A Little Known Najdorf Classic

     Miguel Najdorf (April 15, 1910 – July 4, 1997) was a leading world player in the 1940s and 1950s. His best successes were achieved from 1939 to 1947 when he ranked among the world's top players. 
     According to Chessmetrics, he was ranked second in the world from mid 1947 to mid 1949 and he was assigned a high rating of 2797 in 1948. There's little doubt that he should have been invited to participate in the 1948 World Championship tournament that consisted of Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres, Reshevsky an Euwe, but he wasn't. In a 1947 interview Najdorf stated, “I believe that I am inferior to none of the players who are to participate in the next world championship...None of these have a better record than I. I have played much less than they have, admittedly, but I am satisfied with my results.” 
     A flamboyant player with a sparkling style, Najdorf won 52 international tournaments, the Argentine championship eight times and repeatedly headed the Argentine national team. As far as I know there's only one book in English on Najdorf's best games and that is Najdorf X Najdorf by his daughter Liliana and translated from Spanish by Taylor Kingston. One caveat by Jeremy Siman is that Najdorf loved telling stories but was not always careful with the facts. 
     According to Arnold Denker, Najdorf “had a knack for mowing down the bottom half of mixed tournaments and this facility earned him a reputation as a risk taking tactician rather than a positional player." Denker claimed that assessment was flatly wrong, pointing out that he won deep positional victories over Botvinnik, Spassky and many others. Denker observed that Najdorf played for “easy simplicity” that resulted from the skilled application of strategic principles.
     One such masterpiece is a lesser known Najdorf brilliancy over Paul Keres in the first Piatigorsky Cup in 1963. In that tournament Keres and Petrosian tied for first and Najdorf and Olafsson were a point behind. They were followed by Reshevsky, Gligoric and then sharing the last two places were Benko and Panno. 
     Aside from the following loss to Najdorf, Keres lost both of his games against Reshevsky. Najdorf lost two games, to Olafsson and Benko. In this game which was highly praised by none other than Bobby Fischer, Najdorf's own comments on his play are quite revealing. 

Hollywood vs. Hawaii

Mary Astor

     On a Sunday way back on July 19, 1936 a six-hour long radio match, now long forgotten, was played between the Hollywood Chess Club and the Hawaiian Army Chess Club. 
     The Hollywood players met at the home of a LA Police detective, Lt. Donald Praper, who was also a ham radio operator. The Army team met at Schofield Barracks. 
     If you remember, Pearl Harbor was not the only installation that was bombed on December 7, 1941; other military targets were attacked, too. Just a short drive north of the harbor, was the Wheeler airfield. Wheeler was the largest fighter base on Oahu at the time with nearly 150 fighter planes that needed to disabled before the bombing of Pearl Harbor’s ships. The attack killed 36 people and wounded 74 others. The attackers then flew over Schofield Barracks, damaging buildings, wounding many and killing a few others. But those events were five years in the future. Schofield Barracks was also to be the principal setting for the novel From Here to Eternity by James Jones. 

     In Hollywood, a few years earlier Warner Bros. had acquired access to First National's affiliated chain of theaters, but they continued to operate as separate entities. In July 1936, the big news was the stockholders of First National Pictures, Inc. voted to dissolve the corporation and distribute its assets among the stockholders to take advantage of the tax laws. 
     Also in Hollywood, the Motion Picture Directors Association was dissolved when members of the helped create the Screen Directors Guild, an official craft union. 
     The real news out of Hollywood though was actress Mary Astor's trial and juicy sex scandal. Mary Astor (born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke; May 3, 1906 – September 25, 1987) is best remembered for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon in 1941. 

