Garry Kasparov on Chess, the Cold War, and the West’s Shameful Appeasement of Putin

Nick Gillespie & Joshua Swain

“I think we’ve forgotten many important lessons of the Cold war,” says human-rights activist and former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. Especially when it comes to dealing with Russian leader Vladimir Putin: “You cannot project weakness….Putin’s game is [not chess but] poker. And he knows how to bluff.”

As the leader of United Civil Front and chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, Kasparov also worries that business and political leaders in what used to be called “the Free World” are no longer interested in backing large, transformative projects similar to landing a man on the Moon and the creation of the Internet. “It is very important that we have these projects to energize society,” he says. “And also that we don’t eliminate risk. Because it seems to me that now we teach kids from school that failure is nothing but failure. If you fail, you are a failure. No, no, I believe that failure is a logical move on the way to success.”

After becoming the youngest World Chess Champion in 1985, Kasparov went on to a career that is among the greatest in the sport. Originally supportive of Gorbachev’s reform, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Kasparov became increasingly outspoken against the failures of Russian leadership, especially under Putin.

Reason’s Nick Gillespie interviewed Kasparov in New York in November at a dinner co-hosted by the Atlas Network, a nonprofit that promotes free-market think tanks in the developing world.

About 30 minutes.

Camera by Meredith Bragg and Jim Epstein. Edited by Joshua Swain.

Free Minds, Free Markets, and Free Kasparov aren’t free! Support Reason’s annual Webathon with a tax-deductible donation and help change the world in a libertarian direction. For details on giving levels and swag, go here now.

Here is a rush transcript of the interview (check all quotes against video for accuracy):

Reason TV: This is not just the anniversary of the Berlin’s Wall’s Collapse, it is also the anniversary of your world championship.

Garry Kasparov: I celebrated this date four years before the collapse of Berlin Wall. November 9, 1985, I won my world championship title in Moscow.

Reason TV: We’d like to think that the two events are not unlinked. Talk a little bit about what the enduring lessons of the fight against communism, that we are in 25 years it seems a couple of worlds ago. What are the lessons that we’re in the danger in losing from long after the twilight of the cold war.

Kasparov: I think we’ve forgotten many important lessons of the Cold war. I have to say that when I entered this field in the mid 80’s as the newly born world champion, it was not as dangers. So Gorbachev badly needed to reconcile with the west. The soviet economy was in terrible shape. Oil prices were sharply falling thanks to the cooperation between Reagan’s administration and the Saudis. And it was absolutely clear even for the soviet politburo that the arms race in the competition against the United States on the global scale was no longer a plausible option.

So Gorbachev tried hard and he made several attempts to convince Ronald Reagan to accept some sort of peace accord. Thanks to Reagan’s intuition and despite the advice of all his advisors, his administration, the state department, the pentagon, he said no in Reykjavik. And I think by saying no in Reykjavik, Reagan made Perestroika and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union inevitable in such a short period of time.

Reason TV: And of course Reykjavik…

Kasparov: A symbolic place. 1972, Bobby Fisher beat Boris Spassky. That was another episode of the big victory of the free world in the cold war.

Reason TV: And thereby condemning all of us in grammar school in the 70’s to joining chess clubs. What was it like to grow up in the Soviet system? You were in the relatively privileged position.

Kasparov: I was relatively privileged, because of my chess.

Reason TV: What was it like and what was the psychological effect on yourself on people around you?

Kasparov: I think certain things are very hard to describe. Because to understand them, you have to live with them. I was always amazed to hear comparison in America or Western Europe about Soviet Union and certain wrong doings of the governments in the free world without recognizing that in the Soviet Union, just was a dictatorship.

I grew up in the later 60’s, 70’s, early 80’s. Of course I haven’t experienced horrors of Stalin’s time. But it was still the country that was not free and thanks to my ability to place chess and the fact that I was a chess prodigy, I could travel abroad. SO my first trip to France was when I was 13. And it was a very shocking experience.

Reason TV: What was shocking about it?

Kasparov: I don’t think that in my family and I’m not just talking about very few people, but extended family, cousins and among my friends, there was no single person that had visited a capitalist country. So at age 13, I carried a sacred knowledge of how people lived on the other side of the Iron Curtain. So people knew that there was another world. They could of course read some literature that was officially banned but you could buy and listen to radio liberty or voice of America and BBC.

You could not find hard believers in a Communist regime, so it was all dying down. My grandfather, my mother’s father was a diehard communist. He died in 1981. I was 18, and we were talking about Afghanistan. And he was shocked after spending 15 years in the Communist party, he had to line up to buy butter and bread. It was mind boggling. So something went wrong. So that’s why the collapse of the Communist system was somehow imminent. I think’s Gorbachev’s plan was not to remove communism and replace it with something more plausible but without giving up the role of the communist party.

Reason TV: Do you think that in the end, that there’s no way to do that. It’s kind alike being a little but pregnant. If you give people a little bit of freedom, the whole thing’s going to collapse. Don’t follow that illusion all the way.

Kasparov: I don’t think that you can divide people genetically by saying these nations are not ready to embrace democracy and I hear this argument about Russia or China. You have two Koreas. If you look at the north, you can come up with the conclusion that Koreans are born to be slaves and they live in gulags. Unless you are aware that there is a South Korea, one of the most flourishing economies in Asia. And again it’s a democracy and market economy. And in China, you have China on the one side but you have Taiwan. It’s a rocky island with the same people. And I’m not even mentioning two Germanies.

I think people have the same aspirations. They want to be successful. They want their kids to have good education. They want to spend some money to have a vacation in a decent place. The moment they are given this opportunity, I don’t think you can force them back to the Communist stable.

Reason TV: You’ve been very forward and very courageous in speaking out against Putin and other forms of dictatorships, creepy fascism, and corporatism. You’re very critical of the West’s engagement with Putin, with China. You’ve written that we’re willing to trade with them, but we don’t draw a line when they obviate civil liberties. When they continue to act repressively. How should we be engaging them, those of us in the free world?

Kasparov: We have to go back to the 1989, 1990, 1991, it was a great moment in history. Everyone was…

Reason TV: A lot younger.

Kasparov: Don’t mention that. We believe that it was all over. If in August 1991, anyone would say in Moscow or outside of Soviet Union, “in nine years, a KGB lieutenant would be the President of Russia,” people would be laughing. It was really impossible to believe that after all these changes, we can go back.

In 1992, one of the best sellers was the End of History, by Francis Fukuyama. The end of history, liberal democracy has won, that’s it. I think this book ignored the fact that every generation has to fight it own Berlin Wall. As Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is only one Generation away from Extinction.”

So there’s no physical Berlin Wall, but there are walls. And the problem of the Soviet Union specifically, that unlike Germany, Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan, there was no cleansing process. The society couldn’t feel responsibility for the Communist crimes. For ordinary Russians, “okay, that’s over.” Same as in 1918, in Germany, we lost the war, but maybe somebody betrayed us. While we had some good moments under Yeltsin, you could feel in the 90’s, trying to build a system similar to the free world with parliament, with presidential power, with checks and balances, with independent court system, they failed. Because Russian people believe that all we needed was to have the voting procedure and if we implemented, it would immediately lead to the dramatic improvement in living standards.

