‘Laudator Temporis Acti’: ancients and moderns in chess
I have received a communication from my old friend Nick Patterson, former Irish Chess Champion and top board for Ireland in the 1970 Siegen Chess Olympiad. He was also a leading light of Cambridge University chess while I was studying there and sharing digs with our future King Charles III at Trinity College. In a previous column I have mentioned Nick’s polymathic proclivities.
The thrust of Nick’s recent communication was the game Carlsen-Abasov played last month in Baku. Nick describes this as a real mess which made him wonder how good the current top players really are, particularly in comparison with the giants of the past.
Let us examine the critical position after White’s 34th move:
Here Abasov missed his chance for glory when he could have played 34… Qf1 with the deadly threat …Rg6.
From this position, the game continued, as follows:
34… Rg6 35. Bf4 Rf6 36. Be3 Bf5 37. Bxc5 Qg6 38. Kc3 Re6 39. Rh4 Bg4 …
Nick says that it was pretty bad of Carlsen to commit an unforced error which permitted the missed Black blow on move 34 and he was further amazed that Carlsen overlooked the devastating shot 39. Bxa7.
When put to computer analysis, we find that, although 39. Kb4 was also considered good, 39. Bxa7 practically wins on the spot as none of 39… Re8, …Qg7+, …Qf6+ nor …Kxa7 works:
- a) 39… Re8! 40. Qh4 Qg4 41. Qxg4 Bxg4 42. Ra5 Ra8 43. Bb6;
- b) 39… Qg7+ 40. Bd4 Qg4 41. Rxh6;
- c) 39… Qf6+ 40. Bd4 Qf7 41. a4 c5 42. Bxc5 Bxd3 43. Bd4 Bf5 44. Qg2+ Be4 45. Rb5+;
- d) 39… Kxa7? 40. Qf2+ (40. Qc7+ also wins) 40… Kb7 41. Rxf5!!
“I can’t imagine Tal or Fischer missing Bxa7. The geometry is a little unusual but I would have found this 2 move combination on a good day. The modern players armed with massive computer analysis are of course objectively stronger than the old guard but not so much in tactical ability.”
The game finally completed with, 40. Bxa7 Qf6+ 41. Kb4 Re5 42. d4 Qe7+ 43. c5 1-0
Of course, it’s reassuring for remnants of the Cretaceous period, such as Nick and myself, to bask in the reflected genius of the mental matadors of yesteryear, deluding ourselves as to how much stronger they were than today’s crop of youngsters. However, if one takes a closer look, the evidence rather points the other way.
Let us now turn to another example, this time involving champions competing for the highest accolade: Botvinnik and Tal in 1960 (game 12). The following position is after White’s 31st move.
I am not so sure that our Golden Oldies were quicker on the uptake than the moderns. Take the diagram above where Tal missed the blatantly obvious 31… Reh4 winning on the spot. And I can think of plenty of other instances of grotesque blunders by the greats. At a lower level I have overlooked all sorts of crushing wins (against Keres, Geller and others) several of which resulted in my failing to win an important event. When I look at some of the things I have missed, I sometimes cannot believe it. Perhaps the most galling was a last round missed win in the 1983 Commonwealth Championship which would have given me gold not bronze.
But one glaring incident , which perhaps stands out for staggeringly stellar incompetence by two titans in a world championship match, was the adjourned 14th game of the 1969 world chess championship.
I am grateful for the following account by Grandmaster Genna Sosonko, translated by noted chess author Steve Giddins.
In the fourteenth game of the world championship match between Petrosian and Spassky in 1969, the world champion played White. The game was adjourned at the 44th move and Petrosian sealed his secret move. Yes, indeed, that was what used to be done in the relatively recent and at the same time prehistoric past: after five hours of play, the game was adjourned and played off either the following day, or on a special day set aside for the purpose.
Boris Spassky, his permanent trainer Igor Bondarevsky and also Nikolai Krogius, who was assisting the challenger in this match, headed off by car to the suburbs of Moscow. Krogius recalls that, all the way to the dacha where Spassky’s team were living, they were in a cheerful mood, considering the position roughly equal.