     She began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s. When the talkies arrived her career hit a bump because her voice was considered too masculine, but within a year she was back in the movies. But in 1936 her career was nearly destroyed due to a sex scandal. 
     At the age of 17 in 1923, she was canoodling with actor John Barrymore and when they broke up she married an actor named Ken Hawks who was soon killed while filming a World War I dogfight from a biplane. That left Mary a widow at 23. 
     She soon succumbed to the bedside manner of Dr. Franklyn Thorpe who appreciated her for her income which allowed him to set up his gynecological practice. They were married in 1931 and two years later she wanted out, but an attorney warned her that a custody trial over her daughter could ruin her career.
     At the suggestion of a friend she took a vacation in New York and that's where she met George S. Kaufman, a married and very successful playwright on Broadway. They had an affair and she described him as absolutely sensational in the sack. 
     After her fling with Kaufman she decided to divorce Thorpe anyway, but when he refused, she and her four-year-old daughter moved out. He wasn't surprised and was prepared. He had found her diary and read that his sexual performance was lame, she didn't like his social climbing and found it offensive and she didn't appreciate his reckless extravagance with her money. She had also ridiculed him for growing a mustache identical to Clark Gable’s. 
     In the diary he also read about her affair with Kaufman and used it to his advantage. In 1935 Thorpe won an uncontested divorce, but Mary was worried that he might move away and take her daughter, so in 1936 she decided to challenge the custody agreement. 
     In July 1936 Thorpe began leaking snippets from the diary and he even fabricated some entries. He said Mary’s confessions included a racy scorecard that listed all the men she had bedded along with numerical ratings. Needless to say, panic arose in Hollywood. What if one of the stars had gotten a poor score?!
     Thorpe planned to use the diary to prove she was an unfit mother. He threatened to put her graded scorecard into evidence and had already shown a page of it to the press. 
     Although written in brown ink, the tabloids called it “the Purple Diary.” News headlines of the day screamed MARY ASTOR SOBS ON STAND, ASTOR’S SENSATIONS SCARE FILM MOGULS and ASTOR DIARY ECSTASY-G. S. KAUFMAN TRYST BARED. 
     The diary was never formally offered as evidence during the trial, but Thorpe and his lawyers constantly referred to it. Astor admitted that the diary existed and that she had documented her affair with Kaufman, but maintained that many of the parts that had been referred to were forgeries that were written following the theft of the diary from her desk. 
     A settlement was reached on August 13 and daughter Marylyn was awarded to her mother during the school months and to her father for vacation periods and weekends. The child’s teachers, governesses, and nurses would be selected by mutual consent and the costs shared. 
     The diary was deemed inadmissible as a mutilated document and the trial judge ordered it sealed and impounded. In 1952, by court order, Astor's diary was removed from the bank vault where it had been sequestered for 16 years and destroyed. 
     Astor also authored five novels. Her autobiography was a bestseller, as was her later book, A Life on Film, which was about her career.  Read her NY Times obituary for more dirt.
     On to the match. In Hollywood Detective Praper transmitted the moves in Morse code which were received in Hawaii by an Army radio operator. This represented the first time a Pacific match was played by wireless. 
     Connections were established at 7:30 pm California time (5:00 pm in Hawaii) and lasted until 1:30 am (California time). The match was only two boards with each board having two players in consultation. Arrangements were made by the North American Correspondence Chess League which was headquartered in Beverly Hills and was umpired by Herman Steiner with Albert C. Simonson serving as referee. 
     Hollywood played white on board one and was represent by Dr. Griffith and MacMahon; their opponents were Sgt. Huth and Maconel. It was a hard fought affair that began as a Ruy Lopez Steinitz Defense. Black quickly won a P, but lost if back. On move 19 white went astray and eventually lost. 
     Board two had the Army's Sarella and Roberts facing Hollywood's Johnson (president of the club) and Chern (club secretary). Army opened with an Evans Gambit and lost quickly in only 19 moves. 

Berne 1932

     In 1932 the major news stories in the U.S. were unemployment reaching 24 percent with many people living in cars and shanty towns. Hooverville's, so-called, were named after President Hoover. These were shanty towns that appeared around the country built by homeless people using wood from crates, cardboard, scraps of metal, or whatever materials were available to them.
     43,000 marchers, including 17,000 World War I veterans marched on Washington DC and set up campgrounds demanding early payments of cash bonuses to help survive the Great Depression. Lovable old General Douglas MacArthur's Army advanced with bayonets and sabers drawn under a shower of bricks and rocks and in less than four hours cleared out the Bonus Army's campground using tear gas then burned down the camp grounds. The veterans had been promised bonuses, but they were not to be distributed until 1945. Congress was able to successfully award the Bonus Army their early cash bonuses in 1936. 