The irony is that nobody could see an improvement in the ’90s. The majority couldn’t see it. When Putin took over, thanks to the high oil prices, suddenly, life improved. It’s a very odd connection. But in the minds of many ordinary people, “Wow! That’s a democracy.”

Reason TV: They feel loyalty to Putin rather than to democratic Institutions.

Reason TV: How much of the problem of with Russia is specifically a problem with Putin? You’ve written that distinct from their Soviet Union, it is about him. He’s building a cult of personality, where the state revolves around. You write about the Sochi Olympics. That’s it was a glorification of him similar to the way the Berlin Olympics were (for Hitler). So if Putin is gone, does the trouble go away from within Russia or what needs to happen within the country?

Kasparov: If dictator goes away, it doesn’t happen through the normal election process. So that’s why you can expect turmoil. Most likely uprising in Moscow, in the capital. It won’t end up with a very peaceful resolution. Because political opposition has been destroyed and I don’t think you can have anything worse than Putin. All these threats that Putin is the last line of defense, and if not Putin. Putin is the main problem. Putin is a paranoid, aging dictator who believes he is Russia. The same way Hitler believed he was Germany. And it’s not surprising that Kremlin propaganda has been repeating the classical “Hitler is Germany, Germany is Hitler” now “Putin is Russia, Russia is Putin.” It is extremely dangerous because for him, his own collapse means the collapse of his country. And unlike Hitler, he has his finger on the nuclear button.

He is by far more dangerous to threat to world peace because Russia today is not as old Soviet Union or modern China. It is not an ideological dictatorship with politburo central committee of the Communist Party. It’s one0man dictatorship. It means that this man, if he believes he is the country, he can do whatever.

Reason TV: So how should the West, the free world, the OECD countries, NATO, the US, what should they be doing differently in dealing with Putin. Because you’re not talking about military engagement but you have written a lot about economic engagement and other types of trade policy. What are good way to bring Putin to heel?

Kasparov: We have been facing this problem for quite a while. And so many mistakes have been made. These mistakes created an impression for Putin and his cronies and also his clients like Assad and others in the world. Iranian Ayatollahs. The West is weak. The west is not willing to get engaged. So the west will give them anything they want. Before we talk about the right strategy, what the leaders of the free world must do, let’s talk about what they must not do. You cannot project weakness. Yes, I know that America will never consider seriously boots on the ground in Ukraine. Why are you talking about it. Why do you say publicly that you will not do that?

I could give you many examples where they violate the simplest rules of negotiation. The secret letter from Obama to the Ayatollahs, without mentioning the fact that it’s an insult for Sunni allies. It’s the first time that the United States and the free world had a great chance of creating a Sunni coalition to stop Sunni terror. Then stabbing them in the back by writing a letter to the Ayatollahs. By the way, they never responded. And now, at the time when the nuclear deal is about to be reached or not. He’s asking them to help with ISIS. ISIS will probably be destroyed. You need more planes, maybe some soldiers, material resources. ISIS is not a global threat, it’s very local. For the sake of Iranian cooperation, this relatively small issue to put at stake the global cooperation of Sunnis and also the non-proliferation policies, that’s exactly what you’re not supposed to do.

Reason TV: You’ve written about how starting under Clinton, as well as under George W. Bush, and under Barack Obama, you talked about Bush being reckless, Obama being aimless. Who are these Western leaders you think that are heads of states who have actually articulated a post-cold war framework for spreading democracy and market liberalism?

Kasparov: I don’t think that any Western leader even thought about doing that because again, the mood was “we won.” Many talk about Clinton’s presidency as a great success. I wouldn’t doubt certain achievements in economy. But geopolitically, it was the greatest disaster among all because it’s not about the final position. The game is still on. In 1992, America was all powerful. It could design the world map the way it wanted. In 2000, al Qaeda was ready to strike. So what happened in these eight years?

Eight years of complacency, of doing nothing. Nobody formulated policies for Russia for Soviet Union, for Islamic terrorism. It requires a global vision. The same way as Winston Churchill, Harry Truman had these policies designed in 1946, in 1947. The Marshall plan. There were plans. Plans they learned from World War II and they knew that to oppose Stalin and to oppose Communism, they needed to come up with a grand strategy and also leadership.

When I hear about potential dangers of confronting Putin today, my first question is, “Is he more dangerous than Joseph Stalin in 1948?” For 11 months, American and British planes had been supplying West Berlin besieged by Stalin’s troops. And Joseph Stalin didn’t shoot a single American plane. Why? Because Harry Truman already used nuclear weapons. And Stalin, as every good dictator, had an animal instinct. He knew where he could be repulsed. So he knew that Harry Truman could not play a game. It happened in 1962, when Khrushchev recognized that he pushed JFK to the ropes. And Ronald Reagan. And don’t tell me that the Soviet Union in 1981, 82, 83, was less powerful than Putin’s Russia today.

Reason TV: You have written recently about how America is hugely important to the world and that America needs a strong economy and that economic force will help spread democracy and freedom, markets throughout the world. You’ve talked about how people in America don’t seem to have the kind of bold sense of vision, of innovation, of change. Can you talk a little bit about that? What happened to that? The idea that we were going to reinvent the world.

Kasparov: I wish I knew. You can just look at the literature that says in the 1950’s, 60, science fiction was the most popular genre. It has disappeared. Now, you either talk about elves, or magic, or it’s dystopia. It’s all you talk about is machines attacking us. There’s no more positive vision, of machines cooperating.

Reason TV: Let me push back on that though, because you talk about 40 years ago…

Kasparov: 50 years ago.

Reason TV: But since then we’ve had things like the Internet; we’ve had things like fracking, which has totally undermined Russia’s ability to dictate oil prices. Does anybody here think that the world is less good than it was 50 years ago?

Kasparov: Let’s be very specific. You mentioned the Internet, it is a result of the space race. The foundation for the Internet was created, designed, and eventually developed by the scientist from DARPA—Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency— 1962, and 1963. So from packet switching, to the full description of every element, including Skype. And in 1969 the first signal came, via ARPANET, from UCLA to Stanford. So what you are talking about today, www, the world-wide-web, is commercial application of technology that has been developed 20 years before.

Reason TV: Which also is the thing that makes it transformative, though.

Kasparov: Yes I know, but we are talking about break-through technology.

Reason TV: So do we need another Cold War? Is that what we need, a kind of regimented goal that society is moving towards?

Kasparov: It’s 2012, 50 years after the JFK speech in the Rice University, about the Moon project. America had no more rockets, no more means to send it’s astronauts into space, they had to use Russian ones, which were also built in the 60s and 70s. So I think it constitutes a disaster, a scientific disaster, because space projects are important, not just for the sake of landing on the Moon or on Mars, but because of the side effects. As we had GPS, we had Internet, and many other things that have been developed alongside the space project. For instance, the expedition to Mars, which has probably a 50-50 chance of safely returning the crew, will force us to do more work on diet, and on medicine. And while today—people here, I am sure, know much better than I do—what are the chances of introducing a new drug? If you have one out of 1000, the rate of failure, out of production? Now, if you produce new drugs or new food, for the expedition, with 50-50 chance of return, then one out of three is already good. So it is very important that we have these projects to energise society, and also not to eliminate risk. Because it seems to me that risk, now—we teach kids from school that failure is nothing but failure. If you fail, you are a failure. No no, I believe that failure is a logical move on the way to success.

