As temperatures rose to 55 degrees this one brought, fortunately, only 1 inch of rain, not the 1-1/2 to 2 inches predicted, but it came on top of 10-12 inches of melting snow. Later in the day the temperature began dropping into the teens and the rain changed to freezing rain and then snow. We woke up this morning with 2-3 inches of snow on top of a layer of ice.
Thankfully, it was not as bad as what happened to the people in Petropolis, Brazil. Just over 10 inches of rain fell within three hours on Tuesday (almost as much as during the previous 30 days combined) and set off mudslides and floods in a mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro state, killing multiple people, washing away homes, cars and everything else in their path.
Petropolis was the site of the 1973 Interzonal tournament that was won by Henrique Meking. Second place was a tie between Lajos Portisch, Lev Polugayevsky and Ewfim Geller. Portisch and Polugayevsky qualified for the Zonal when they eliminated Geller in the playoff in Portoroz.
Chess Life editor Burt Hochberg was there and wrote that while he and his wife were in Rio de Janeiro he was reading a newspaper chess article and noticed the name of a participant he had never heard of...somebody the article referred to as Mequinho when the headlines screamed MEQUINHO BEATS RESHEVSKY!
Mequinho was Henrique Mecking, Brazil's boy wonder, the strongest player on the South American continent and likely the best player South America ever produced. Mecking won the tournament, as Hochberg put it, "...al1 by himself. He did it cleanly, simply by playing better than anyone else."
It was a different story for old timers like Smyslov, Bronstein, Reshevsky and Keres; sadly, their star was fading.
Poor Reshevsky! Against Soviet player Vladimir Savon, Reshevsky had a forced mate when, in his usual time pressure, he played the last move of the time control, 40.Qxg6 mate...or it would have been a mate, but, alas Reshevsky simply forgot that Savon had a B lurking on b1 and so after Savon snapped off the Queen it wasn't mate at all...Reshevsky had simply blundered away his Q and so he resigned.
However, in his game against Yugoslav (now Serbian) GM Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Reshevsky didn't miss the mate. Ljubojevic (born 1950) won the Yugoslav Championship in 1977 (tied) and 1982. During his career he defeated just about every top player there was.
[Event "Petropolis Interzonal"]
[Site "Petropolis Interzonal"]
[Date "1973.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Samuel Reshevsky"]
[Black "Ljubomir Ljubojevic"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Annotator "Stockfish 14.1"]
[PlyCount "85"]
[EventDate "1973.07.23"]
{Modern Defence: Averbakh Variation} 1. d4 g6 {In the Modern Defense, or the
Robatsch Defense, white is allowed to occupy the center with Ps on d4 and e4
and then black will try to undermine this ideal center without attempting to
occupy it.} 2. c4 Bg7 3. e4 d6 4. Nc3 {The Averbakh System.} Nd7 {It's a
King's Indian after 4...Nf6} 5. Nf3 e5 6. Be2 c6 7. O-O Nh6 8. Rb1 (8. d5 c5 9.
Bd2 f6 10. b4 Nf7 11. Ne1 cxb4 12. Na4 a5 13. a3 bxa3 14. Nd3 {is equal.
Janssen,R (2503)-Martens,M (2377)/Netherlands 2019}) 8... O-O 9. b4 f5 {
Energetic, but risky.} (9... a6 10. d5 c5 11. a3 f6 12. Bd3 Nf7 {and black is
badly cramped. Korotylev,A (2603)-Lanchava,T (2366)/Wijk aan Zee 2005}) (9...
exd4 10. Nxd4 Ne5 11. b5 Qh4 12. bxc6 bxc6 13. Rb3 Bg4 14. f3 Be6 {and white
is much better, but in Portisch,L (2640)-Meleghegyi,C (2355)/Hungary 1979
black managed to survive and hold on for a draw.}) 10. Bg5 Qe8 11. d5 Nf7 12.
dxc6 bxc6 13. Bc1 Bb7 14. exf5 gxf5 15. Nh4 e4 16. Rb3 Qe6 {Obviously
defending the f-Pawn, but Rershevsky's next move is a surprise.} 17. Nxf5 Qxf5
{The win of the piece is very temporary.} 18. Bg4 Qg6 19. Bxd7 {So, white has
won a P.} Ne5 20. Bh3 Rf3 21. Ne2 Nd3 22. Nf4 {A cute little tactical shot.}
Rxf4 23. Rxd3 exd3 24. Bxf4 Bc8 25. Bxc8 Rxc8 {The exchanges have left white
with an excellent ending because the P on d3 will eventually fall.} 26. Re1 Rf8
27. Qd2 Qf5 28. g3 d5 {Wrong P push!} (28... c5 29. bxc5 dxc5 {Even here white
is considerably better.}) 29. c5 h5 30. h4 {Preventing even the hint of
counterplay by ...h4} Bd4 31. Kg2 {Here or on the next few moves Reshevsky
could have reached an even more favorable ending with b5 followed by the
advance of his d-Pawn. Instead, he spends considerable time shuffling his
pieces around gradually improving their position.} Rf7 32. f3 Kh7 {This turns
out to be a bad position for the K, but even a better move would not have
saved the game} 33. Rd1 Be5 34. Bxe5 Qxe5 35. Qxd3+ Kg8 36. f4 Qb2+ 37. Rd2
Qxb4 {The gme is over after Reshevsky's next move.} 38. Qg6+ Kf8 39. Qh6+ Rg7
40. Re2 Qxc5 41. Qh8+ Kf7 42. Qe8+ Kf6 43. Qe6# 1-0
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