Having dined and sat down at the board, the grandmasters suddenly realised that neither Spassky nor his two assistants, who had been present throughout the whole five hours of the battle, could remember precisely where the white rook stood. These days, it seems really curious, but what could they do? Phone a friend in Moscow? But that would just be taken as a bad joke. Luckily, the adjourned position was given in a special radio bulletin dedicated to chess. In those days, chess was so popular in the Soviet Union, that during world championship matches, a special programme was devoted to them on the first channel of the national radio.
Analysis showed that their first impression was correct: the endgame was drawish. Spassky went off to bed and Bondarevsky and Krogius decided to check the position more thoroughly. The assessment remained unchanged: a draw.
Still in a cheerful mood, Spassky’s assistants decided to smoke their last cigarettes. And suddenly…The same thought swirled round each of their heads – and what if…?
Feverishly, they sought a saving idea in the variation 44. f3+ Kxe3 (44… Kd5 45. Nxf5+, 44… Ke5 45. Nc6+) 45. Rd2 Rb3+ 46. Nxb3 cxb3 etc. But they could not find anything reassuring: White wins.
They decided not to wake Spassky up and only in the morning to explain the bitter truth.
When he woke up, he found a note slipped under his door, beginning with the words “Boris, there is great unpleasantness in the position”.“Unpleasantness? It’s just resignable, never mind about any ‘unpleasantness’!
This time, all three of them sat down to analyse, but they did not manage to come up with anything concrete, although they did find some lines which would require definite accuracy from White.
When play resumed, there followed 44. f3+ (the sealed move) 44… Kхe3 45. Rd2 Rb3+ 46. Nxb3 cxb3. Here the world champion somewhat complicated his task by playing 47. Rd7 (stronger was 47. f4), but had not missed the win. Only after 47… h5 48. Ra7 Bf1 49. f4 h4 50. gxh4 Kxf4 51. Rxa5 Ke4, did Petrosian commit the decisive mistake by taking the unnecessary pawn 52. Kxb3?. He could have won with 52. Ra8 f4 53. Re8+ Kf3 54. Re6 The main idea is to approach the square f2 with the king. For example, 54… Kg4 55. Rхg6+ Kh4 56. Kd2 etc. the game continued 52… f4 53. Rg5 f3 54. Rхg6 Bh3 55. Rg1 f2 56. Rc1, and the players agreed a draw. A horrifying narrative of grotesque incompetence in high places.
I have had a soft spot for the Latin poet Horace (aka Quintus Horatius Flaccus) whose oeuvre supplies the title for this week’s column, ever since my school days at Dulwich College. (The quotation means “one who praises past times” and comes from the Ars Poetica, 173.) In 1966 I applied from Dulwich to go up to Trinity, unaware, as a student of modern languages, that Trinity really specialised in Maths and Science. I had selected Sir Isaac Newton’s Alma Mater solely on Trinity’s reputation for chess.
Trinity, uniquely at that time, demanded scholarship applicants to take a Latin exam as part of the entry procedure. My Latin was rusty (GCSE ‘O’ level) and I had spent most of the Scholarship term representing England in the Havana Chess Olympiad, meeting such titans as Bent Larsen and Bobby Fischer and dining with Fidel Castro, rather than honing my skills in Latin.
I, therefore, approached the Latin test with a certain amount of trepidation. Imagine my delight when the task was to translate Horace’s Ode to Spring, Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis… the only Latin poem I knew by heart in both the original Latin and the English translation.
If only chess were so easy!
Raymond Keene’s book “Fifty Shades of Ray: Chess in the year of the Coronavirus”, containing some of his best pieces from TheArticle, is now available from Blackwell’s . Meanwhile, Ray’s 206th book, “Chess in the Year of the King”, with a foreword by The Article contributor Patrick Heren, and written in collaboration with former Reuters chess correspondent, Adam Black, has just appeared and is also available from the same source or from Amazon
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