Reason TV: Well as somebody who fails more often than I succeed, I feel much better, in this conversation.

We were talking earlier in the evening, and you said there is a huge amount of complacency, in what used to be called “The Free World”. Is this kind of a Marxist analysis of capitalism, that we get fat and lazy because things comes easily after a certain point, and we fall into an inability to actually take the kinds of risks or create the kind of innovations that will actually push us forward?

Kasparov: Again, the Free World needs challenges. Definitely wars, and the Cold War, were challenges. We don’t want to see these challenges again, but it is natural, and we have to recognize that the real innovation is not the IPhone 6, it’s Apollo 6. There is a fundamental difference. And it seems to me that we have multinational corporations that are now sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars of cash, without investing them in new ideas. I understand that paying shareholders in important, but creating new value is probably more important.

Reason TV: Alright. And at that point we are going to turn it over to some questions. And also, by the way, if any of you are sitting on billions of dollars of cash, I do want to point out that both Atlas and Reason 501(c3)s.

So let’s go to questions, please.

Questioner: I asked you earlier, privately, Sir, why you played the Sicilian Defence to win your first World Chess Championship, and you declined to answer. So I just want to ask that question publically, and then I want to ask you how you would apply that to the global scene today.

Reason TV: And for those of us who only play checkers, what is the Sicilian Defense?

Kasparov: It doesn’t matter. It was a game that I was leading, 12 to 11. Karpov had to win the game—he played with white, so he started the game—to retain the title. So I could be happy with a draw. Now the question is why I played a very sharp opening, instead of trying to play very defensive. Now, the answer is very simple: when you reach the climax of any battle, you better be in the situation that feeds your nature. So I was much more comfortable in a sharp position. It doesn’t matter, we play a game—I could win, I could lose, it could be a draw—but I am comfortable. And my calculation was right, because at the crucial moment of the game Karpov had to push, had to make a sacrifice, but it was against his nature. He tried to improve his position, he wasted time, and eventually I could make a powerful counter attack. It is the same in politics; you have to play the game that feeds your strengths. So again, there are so many arguments, there are so many trump cards in the hands of the Free World, and you have to start using them.

From the crowd: So what game do you play?

Kasparov: I play the game of Chess.

Unfortunately the parallels between the game of Chess and modern geopolitics is very questionable, because Putin’s game is more of a Poker, and he knows how to bluff. Normally he has a very weak hand, I would say a pair of nines, but he bluffs, and he knows that his opposition always tries to fold out the cards. So once I said that Putin has this pair of whatever—eight, nine, or ten—and he acts as if he has a Royal Flush; and Obama has a Full House, and he flushed it down the toilet.

Reason TV: Do you believe that Putin would be expansionary beyond the confines of the former Soviet Union? And then what is the challenge that is posed by a country like China, is it similar in kind to the Russian challenge, or is it something very different?

Kasparov: I think that the nature of Putin’s challenge, today, is very much domestic. He has a fundamental problem of finding the rationale for staying in power. He has been in power for 15 years. And every dictator, who is not relying on democratic institutions, must come up with a story, a myth, an idea about why the hell they are there. For many young Russians this is a question. The economy doesn’t offer any more excuses, to the contrary, it all goes down. So the Russian middle class that used to see gradual improvements in their living standards—in money, in perks, in their ability to travel around, in their communications—suddenly they just recognized that it all could disappear. So now Putin’s only rationale is to present himself as a big hero, “Vladimir the Great”; “The collector of Russian lands”; “Putin, the man who is restoring the Russian empire”. Again, for him, the main audience for him is inside the country. The propaganda—and I can still hear it by just listening to Russian television, or just reading the press—it’s worse than Dr Goebbels, it’s Orwell, it’s “War is peace, slavery is freedom”. Twenty-four-seven, it’s anti-American. And they keep talking about horrible things, including even using nuclear weapons. Even Putin himself, in his latest speech, praised Nikita Khrushchev for making these threats. It’s almost quote-unquote, when he said that Khrushchev acted like a crazy man, banging with his shoe at the United Nations, but everybody respected him because they knew he was crazy and they were afraid that he would throw nuclear missiles at them—that is literally quote-unquote. Now, combine it with his clear statement that all the borders of the former Soviet Union are in question—that is why he believes that Russia was in it’s rights to challenge Ukrainian borders, and others as well. Now the question is whether he could attack Estonia and Latvia, they are members of NATO—with article five. My answer is: he might do that, because he doesn’t have to start a whole invasion. He could provoke violence in the Russian enclaves, in Estonia or in Latvia, and then you could see some volunteers crossing the border. At the end of the day it is not about “Invading” Latvia or Estonia, it’s all about undermining NATO. Obama had a big speech in Tallinn, claiming that the United States was behind Estonia—nice. The next day, Russian intelligence kidnapped an Estonian officer from Estonian territory, dragged him into Russia, and he is now in a Russian jail awaiting trial for espionage. The next day! Why? Just to show that there was no protection. So it is all about undermining western institutions, and NATO, and demonstrating that the United States is a paper tiger, is an empty shell.

http://reason.com/archives/2014/12/08/chess-champion-garry-kasparov-slams-puti/

Playing Chess With Kubrick

Jeremy Bernstein

Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke working on 2001: A Space Odyssey in Kubrick’s apartment in New York (from Moonwatcher’s Memoir by Dan Richter)

In the early 1960s, I wrote an appreciative essay for The New Yorker about the science fiction of Arthur Clarke. Not long after I got a letter from Clarke written from Sri Lanka where he lived. He told me that he was coming to New York in a few weeks and wanted to meet me. When we met, I asked him the purpose of his visit. His answer totally astonished me. “I am working on the son of Dr. Strangelove,” is what he said. The film had just come out and the first time I saw it I was so impressed that I sat through it a second time. “Stanley,” he said referring to Kubrick, “is a remarkable man. You should meet him.”

I told Clarke that nothing would please me more. Much to my amazement, the next day Clarke called to say that I was expected that afternoon at Kubrick’s apartment on Central Park West. I had never met a movie mogul and had no idea what to expect. But as soon as Kubrick opened the door I felt an immediate kindred spirit. He looked and acted like every obsessive theoretical physicist I have ever known. His obsession at that moment was whether or not anything could go faster than the speed of light. I explained to him that according to the theory of relativity no information bearing signal could go faster. We conversed like that for about an hour when I looked at my watch and realized I had to go. “Why?” he asked, seeing no reason why a conversation that he was finding interesting should stop.

I told him I had a date with a chess hustler in Washington Square Park to play for money. Kubrick wanted the name. “Fred Duval” I said. Duval was a Haitian who claimed to be related to Francois Duvalier. I was absolutely positive that the name would mean nothing to Kubrick. His next remark nearly floored me. “Duval is a patzer,” is what he said. Unless you have been around chess players you cannot imagine what an insult this is. Moreover, Duval and I were playing just about even. What did that make me?

Kubrick explained that early in his career he too played chess for money in the park and that Duval was so weak that it was hardly worth playing him. I said that we should play some time and then left the apartment. I was quite sure that we would never play. I was wrong.

I wrote a Talk of the Town on my meeting with Kubrick, which he liked. I was thus emboldened to ask if I could write a full scale profile of him. He agreed but said that he was about to leave for London to begin production of what became 2001: A Space Odyssey. Still better, I thought: I could watch the making of the film. Our first meeting was at the Hotel Dorchester in London where he was temporarily living with his family. Kubrick brought out a chess set and beat me promptly. Then we played three more games and he beat me less promptly. But I won the fifth game!