A shanty town in New York's Central Park

     As governments usually do, they figured out ways to increase income. The Revenue Act raised United States tax rates across the board, with the rate on top incomes rising from 25 percent to 63 percent and the first federal gasoline tax applied at a rate of 1 cent per gallon. In an effort to stay afloat the Government and businesses implemented wage cuts up to 30 percent for those lucky enough to be employed. They also cut working hours for those employed hoping to provide more jobs for those who weren't. 
     The US government also forced hundreds of thousands of Mexicans out of the country during the recession years. Gangster Al Capone was convicted for income tax evasion, so he had a bad year, too. 
     Not everybody was suffering financially though; some celebrities, athletes, thieves and bottom feeders did quite well. 
* Baseball star Babe Ruth raked in $80,000 a year which is over $1.4 million in today's dollars. 
* Bank robber John Dillinger stole more than $3 million in today’s dollars 
* Film star James Cagney was a top money earner in Hollywood. Other Hollywood stars managed to do quite well: Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, Jean Harlow, Bing Crosby, John Wayne, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Boris Karloff, Clarke Gable and Edward G. Robinson.
* Charles Darrow created the game Monopoly game and became the world’s first millionaire game-designer. 
* Oil man J. Paul Getty was busy snatching up depressed oil stocks with his inheritance and created a new petroleum empire. 
* Singing cowboy and movie star Gene Autry was making millions 
* Joe Kennedy Sr., the patriarch of the Kennedy family, made lots of money in various ways: stock speculation, real-estate, liquor and movies. 

     Towards the end of the year in November voters overwhelmingly kicked President Herbert Hoover out of office in favor of Franklin D. Roosevelt. 
     In 1932 the major tournaments were: Hastings-won by Salo Flohr Pasadena-won by Alekhine Mexico City-Alekhine and Kashdan shared first Bad Sliac-Salo Flohr and Milan Vidmar shared first.
     According to Chessmetrics the strongest tournament for the years 1932 and 1933 was Bern, 1932. This tournament included five of the top ten players in the world. The next-strongest tournaments were London, 1932 and Bad Sliac, 1932. 
     The Berne tournament also served as the Swiss Championship as ten Swiss players competed for the country's 36th Championship. The time limit was 40 moves in two and a half hours and for the second session, 25 moves in one and a half hours. There were no rest days or extra days for adjourned games. 

Bernstein

     World Champion Alexander Alekhine captured first, but lost a game to Bogoljubow in Round 10. The other favorites also met expectations and were joined by the almost inactive 49-year-old Dr. Ossip Bernstein. Of the Swiss players, the Johner brothers tied with 7 points and Hans Johner was awarded the Swiss championship based on Sonneborn-Berger tiebreaks. In addition to the main prizes, the players received 30 Swiss francs for each won game. 


1) Alekhine 12.05 
2) Euwe and Flohr 11.5 
4) Sultan Khan 11.0 
5-6) Bogoljubow and Bernstein 10.0 
7-8) Hans Johner and Paul Johner 7.0 
9-12) Henneberger, Naegeli, Rivier and Grob 6.0 
13) Colin 5.5 
14) Voellmy 4.5 
15) Gygli 3.5 
16) Staehelin 2.0 

Henneberger

     In the movie The Theory Of Everything Stephen Hawking is seen reading a chess book titled Chess: Advanced Chess Strategy. The book is fictional, but in the scene at Cambridge, the position shown is after Black's 28th move occurred in the game Alekhine and Sultan Khan at Berne. The game was published in Alekhine's My Best Games of Chess 1924-1937. 

Paul Johner

     There were a lot of brilliant games played in Berne, but the following is probably best described as “cute” when Alekhine defeated Dr. Adolf Staehelin (1901-1965) in a miniature. Staehelin was born in Basel, was Swiss champion in 1927 and passed away in Zurich in 1965. 

Hans Johner

     This is one of those typical Alekhine games where he gains the advantage almost effortlessly and concludes with a bang. It's an example of Spielmann's statement that he could see combinations as well as Alekhine, but lacked the ability to get the positions with the ease that Alekhine did. 

