of the world's top players and reached the 1977–78 Candidates Tournament. Hort defected in 1985, moving to West Germany.
I analyzed this game using Stockfish and Komodo and in doing so, as often happens, I ran into a couple of positions where the engines were showing a winning advantage for, in this case, white, but being the patzer that I am I did not see how. In those cases I ran a Shootout just to make sure and to get an idea of the winning technique. In a Shootout the program (Fritz) plays a series of rapid games (either using a specified time or number of plies).
This brings me to a very informative article that appears in the recent issue of Chess Life in which GM Jacob Aagaard discusses analyzing with engines.
Naturally I can't reproduce the five page atricle, but he makes some instructive observations on using engines to improve your play.
When analyzing with an engine we are usually tempted to insert a whole lot of long and superfluous variations into the game. We should only be interested in variations that we, as humans, should actually be able see and then base our judgment on that.
He also noted that often we aren't going to understand why engines are giving one side and advantage. In those cases, further investigation is warranted and, hopefully, we will reach an understanding of why one side is better. If you can explain why one side is better in a way that another person can understand it then you have it.
By the way, Aagaard is an outstanding author and I can highly recommend his book Excelling At Chess Calculation, but only if you are willing to put in a LOT of work.
Laszlo Szabo - Vlastimil Hort
Result: 1-0
Site: Sarajevo
Date: 1972.03.21
Gruenfeld Defense
[...]1.d4♘f62.c4g63.♘c3d5 The Gruenfeld gives white the chance to gain the Pawn center which back in the 1920s was a revolutionary hypermodern idea. In those days the large P-center was considered to be a huge advantage that lead to a strong attack. However, black has plenty of opportunities for counterattack. At one time the defense was a favorite of Reshevsky because he considered it a "fighting defense." 4.cxd5 White takes the opportunity to kick the N around and set up an imposing P center. Seen less often are 4.Nf3, 4.Bg5 and 4.Bf4, all reasonable moves. 4...♘xd55.e4♘xc3 Probably the best reply. 6.bxc3♗g77.♗c4 One of 19 (!) moves that white has tried according to my Fritz opening book. 7...c58.♘e2 By far the best move.
8.♘f3 looks reasonable, but after 8...O-O9.O-Ocxd410.cxd4♘c611.♗e3♗g4 black has scored quite well.
8...♘c69.♗e3O-O10.O-O♕c711.♖c1♖d812.f4 This is all opening theory and here white has tried 17 different moves!! Black now begins pecking away at white's center forcing it to advance. What will the result be? 12...♗g413.f5♘a514.♗d3♕d715.d5
15.e5 Is another alternative, but it, too, favors black. 15...♗xe516.fxg6hxg617.h3♗xe218.♗xe2cxd419.cxd4♗xd420.♗xd4♕xd4+21.♕xd4♖xd4 with a won ending for black. Chirivi C,A (2040)-Diaz Arboleda,D (2124)/Medellin 2013.
15...gxf516.c4b5 This is one way to attack white's center. Another was is ... fxe4 and ...e6.
16...fxe417.♗xe4e618.♕e1b619.♘f4e520.♘e6fxe621.♕h4 and white's K-side attack prevailed. Kiese,M-Steinmueller,S/Berlin 1991
17.h3fxe4
17...bxc4? would be great except for 18.♗b1♗d419.♗xd4♗xe220.♕xe2cxd421.♖xf5 and white has a huge positional advantage because black's Ps are too weak.
18.♗xe4 Black has a couple of interesting replies here. 18...♗h5 Best as with this move black retains equality.
18...♗xh3 looks promising because if 19.gxh3♕xh320.♗xc5bxc421.♗g2 Black has 3Ps for the B, but both Stockfish and Komodo highly favor white. In a Shootout using Stockfish white scored 7 wins in the resulting ending.
18...♘xc4 does not work out well either after 19.♖xc4bxc420.hxg4♕xg421.♕c2 and white is better. In Shootouts white won all 7 games.
19.cxb5♖ac8 This loses outright as will be clear next move.
19...♕xb5 attacks the N and so 20.♗f3♗xf321.♖xf3♘c4 equalizes
20.♕e1 Unpinning the N. 20...♕xb521.♘f4 With the N no longer pinned white can now conduct an attack on black's K. 21...♗g622.♘xg6fxg623.♗g5♗f624.♗xf6exf6 It appears the black has solved his problems on the K-side and with the reduced material the danger of a direct attack on his K has disappeared. 25.♗xg6 But appearances can be deceptive. 25...♖f8 Surprisingly, white now has another sacrifice available. (25...hxg626.♖xf6♕e827.♖e6♕f728.♕e4♔h729.♖f1♕g730.♖e7 wins.) 26.♕g3
26.♗xh7+ Although this would win in the ending, it's much too unclear to play OTB! 26...♔xh727.♕h4+♔g828.♕g4+♔f729.♕f5 and black's extra piece won't save him as extensive endgame analysis shows. That's assuming that white finds the best moves at every turn.
26...♔h8 (26...hxg627.♕xg6+♔h828.♖f5 is the end.) 27.♗xh7 A brilliant finish. 27...♕b2
27...♔xh728.♖f4 and black has no way out. The difference between this variation and 26.Bxh7+ is that here white's Q is better positioned in that it cuts off black's K.