Stanley Kubrick and George C. Scott playing chess on the set of Dr. Strangelove

Seizing the moment I told him that I had been hustling him and had deliberately lost the first four games. His response was that I was a patzer. All during the filming of 2001 we played chess whenever I was in London and every fifth game I did something unusual. Finally we reached the 25th game and it was agreed that this would decide the matter. Well into the game he made a move that I was sure was a loser. He even clutched his stomach to show how upset he was. But it was a trap and I was promptly clobbered. “You didn’t know I could act too,” he remarked.

The scene now shifts to the spring of 1972. I was spending the year at Oxford, and spent some Sundays with the Kubricks. Our interest again turned to chess but this time it was with the imminent match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in Iceland. One Sunday, Kubrick and I watched Fischer’s interview with Mike Wallace for “60 Minutes.” It was around the time of Fischer’s birthday and Wallace had come with a cake. “I don’t like that kind of cake,” Fischer said graciously. Then he told Wallace how he had learned to play chess. His older sister had taught him the moves. He soon began beating her so he spotted her pieces. Then he said that that no longer worked so he began playing with himself—Fischer vs. Fischer. “Mostly I won,” he commented with no trace of humor.

I expected a pleasant summer in Oxford reading about the match but one morning in May the phone rang in my office. The man on the line identified himself as the features editor of Playboy. He informed me that Hugh Heffner was interested in chess and had read my New Yorker profile of Kubrick. They had decided that I was the perfect person to write about the Fischer-Spassky match for Playboy. They would pay all my expenses and I would even have the American grandmaster Larry Evans at my disposal. It sounded too good to be true and, indeed, I had a problem. My writing for the New Yorker was not going down that well with my academic colleagues and writing for Playboy would be the last straw. He said not to worry I could use an assumed name. So I agreed. (I chose “Jay Amber”—“Bernstein” being the German for “Amber.”)

Much has been written about the match and I will only add a few personal recollections. Fischer got there the fourth of July, two days after the match had been scheduled to start. When the first game actually began on the eleventh, Spassky showed up on time but there was no Fischer. Finally, Fischer arrived, and quickly made it clear that he was much more concerned by a TV cameraman’s recording of the games than actually playing them. Indeed, after an incredibly bad move, he lost. Fischer then failed to appear at all for the second game, which he forfeited to go down two-zip.

That was about as good as it got for Spassky. Once Fischer actually began to play it was clear that Spassky had no chance. Fischer was in another league. There was a room at the tournament where grandmasters met to watch. They would predict Fischer’s next move and, more often than not, he would do something none of them had anticipated. A remarkable group of writers including Arthur Koestler and Harold Schonberg, who had played chess with Fischer and was the music critic of The New York Times, also turned up. We gathered in the lobby of the Hotel Loftleider to exchange stories and to catch an occasional glimpse of Fischer as he went off for midnight bowling.

From 2001: A Space Odyssey

When the match ended Schonberg predicted that Fischer would never play another. At the time I thought that Schonberg was surely wrong, but he wasn’t. The only match he ever did play was in 1992 when he played Spassky again, this time in Yugoslavia. Fischer won but the experts detected a decline in his game. He was succeeded as world champion first by Anatoly Karpov and then by Garry Kasparov, whose 1997 loss to the chess computer Deep Blue, had, in a sense, been predicted by Kubrick and Clarke decades earlier. In Kubrick’s 2001, before HAL 9000, the villainous computer, turns murderous, he roundly beats his human opponent, the astronaut Frank Poole, in a chess match.

For his part, Fischer spent the rest of his life a fugitive from both American and Japanese law. In 2005 he returned to Iceland, where he sought asylum. He was granted Icelandic citizenship and died in Reykjavik on January 17, 2008.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/apr/05/playing-chess-with-kubrick/

CHESS HISTORY IN PHOTOS: RUBINSTEIN FAMILY

One of the most curious photos of chess history is found in Arthur Rubinstein’s (1887-1982) Memoir: (Vol 1) My Young Years. New York: Knopf, 1973. It is simply called: “Sunday Afternoon in Berlin” with no identification as to who the people in the photograph are.  Indeed, from left to right we have Akiba Rubinstein, the nanny, one of Arthur’s sisters (Arthur was the youngest of 7 children) and finally the young music prodigy himself, Arthur. In the center of the table is a small chess set. The mystery is: was Akiba giving lessons to the you pianist?  Or did Artur know how to play already. We’ll never know.  I spoke with John Rubinstein (b. 1946, in LA) who when asked about his father’s chess activities, said he was not familiar with the matter. Arthur explicitly stated in his book that most of the photos which appear in this volume (1973) were given to him by friends. He had none. They were all destroyed by the Nazis in World War II.  Be that as it may, I’m sure there was a strong and fond relationship between the two prodigies. Akiba (1882-1961) was born in Stawiski (est. 1407) a small Polish town in northeastern Poland. The last of 13 children, Akiba was sent to his maternal grandparent’s home in Bialystok (reminiscent of Fiddler on the Roof cultural ethos) to be raised. His family had hoped that Akiba become a rabbi.  Yet, due to circumstances beyond his contro, this was not to be. AR found chess, mastered it, and would have become World Champion had it not been for World War 1 which devastated Poland and Akiba’s sense of emotional equilibrium. He played many brilliant games and won many tournaments, but the world chess championship was just out of his historical reach. He was in his prime in 1914. By 1920 after the war, Akiba was just not quite himself and never regained his composure to prosecute the arrangement of another championship match. Rubinstein was set to play Lasker in 1914, but the War interrupted the match.

 

Photo Above: GM Akiba (left), nanny, Artur’s sister, Frania,

and Artur, circa 1900 (Akiba 18; Artur 13)

Artur Rubinstein at the keyboard, circa 1950

 שחוק השאך

Ś’hok ha-shakh (Check and Chess)

Joseph Judah Loeb Sossnitz

[Sossnitz, Joseph Judah Löb, 1837-1910]

Vilnus, Russian Empire c 1880

Sossnitz Check and Chess Primer, 1880 title page (above)

Note: publication information (under horizontal line) is in Russian,

as the work was produced in Vilnius, Russian Empire.

Page 15 of Sossnitz’ Chess and Check, 1880, The text of this work in in Hebrew,

which is written and read right to left.  Note display of chess game above: 1.e2-e4 is white’s first move, whereas if the text had been printed in English, the location of this move on the page would indicate, the second player’s or Black’s move.

The above title is the first chess book (a primer) which AR studied. A copy of this relic may be found in the Houghton Library at Harvard University.

(Above: Early chess game of AR, 1897)

Jewish boys playing chess in Poland, circa 1920

At some point, AR was beating all players in Bialystok. He heard that there was a chess master (Gersz Salwe) in Lodz, so AR traveled there to test his chess skills. It is from his attraction to the chess of Lodz that AR no doubt was received by the Rubinstein family (Arthur’s parents) establishing a long-lasting relationship.   After a number of credible tries, AR finally beat Salwe, thus launching the career of one of the most artistic chess masters in history. Also, AR was received as a member of the Lodz Chess Society, in 1906. AR had two matches with Salwe in 1903. The 1st was drawn with the score of 5 – 5, the second AR won 5.5 – 4.5.