Lasker vs. Maroczy World Championship Match, 1906

     It never took place. In 1906, Lasker singled out Siegbert Tarrasch and Geza Maroczy (pronounced Gay-zaw Marrow-tsy) as being worthy challengers. Lasker wrote that the chess world expected him to play matches against both. 
     Maroczy?! He's not much appreciated today, but he had established himself as one of the world’s leading players in the early 1900s. Lasker characterized him as “spirited” and as an “artist” who loved complicated positions with hidden resources. 
     Maroczy (March 3, 1870-May 29, 1951) was born in Szeged, Hungary. He won the minor tournament at Hastings 1895,and over the next ten years he won several first prizes in international events. Between 1902 and 1908, he took part in thirteen tournaments and won five first prizes and five second prizes.
     The idea of a match for the world championship had its beginnings at the Cambridge Springs tournament in 1904 and chess players in New York tried to raise the money but failed. Personally, Maroczy was not unhappy because he realized that Lasker would have been too much to handle, plus he hated playing against heavy smokers. 
     Maroczy arrived in the United States on February 20, 1906 to tour the country and arrived back in New York on April 6.  Negotiations were finalized at a dinner to celebrate the formation of the Rice Chess Club in the Cafe Boulevard on 2nd Avenue, Manhattan. More than 70 guests were present, among them Frank Marshall and Jose Capablanca. Lasker and Maroczy were in attendance and took advantage of their meeting to draw up and complete an agreement to play a world championship match to begin in October. The two had met before about the matter and it only took them two hours to hammer out the final details. Their agreement covered, among other things, the following points: 

1) The winner was the first to win 8 games, draws not counting. 
2) Both players put up $2,000 and the winner received the entire amount. And it was a substantial amount! In 1904, $4,000 equates to over $113,000 in 2018 buying power. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, prices in 2018 are 2,733 percent higher than prices in 1904. 
3) The time limit was to be 15 moves per hour. 
4) They would play 6 days a week and no more than 3 games would begin in a week and not on consecutive days. 
5) Play would be 6 hours per day and would be between 1 pm and 11 pm. 
6) The match would consist of three series: the first in Europe and the two others in the United States. Maroczy had to arrange the series in Europe, while Lasker had to arrange the series in the US. 

     As part of the financial arrangements each player had to deposit $500 with the Empire Trust Company of New York on or before June 1, 1906 as a guarantee of good faith.  In case of one of the players had to end the match, the other player would get the money as compensation. 
     Maroczy had planned on staying in the US until May 22nd, but unexpectedly departed on the 19th headed for the tournament in Ostend, Belgium even though he was not sure he would actually play; it depended on the conditions. He did play and the tournament ended on July 12th. 
     More than a month later, the forfeit deposit of $500 had still not been made by Maroczy. Lasker had made his deposit on June 1st. Maroczy was informed during the Ostend tournament that the deposit had not been made and was surprised that his representatives in Budapest had not acted on his behalf and made the deposit. He wrote to Lasker during the tournament stating that he would take care of the matter immediately after returning to Hungary.
     Meanwhile, in late June, Lasker received a letter stating that the Vienna Chess Club was willing to arrange the match. One condition was that the whole match had to take place in Austria. Lasker agreed to the conditions in general, but refused the condition that the whole match had to be played there. 
     In the meantime Lasker had heard nothing further, so in August he requested The Brooklyn Daily Eagle to get a statement from Maroczy, but the paper received no answer. Two weeks later they cabled Georg Marco seeking information, but none was forthcoming.
     On August 26, 1906 there was an article in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle with the headline "Silence of Maroczy Embarrasses Lasker." The article stated that Lasker was loath to believe that Maroczy wished to evade his obligations and was embarrassed by his failure to comply with the agreement or furnish any further explanation for his neglect and silence. Lasker was hoping for a letter from Marozcy that would shed light on the situation and put any further misgivings to rest. 
     Finally, on September 10, 1906 Maroczy declared that he would not be able to play the match because he was “too much engrossed in politics.”  I was unable to determine any details as to the nature of Maroczy's political activity, but this statement verifies that he was involved in something that got him in trouble with the authorities.  It also refutes Hans Kmoch's belief as stated in his memorial to Maroczy in Chess Review that Maroczy was too naive to have engaged in such activities.
     Maroczy claimed that he was still willing to play under the same conditions in 1907, and added that he would pay the $500 forfeit if Lasker insisted on it. Lasker did not insist and stated he was willing to play at a later date, but noted he was also ready to accept other challenges. 
     Almost immediately after hearing about Maroczy's withdrawal Frank Marshall challenged Lasker. Their match took place from January 26 to April 8, 1907 and it was a disaster for Marshall who failed to win a single game and took a 11.5-3.5 drubbing. 
     About one month after the match with Marshall was over, Maroczy, in the magazine Deutsche Wochenschach, claimed the negotiations ceased because Lasker wouldn't consent to the Vienna Chess Club conditions. This declaration is at odds as stated in his letter to Lasker that he was “too much engrossed in politics” to play the match.  One gets the feeling that after signing the agreement, Maroczy had second thoughts about the match, or perhaps he was unable to raise the money and was too embarrassed to admit it.
     After 1908, Maroczy retired from international chess to devote more time to his profession.  As an auditor and made a career at the Center of Trade Unions and Social Insurance. When the Communists came briefly to power he was a chief auditor at Educational Ministry. After the Communist government was overthrown he couldn't get a job. 
     He did make a brief return to chess after World War I, with some success. With him at the head, Hungary won the first Chess Olympiads in London in 1927. 
     During World War Two Maroczy had a difficult time in Budapest. He was forced to live for long periods in shelters with only beans to eat and no sanitation. He also nearly died from pneumonia. 
     After the war he realized things were changing in Hungary and attempted to leave, hoping to go to either Holland or the United States. In 1946, he and his wife left for Amsterdam, but didn't get past Vienna. They tried again in 1947 and managed six months in Amsterdam where he made an attempt at a chess comeback that ended in failure and they again returned to Hungary and nothing further was heard of him by the chess world until May 30, 1951 when Max Euwe was stunned to receive a telegram that Maroczy had died. 
     When Maroczy passed away at the age of 81 he was one of the last great players whose career had begun in the previous century; only Jacques Mieses was left. Writing in Chess Review, Hans Kmoch referred to him as the “unchallenged champion of chivalry.” 
     Although dueling was outlawed in Austria, it was common in Hungary when Maroczy grew up and during the tournament at Bled in 1931, he challenged Nimzovich to a duel with pistols. Nimzovich refused to participate in what he called his own assassination and so Maroczy was satisfied because to refuse the challenge was a fate worse than death. Kmoch added that had the challenged been accepted it's likely that Marozcy, a peaceable man, would not have known which end of the pistol to use. 
     Physically, Maroczy was described by Kmoch as being six feet of skin which hung in ripples and bone with a main of long hair which he rarely cut. Small, deep set eyes, accentuated cheekbones and a set of huge dentures completed Kmoch's description. I was unable to find any photos that depicted Maroczy in manner described by Kmoch.
     An Anglophile, for seven years he lived in exile in England and the United States after having somehow become compromised in the Communist revolution that took place in Hungry in 1919. For details of the “forgotten revolution” visit HERE. 