AR, circa 1907
There are more than one version of AR’s early years. I found interesting two points: AR’s father, died of TB  8 months before AR was born–thus Akiba was named after his father, a practice Jews did not engage in if the parent were alive. And, AR was the last of 14 children (many of his siblings died in early childhood). AR moved from Stawiski to Bialystok to live with AR’s mother, Raisel’s, family (Raisel’s father, Aaron Denenberg, AR’s maternal grandfather, was a wealthy lumber merchant). AR continued his Jewish studies and was set to attend Yeshiva (Jewish high school) to become a rabbi but the family was very warry of AR catching TB (and dying of it like his father did), so it was the family’s decision and not AR’s that he not to attend yeshiva. [It is to be noted on Page 25 of The Life and Games of Akiva Rubinstein: The Later Years, 2nd edition 2011, that Jonas Rubinstein, Akiba’s eldest son, is quoted reporting that all but two children in AR’s family died in early childhood. Only a sister and Akiba survived. The others perished from TB!]  AR, with lots of free time on his hands, was often found in Bialystok’s taverns where he observed men playing chess.  Akiba became fascinated with the game. And it was from this friendly exposure to chess that AR became hooked on chess,  and began to study and analyze games and play seriously. So, unwittingly, it was AR’s family’s [justified] fear of TB which gave the chess world one of its most artistic players.

Akiba Rubinstein married Eugenie Lev on March 30, 1917. Jonas was born in Poland. Then the family moved to Sweden, and again to Rehbroeke, a small town near Potsdam, in eastern Germany, where World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker (seen in above photo playing AR in 1909) was said to be a frequent guest. The Rubinstein family then moved to Antwerp, Belgium in 1926. A year later, Sammy was born. The family then moved to Brussels in 1931 where they stayed put for the most part. It is to be noted that Akiba Rubinstein spoke Polish, Russian, Hebrew, German and Yiddish, fluently. Indeed AR conversed with his wife in Russian. Yet AR’s sons did not learn Russian.

Akiba Rubinstein had two sons: Jonas (b. 1918, engineer)

Jonas Rubinstein, eldest son of GM Akiba Rubinstein. Photo on commemorative stamp.
and Solomon “Sammy” (b. 1920, chessmaster FIDE: 2380 and artist)

With natural artistic talent, Sammy received formal training in art at the Ecole des Beau Arts, Paris 1951-54. An example of his work is featured in the portrait of AR below:

Akiba Rubinstein, drawn by his son Sammy, 1954
Sammy also did the portrait of David Bronstein (1924-2006) which appears on the grandmaster’s magnum opus: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. London/New York: Cadogan Press, 1995.

And speaking of chess publications, IM John Donaldson, along with IM Nikolay Minev produced an absolutely marvelous Rubinstein history, with almost all AR’s games, in easy to read algebraic notation as well as a rich assortment of historical notes on the Rubinstein Family covering over half a century, in 2 volumes. The work is called The Life and Games of Akiva Rubinstein Vol. 1 Uncrowned King. Milford CT: Russell Enterprise, Inc. 2006; and Volume 2: The Later Years, (2nd Edition) Russell Enterprise, Inc.  2011.
[Note of clarification on the name “Akiba” which is a derivation of the name Yaakov (Jacob): It is my experience that the common pronunciation of the name, at least in the USA of “Ayin Qoph Yodh Beth Aleph” is pronounced Akiba. Some Hebrew speaking communities say Akiva. The actual word is vowelized to read: A(gutteral)Kee(gutteral) Boh. Yet we say: A’Kee-ba. I choose to use the spelling: Akiba. Donaldson in his Rubinstein work, quoted here, uses the spelling Akiva.  The interesting point about the Hebrew alphabet and written language: there are no actual letters which serve as vowels, like in English (A, E, I, O, U).  So the Beth (second letter of Akiba’s name can be pronounced either as a B or a V sound according to the custom of the linguistic region in which the name is pronounced.]

Akiba Rubinstein engaged in simultaneous exhibition in Palestine, May 1931.
This was AR’s second visit. He had already visited the Holy Land in April, 1931, also giving simuls
at various locations.

Finally, a Rubinstein Family (son vs father) Master Chess Game:
Solomon (“Sammy”) Rubinstein v Akiba Rubinstein
Brussels [Training Game] 1948 D06
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c5 3.cxd5 Nf6 4.e4 Nxe4 5.dxc5 Nxc5 6.Nc3 e5 7.Nf3 Bd6 8.Be2 O-O 9.O-O Bf5 10.Be3 Nbd7 11.Nb5 Qe7 12.Nh4 Bg6 13.Nxg6 hxg6 14.Rc1 a6 15.Nxd6 Qxd6 16.Qc2 Rac8 17.b4 Ne6 18.Qxc8 Rxc8 19.Rxc8+ Nef8 20.Rfc1 Qxb4 21.Rd8 Qb2 22.Bf1 Qxa2 23.Bc5 Nxc5 24.Rxc5 g5 25.d6 Qd2 26.Rxf8+ Kh7 27.Rd8 f6 28.d7 e4 29.Rh8+ Kxh8 30.Rc8+ Kh7 31.d8=Q Qe1 32.Qg8+ Kg6 33.Rc7 e3 34.Qf7+ Kf5 35.Rc5+ Kg4 36.h3+ Kf4 37.g3+ 1-0
It is to be noted that Sammy Rubinstein 
became Champion of Brussels in 1949. One last note for the aficianados of the issue of inheritance of “cognitive” traits as suggested by chess prowess. On Page 25 of Donaldson’s book, 2011, Anna Rubinstein, Jonas’s wife wrote that Akiba Rubinstein might be proud of his grandchildren from his eldest son: daughter Daniele, b. 1956 who is an MD psychotherapist and medical journalist and Michel, b. 1957 who is a specialist in nuclear medicine. Akiba Rubinstein: Swan Song Rubinstein – Bogoljubov, Prague (ol) 1931 D10 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.f4 c5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be2 Be7 8.O-O O-O 9.Ne5 dxc4 10.Nxc6 bxc6 11.dxc5 Bxc5 12.Bxc4 Qxd1 13.Rxd1 Nd5 14.Kf2 a5 15.Kf3 Bb7 16.Bd2 Nb6 17.Be2 Be7 18.e4 c5 19.Kf2 Rfb8 20.Be3 a4 21.Rac1 Bc6 22.Rc2 g6 23.Bb5 Bb7 24.a3 Ra5 25.Be2 Bc6 26.Rdc1 Nd7 27.e5 Nb6 28.Nd1 Be4 29.Rd2 Bd5 30.g3 Bb3 31.Nc3 Kg7 32.Ne4 Rc8 33.Nd6 Rc6 34.Bb5 Rxb5 35.Nxb5 Nd5 36.Nc3 h5 37.Ne4 Nxe3 38.Kxe3 Rc7 39.Nd6 Kf8 40.Rd3 Rc6 41.Nc4 Rc7 42.h4 Ra7 43.Nb6 Rc7 44.Rd7 Rc6 45.Nc4 Ra6 46.Rb7 Ra8 47.Nb6 Rd8 48.Nd7+ Ke8 49.Nxc5 1-0Interesting to note are the medal winners and team members of the Prague Olympiad 1931. Gold: USA 48 points (Kashdan, Marshall, Dake, Horowitz and Steiner) Silver: Poland 47 points (Rubinstein, Tartakower, Przepiorka, Makarczyk, Frydman) Bronze: Czechoslovakia 46.5 points (Flohr, Gilig, Rejif, Opochensky, Skailcka) 4th place: Yugoslavia 46 points (Vidmar, Asztalos, Kostic, Pirc, Konig)

Bogoljubov (left) vs Rubinstein, Moscow 1925 C28 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d3 Bc5 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 d6 7.Nd5 g5 8.Bg3 Nxd5 9.Bxd5 Ne7 10.Bb3 Ng6 11.Ne2 Qf6 12.d4 exd4 (time of photo) 13.Qd3 h5 14.h3 h4 15.Bh2 Ne5 16.Bxe5 dxe5 17.Qb5+ Qc6 18.Qxc6+ bxc6 19.Ba4 Bd7 20.Nc1 f6 21.Nd3 Bb6 22.c4 dxc3 23.bxc3 c5 24.Bxd7+ Kxd7 25.Nb2 Kc6 26.a4 c4 27.Nxc4 Rhd8 28.Ke2 Rd7 29.Rhd1 Rad8 30.Rxd7 Rxd7 31.Rb1 a6 32.Rb4 Rd8 33.Rb3 Rd7 34.Rb4 Rd8 35.Rb1 Rd7 36.Rb2 Rd8 37.Rb4 Rd7 38.Rb3 Rd8 1/2-1/2

http://boylston-chess-club.blogspot.com/2013/01/chess-history-in-photos-rubinstein.html

Eye patches

From the first page of an article by Fred Reinfeld, ‘At What Age is a Chess Master at his Best?’, on pages 249-253 of CHESS, 14 March 1936:

‘Teichmann, who had only one eye, was famous both for his laziness and for the rather large percentage of blunders in his games. My impression of Teichmann’s play underwent a radical change when, through a mishap in the Syracuse, 1934 tournament, I was forced to play my last game with a patch over one eye. I have spent many a pleasant time at the chess board, but never have I endured four such agonizing hours as in that game where I had the use of only one eye. Since then I have had a tremendous admiration for Teichmann, and my vivid realization of his dreadful handicap has enabled me to understand his readiness to take a premature draw. The chronicle of human achievement does not include any more heroic deed than Teichmann’s first prize in one of the strongest tournaments in chess history (Carlsbad, 1911), with his fine victories in this protracted contest over Alekhine, Nimzowitsch, Schlechter, Rubinstein, Tartakower, Kostić, Spielmann – to mention only the most outstanding rivals.’

An illustration by W.H. Cozens on page 316 of the November 1961 BCM:

Another player who had occasion to wear an eye patch was Emanuel Lasker, during his autumn 1909 contest against Dawid Janowsky; see the photograph in our article Lasker v Janowsky, Paris, 1909.

Lasker had undergone an operation on his right eyelid, as reported on page 407 of La Stratégie, November 1909:

‘Le Dr. E. Lasker, bien que handicapé par les suites d’une opération subie à la paupière de l’oeil droit, a brillamment maintenu sa renommée en gagnant sept parties contre une perdue et deux nulles.’

Book Review: Bent Larsen’s Best Games – Fighting Chess with the Great Dane

By Davide Nastasio

I love history and I love chess history even more. However, in order to make sense for me, chess history combines all the different characters from among different decades and centuries. Some players are legends because they are beyond human standards, like Fischer, and some are minor characters in this cosmic drama we call human life.

Bent Larsen is a world class player who lived in an era where professional chess players were few, mainly starving or sacrificing their lives for the love of Caissa. While there was financial reward for the players in the Soviet Union and even fame and love from the masses for those in Russia, for those in the west life was definitely more difficult. This is one of the first main ideas outlined in the book. Larsen had the chance to have a good life and become an engineer, instead he choose to become a chess player in a time when such a profession didn’t give the financial reward GMs, of that level, typically obtain today.

Just to better understand the world in which Larsen and Fischer lived, we need to say that young players in the former Soviet Union were “completely nurtured,” which means they would have trainers, coaches, training tournaments, seconds (since, in that time, games were adjourned and a player needed a second to analyze through the night) and so on. Fischer and Larsen didn’t have any of this type of training and were living on meager tournament prizes, simul displays, and the articles they wrote.

Although the title indicates that the book contains Larsen’s “best games,” Larsen himself never thought these were his “best” games. In fact, the games he commented on came out under different sources and they were mainly called “selected games” or “difficult decisions” because Larsen believed it was too relative to use the term “best games” because for every player “best games” means something different.

In the book there are 124 games commented on by Larsen, with four provided in the introduction, which was written by three different authors as an article previously published by New in Chess. My understanding is that the first 51 games are commented with a similar prose to one book Larsen published in the 1970’s, while the games therein after are from different sources, magazine articles, or annotated quite later.

One of the aspects I appreciate is that there are mostly text comments with variations only when needed. I like this format because I dislike long variations. But this book has many other positive aspects. Of the thirty-nine (39) chapters, most deal with the important, high level tournaments Larsen participated in throughout his life. Crosstables from the tournaments are included, which not only list all players in the tournament, but also provide the context in which to see how Larsen performed in that particular tournament. Most chapters also include several pictures of Larsen in different stages of his life.

I’ve long wanted to have a collection of Larsen’s games in algebraic notation. Unfortunately, the previous books that I found on the market were all descriptive. This book is good for players rated 1200 to 2400, since it covers many different openings, and, of course, a whole range of middle game ideas and tactics.

Larsen is clearly a cosmopolitan character. He lived everywhere—toward the middle of his life he moved to Argentina, a wonderful country for him because this is where he met his second wife. Larsen’s writing style is pleasant and he has nice anecdotes and also some nice judgment. For example, Larsen describes how Bronstein lost against him, which signaled the moment when Bronstein was no longer able to compete at the top level for becoming one of the world champion contenders. The book delves deeper into showing how chess is truly a hard sport and how psychology plays a big part of the game, especially at the top level.

I’d like to present a few games from the book that I particularly enjoyed. For Larsen’s superb annotations, please refer to the book. In general, from just these few games, it is possible to see that Larsen was able to play many different openings and there are many strategic themes, for example, how to exploit the space advantage to win a game, or attack on the kingside, or how to totally paralyze the opponent.

Note: On page 35 of the book, the game Olafsson vs Larsen is catalogued as a Grunfeld Indian defense; however, for me, it is a Sicilian Najdorf. Perhaps it was just an error of the editor. (Georgia Chess News Editor’s note: We do make those kind of mistakes!)