The Maroczy – Korchnoi correspondence game. 
    From 1985 until 1993 Maroczy played a postal game against Viktor Korchnoi (who emerged the winner) even though Maroczy had died more than thirty years earlier! How could that be, you ask. You can read the story HERE. 

A Great British Amateur Who Vanished from the Scene

     Every so often a player appears on the scene, creates a sensation, then for whatever reason disappears. James S. Kipping (November 28, 1922-April 20, 1899) from Manchester, England was one such player who outlived his reputation and became practically unknown. 
     During his heyday he was considered among the strongest English amateurs. His grandson, Cyril Stanley Kipping, would later earn the honorary FIDE title of International Master of Chess Composition in the 1959. Chessmetrics assigns Kipping a high rating of 2412 in 1861. This ranked him 19th in the world, putting him the a class with such players as Robert Wormald, Carl Mayet, Bernhard Horwitz and Augustus Mongredien. 
     Kipping had managed to disappear from the public eye to the point that in 1884 a Manchester weekly newspaper included him in a list of distinguished local players who had long since disappeared. The fact was, Kipping was still alive and though he never visited the local chess club, he was still playing at private gatherings. 
     Forty to fifty years previously he had met the great players of his day: Howard Staunton, Adolf Anderssen (whom he defeated several times), Thomas H. Buckle, Bernard Horwitz, Paul Morphy, Henry Bird and G.A. Macdonald. 
     For many years Kipping was the manager of the Bank of England. At the age of 20 he joined the bank where he worked under his father and remained there for 45 years until he retired. 
     The first record of him appearing on the Manchester's chess club members' list was in 1850. At the time the club's president was C.A. Duval, a well known artist of the day. 
     In 1853 Kipping participated in a an important club event that was attended by Staunton and other prominent players. During that event Kipping defeated a strong amateur player named Williams in a match by a score of +3 -2 =0. Eventually Kipping became club secretary, an office which he held until 1863.
     When the British Chess Association held its meeting in Manchester in 1857 there was a consultation game which lasted two days in which Staunton, Boden and Kipping defeated Anderssen, Horwitz and Kling. 
     In August, 1858 players from all over England journeyed to Manchester to watch Morphy to play eight blindfold games and Kipping was among those selected to play. Kipping took advantage of a weak move by Morphy and with skillful play secured the win. Later, when Morphy played 24 blindfold games in Leeds, Kipping was the only player to score a win. Kipping later played two other games against Morphy. 
     Starting in 1855 Kipping's name began appearing regularly in club matches and finally disappeared in 1887 although he had dropped his regular appearance at the club long before that. It was in 1887 while Kipping was club secretary that J.H. Blackburne, then 18 years old, joined the club. 
     Besides chess, Kipping also had an interest in chemistry and he was a member of the Manchester Chemical Society and regularly attended their meetings. 
     Kipping was known for his healthy constitution and it was reported that he never had a day's illness and even in the coldest weather he never wore an overcoat and in both winter and summer, he slept with a window open. 
     On April 19, 1899, he complained of feeling faint and the following day his end came suddenly without any warning; he was 76 years old. 
     Few of his games have survived and most of his wins in databases are from simuls against world class players of his day, but most of them are not especially well played. The following game against another amateur probably best represents Kipping's solid play. 