Fridrik Olafsson

Bent Larsen

Reykjavik m (8) – 1956

1.e4c52.Nf3d63.d4cxd44.Nxd4Nf65.Nc3a66.Bg5e67.Qf3Be78.O-O-OQc79.Rg1Nc610.g4Ne511.Qe2b512.f4b413.Nb1Ned714.Bh4Bb715.Bg2Nc516.Nd2Rc817.Kb1Na418.N2b3h619.Be1Nc520.Nd2Nfd721.h4g622.g5e523.fxe5dxe524.N4f3Ne625.Rc1Nf426.Qf1Bc627.c4bxc328.Rxc3Bb529.Rxc7Rxc730.Bg3Bxf131.Bxf1hxg532.hxg5Bc533.Nxe5Bxg134.Bxf4Bh235.Bxh2Rxh236.Nef3Rh137.a3Nc538.Ka2Rxf139.Nxf1Nxe440.Ne3Rc5

0–1

Eigil Pedersen

Bent Larsen

Danish Championship – 1954

1.d4Nf62.c4g63.Nc3Bg74.e4d65.g3O-O6.Bg2e57.d5Nh58.Nge2f59.exf5gxf510.O-ONd711.Rb1a512.a3Nb613.b3f414.f3Bf515.Ne4a416.gxf4Qh417.Bb2Nxf418.Nxf4Qxf419.Bc1Qh420.Be3Bh621.Bf2Qh522.Ng3Qg623.Nxf5Rxf524.Qd3Bf425.Bg3axb326.Rxb3Bxg327.hxg3Rg528.f4exf429.Rxf4Qxd330.Rxd3Nd731.Bh3Ne532.Rb3b633.Kf2Kg734.Bf1Ng4+35.Ke1Re8+36.Kd2Ne537.Be2Kh838.Rf6Kg739.Rf1Rg840.g4Kh841.Re3Rxg4

0–1

Jens Enevoldsen

Bent Larsen

Copenhagen m (4) – 1953

1.e4e52.Nf3Nc63.Bb5a64.Ba4Nf65.O-ONxe46.d4b57.Bb3d58.dxe5Be69.Qe2Nc510.Rd1Be711.Nbd2O-O12.c3Qd713.Nd4Nxb314.N2xb3Nd815.Be3c516.Nxe6Nxe617.f4f518.Qf2Qc619.Rd2a520.Rad1a421.Nc1d422.cxd4cxd423.Rxd4Nxd424.Rxd4Rac825.Ne2Rfd826.h3g627.Rxd8+Rxd828.Nd4Qe429.Nxb5Rd330.Ba7Qc431.Nd6Qc1+32.Kh2h533.Ne8Bb434.e6Be1

0–1

Bent Larsen

Axel Nielsen

Nordic Championship (–) – 1953

1.Nf3Nf62.c4c53.d4cxd44.Nxd4Nc65.Nc3d66.g3g67.Bg2Bd78.Nc2Bg79.b3O-O10.Bb2a611.O-ORb812.Rc1b513.Nd5Nxd514.Bxg7Kxg715.cxd5Ne516.h3Qb617.Qd4f618.Qxb6Rxb619.Nd4g520.Rc7Rd821.Kh2h622.Be4Kf823.f4Nf724.Bf3Rbb825.Ne6+Bxe626.dxe6Nh827.f5b428.Bb7a529.e4

1–0

http://georgiachessnews.com/2014/11/01/book-review-bent-larsens-best-games-fighting-chess-with-the-great-dane/

Paul Morphy: Mozart of Chess

The New York Times and Chess

Lubomir KavalekInternational Chess Grandmaster

The world champion Magnus Carlsen is making chess popular around the globe and his title defense against Vishy Anand begins on November 8 in Sochi, Russia. Millions of chess fans are looking forward to the coverage of the World Chess Championship match on the Internet and in the newspapers. Alas, The New York Times chess column will not be one of them. Last month, it was abruptly terminated with a single sentence: “This is the final chess column to run in The New York Times.”

At least the Washington Post was more generous. After they decided to stop my chess column in January 2010, I was able to write the last article as a farewell note, expressing what the column tried to accomplish. But make no mistake about it: every time a newspaper cuts a chess column, chess loses.

Happy times

In 1972 America went chess crazy. Bobby Fischer played the Match of the Century against Boris Spassky and chess was everywhere. The New York Times hired grandmaster Robert Byrne to run the chess column.

On October 10, they devoted almost a full page to chess with three items. The first began with…

BYRNE IS APPOINTED AS CHESS COLUMNIST

Robert Byrne, a United States chess co-champion, has been appointed chess columnist for The New York Times. He replaces Al Horwitz, who has been on a leave of absence.

A 44-year-old grandmaster, Mr. Byrne has won the United States Open Chess Championship three times – in 1960, 1963 and 1966. He shares the title of current co-champion with Samuel Reshevsky and Lubomir Kavalek.

It was not a mistake. We were the co-champions. The 1972 U.S. Championship was also a Zonal qualifier and only two places were available. Robert Byrne won the play-off in February 1973.

A news item followed:

U.S. CHESS PLAYERS BOW TO SOVIET TEAM

SKOPJE, Yugoslavia, Oct. 9 – The United States team lost today to the Soviet Union in the 12th round of the chess Olympics here. On the top two boards, Lubomir Kavalek drew with Tigran Petrosian and Robert Byrne drew with Vasily Smyslov. But Pal Benko lost to Mikhail Tal and Arthur Bisguier lost to Anatoly Karpov.

Karpov was actually the first reserve on the Soviet team.

The U.S. team could have been much stronger. The Coca-Cola company was willing to pay $100,000 on a condition that Fischer plays. He would get $50,000 and each of us $10,000. Bobby wanted to go to Skopje. He told me that before my departure from Reykjavik, where I was performing a double duty: reporting on the match for the Voice of America and working with Bobby on his adjournments from the Game 13 till the end of the match. But it was Fischer’s adrenaline talking: he was, understandably, too tired after the match with Spassky. Larry Evans and William Lombardy also stayed home.

The third item was Byrne’s first column. He wrote about my game against Florin Gheorghiu. At the 1966 Havana Olympiad, the Rumanian grandmaster defeated Bobby Fischer. Byrne based the comments on our mutual analysis before and after the game. The game was also annotated by Hans Kmoch in the Chess Life and Review and I have revisited the comments and added more recent views.

Chess: Flash of Insight, Not Analysis, Gives Kavalek Brilliant Victory

By ROBERT BYRNE

Special to The New York Times

SKOPJE, Yugoslavia, Oct. 9 -The rich stock of opening ideas Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky came up with in their recent world championship match is the spur for dozens of encounters here in the Chess Olympics.

Kavalek,Lubomir – Gheorghiu,Florin
Skopje Olympiad 1972

“Since the 15th Spassky-Fischer game (Reykjavik 1972) Lubomir Kavalek, the former Czech grandmaster now playing Board No.1 on the United States team here, has, like others, thrown enormous effort into mastering the complexities of Spassky’s new attack against the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian Defense. Spassky’s sharp play had broken the defense early in the game for a moral victory, although Fischer’s tenacity and Spassky’s later mistakes led to a draw.” – R. Byrne

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Nbd7 8.Qf3

Gheorghiu’s opening choice was not a surprise since we already played the same variation in the preliminaries. I chose 8.Bc4 but did not get much and the game was quickly drawn.

8…Qc7 9.0-0-0 b5 10.Bd3 Bb7 11.Rhe1 b4

Spassky-Fischer, Game 15, Reykjavik 1972, went: 11…Be7 12.Qg3 0-0-0 (12…b4 became later the most popular move.) 13.Bxf6 (Two years later, at the 1974 Nice Olympiad, GM Velimirovic came up with the dangerous sacrifice: 13.Bxb5!? axb5 14.Ndxb5 Qb6 15.e5.) 13…Nxf6 14.Qxg7 Rdf8 and in a sharp battle Fischer wrested a draw.

“Something more radical than Fischer’s routine play was required if Black was to stay in the game. The answer had to be an early b5-b4, provoking White to attack precipitously by Nc3-d5, accepting the knight sacrifice and squirming tortuously to a won endgame.

When the match had been under way about 20 minutes I was startled to find Kavalek 13 moves deep in the Najdorf Sicilian variation that had stumped us. His opponent, Florin Gheorghiu, was following the track of our analysis, compelling the piece sacrifice by 11…b4 and further improving on Fischer’s play by omitting the development of his king bishop, which otherwise would have been caught in an awkward pin on the king file.

What was wanted was a smashing justification of the knight offer. But every proposal I came up with brought only a sad,”No, Bob, no– it’s no good,” from Kavalek.
That’s how matters stood when the United States met Rumania last Thursday.” – R. Byrne

12.Nd5! exd5 13.exd5+ Kd8

The king walks away. This is the reason why black left his dark bishop home- on the square f8.

14.Bf5!

Like a drunken sailor, the light bishop is going to zig-zag its way to the pawn on f7.

Commenting for the Chess Life and Review, Hans Kmoch over enthusiastically awarded this and my next move with a double exclamation point.

Robert Byrne was more down to earth: “Kavalek had stubbornly gone in with nothing better in mind than the 14.Nc6+ Bxc6 15.dxc6 Nb6 we knew to be insufficient. His brilliant inspiration 14.Bf5 and 15.Be6 occurred to him only over the board in the 10 minutes he took on his 14th turn.”

Today, the computers assess the variation 14.Nc6+ Bxc6 15.dxc6 Nb6 as better for white, for example: 16.Qh5 d5 17.Bxf6+ gxf6 18.Be4 Kc8 19.Bxd5±.

14…Be7

The position seems critical. There are several choices:

A. Some of the terrific power is revealed by 14…Qb6 15.Bxd7 Kxd7 16.Bxf6 gxf6 17.Qh5 for example:

a) 17…Kc7 18.Qxf7+ Kb8 19.Re8+ Ka7 20.Nc6+ permits white to mate. – R. Byrne;
b) 17…Rd8 18.Qxf7+ Kc8 19.Qxf6+- (19.Ne6) ;

c) 17…Be7 18.Qxf7 Rae8 19.Nf5 Qd8 20.Qe6+ (20.Re6!+-) 20…Kc7 21.Nxe7 recovering the sacrificed piece with a winning two-pawn lead. – R. Byrne.

B. After 17…Be7 the line 18. Qf5+ Kd8 19.Rxe7! Kxe7 20.Re1+ Kf8 21.Qxf6 is better and wins.

C. Byrne explained that giving extra protection to the weak square e6 by 14…Nc5 would not have rescued Gheorghiu and suggested 15.Bh3 for example 15…Be7 16.Nf5 Bf8 17.Qe3 Qb6 18.Nxg7 Bxg7 19.Qe7 mate.

D. Donner’s suggestion 14…Nb6 is best dealt with 15.Bxf6+! gxf6 16.Qe3 Bh6 17.Nc6+ Bxc6 18.dxc6 ±;

E. 14…h6 15.Nc6+ Bxc6 16.dxc6 hxg5 17.cxd7 Rb8 18.fxg5 Nxd7 19.Qe4 Qc8 20.Rd4+-;

F. We did not consider the move 14…Qc4!? suggested by computers, for example 15.Qh5 Bxd5 (15…Qxd5 16.Ne6+ fxe6 17.Rxd5 Bxd5 18.Bxe6+-) 16.Bxd7 Kxd7 17.Bxf6 gxf6 18.b3 Qc5 19.c4 Rc8 (19…bxc3 20.Nc2 Re8 21.Qf5+ Re6 22.Re3+-) 20.Qf5+ Be6 21.Qxf6 with a repetition of moves after 21…Be7 22.Qh6 Bf8 23.Qf6.

15.Be6! Rf8 16.Bxf7 Rxf7?

Leads to a difficult position. Black should have tried to equalize with 16…Nc5!? 17.Be6 h6 18.Bh4 g5 19.Bg3 a5.

17.Ne6+ Kc8 18.Nxc7 Kxc7

“So Gheorghiu’s plan of exchanging his queen for three of the attacking minor pieces was the only one (alternative) feasible. Had he consolidated his position quickly enough, he would have been able to put up tremendous resistance. But Kavalek didn’t give him the chance.” – R. Byrne

“Black has three minor pieces for the Queen, but with two pawns down and his king exposed, he is in very bad shape.” – Hans Kmoch

19.Qe2

White threatens to hunt the queenside pawns or sacrifice the queen back on e7.

19…a5 20.Rd4 Bf8 21.Qb5 Nc5 22.Bxf6 Rxf6 23.Re8 Rxe8 24.Qxe8

Planning to jump back with 25.Qb5 to clean the queenside pawns.

24…g5?!

“By move 24 Gheorghiu was so tied up that he was driven to the desperate pawn sacrifice 24…g5, in vain hope that he could organize some sort of counterattack on the white king.” – R. Byrne

“A hopeless bid for counterplay. White was at the point of using his kingside majority, anyhow. Now he can do it with much more immediate effect.” – Hans Kmoch

25.fxg5 Rf1+ 26.Rd1 Rf2 27.Qh5 Kb6 28.Qxh7 Bc8 29.Qh4!

“Dislodging the black rook from its commanding position, thus preventing Bc8-f5, to converge on c2.” – R. Byrne

29…Rxg2 30.Qf4 Be7 31.h4 Bg4

After 31…Rg4 32.Qf7 Re4 33.g6 white wins.

32.Re1 Bh5 33.Rxe7 Rg1+ 34.Kd2 Rd1+ 35.Ke3 Re1+ 36.Kf2

After 36…Rxe7 37.Qxd6+ wins.

Black resigned.

Ageless warriors

At the age of 45, Byrne went on to qualify for the Candidates matches, finishing third behind Viktor Korchnoi and Karpov at the 1973 Leningrad Interzonal. Three years later at the 1976 Biel Interzonal, he missed the Candidates by a half point.

Last month, FIDE threw the 45-year-old Boris Gelfand into the lion’s den, organizing two 12-player Grand Prix events close to each other. Gelfand shared first in Baku, Azerbaijan, but finished last in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The first two GP finishers qualify for the Candidates tournament. After two tournaments the leaders are Fabiano Caruana with 230 points and Hikaru Nakamura with 207 points, both in their twenties.

In 2012, Gelfand challenged Vishy Anand for the world title. It was the oldest pair in the history of the world championships and it ended with Anand’s victory in a rapid chess tiebreak. Last year Anand lost the title to Carlsen, but bounced back and against all odds won this year’s Candidate tournament to meet the Norwegian again. Last time they met, Anand grew tired in the middle of the 12-game world championship match.

At 44, Anand knows he is an underdog, but this time he will be better prepared mentally and physically. He sent a clear warning to Carlsen by winning the Bilbao Masters in September. At 23, Carlsen is bursting with energy and can keep the pressure on by playing long games and cutting down on his own mistakes.

It could become an uphill struggle for Anand. It doesn’t take much – two, three blunders perhaps – and the match is gone, and the ageless warrior we so much admire becomes simply too old.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lubomir-kavalek/the-new-york-times-and-ch_b_5992394.html