The Most Thrilling Game of Larry Evans' Career

Taimanov congratulates Evans

     Right after WWII ended in 1945, the US met the Soviets in a radio match and although the US team expected to win they were massacred, losing by a score of 15.5-4.5. 
     The only bright spots were Al Horowitz drawing his match with Salo Flohr on board 4 and Albert Pinkus drawing his with Andor Lilienthal on board 7. On boards 1 and 2 Arnold Denker and Samuel Reshevsky were both skunked by Mikhail Botvinnik and Vassily Smylsov respectively. 
     Down on board 4 Isaac Kashdan lost twice to Alexander Kotov and on board 8 Herbert Seidman lost both of his games to Viacheslav Ragozin. Anthony Santasiere also fell victim to David Bronstein twice on board 10. It was awful.
     Then in 1953 another match was being considered to take place the following year. The proposal had originally been made in 1946 and it was renewed by Al Bisno, the US team captain, during the 1952 Olympiad in Helsinki. 
     After all the arrangements were finally completed for the match, the Russians began making stipulations. They wanted their team to stay at a Russian-owned estate in Long Island, but the visas specified New York City. They Russians were informed they could visit, but not stay, at the estate. The Russians were in Paris and returned home in a huff and the match was canceled.
     Later, the Soviets invited the US to come to Russia. For some reason the invitation was sent to Samuel Reshevsky who forwarded it to Harold M. Phillips, the USCF president. Phillips rejected the invitation and invited the Russians to come to New York in 1954 and they again accepted. People were skeptical that they actually would come, but they did. The US lost again. 
     The venue for the match was the Hotel Roosevelt in New York and in the very first round things got tense down on board 8 where Taimanov and Evens were playing. 
     The Soviet team leader Dmitri Postnikov, team physician Dr. Vladimir Rydin and the head of the Russian delegation to NY, Semyon Tsarapkin, were watching the game and at one point when it looked like Taimanov had blundered, things were so tense Postnikiv bit his tongue, Rydin chewed his score pad and Tsarapkin gnawed his knuckles. 

Worried Russian officials

     With Evans on the attack Taimanov suddenly stirred the pot by offering a N and hardly stopping to think Evans grabbed it. Within 11 moves Evans had lost handfuls of material and his King was driven from pillar to post before he resigned on move 35. It was a humiliating defeat for the ex-US champion. 
     Nor was it all that exhilarating for Taimanov; he got a good tongue-lashing from Commisar Postnikov for taking unnecessary risks. In the last round the action on board 8 between Mark Taimanov and Larry Evans produced another thriller. Evans wrote, "The most thrilling game of my career featured an inspired defense after I walked headlong into a prepared variation against the Soviet champion Taimanov in our rubber game with the score tied 1.5-1.5. Tension rode high. At move 18 he had used only two minutes on his clock, while I consumed close to an hour." Both players played aggressively; Taimanov attacked on the Q-side, Evans on the K-side. The turning point came on move 19 when Taimanov, trying to break up Evans' position, plunged his R deep into Evans' position as bait. Unlike in game one, Evans' didn't take the bait and calmly built up a crushing attack.