Chess
Shocking
Raymond Keene
The pressure of the large entry for the increasingly popular Lloyds Bank Masters has finally produced a near in- conclusive result at the top. Although Tony Miles (with 7/9) took this year's trophy on tie-break, he had to share the honours with no less than four others: Gutman, Hort, Hebden and the Australian Johansen. Perhaps the time has come to consider ad- ding an extra two rounds to help in clarify- ing the leading positions. Ftacnik, who led for much of the time, lost in the last round to finish on 61/2 (with Strauss) while I shared 8th place on 6. As in the British Championship, I lost just one game, to Miles, who is now playing really excellently after a run of poor form last year. Other notable results were Mestel on 5 1/2 and Kor- chnoi, 5. Korchnoi's shocking performance needs some explanation. This is the first international he has contested since the
release of his family, so we all expected to see a confident and relaxed display by the former Challenger for the world title. In- deed, he started off with three straight wins, but then a swift decline set in. In round 4 he drew with Macnab, then lost to Barua, beat Kosten and drew with the talented Swedish girl, Pia Cramling (who, incidentally, achieved the male IM norm). Disaster finally struck when Korchnoi lost in the two concluding rounds to Kudrin and the English junior, Hawksworth. With two rounds to go, Hawksworth had a million to one chance of an IM norm; he had to win both games and be paired with Korchnoi!
There was something totally unreal about Korchnoi's play in London, as can be seen from the game which clinched Hawks- worth's norm.
J. Hawksworth — V. Korchnoi: Lloyds Masters, Round 9, Queen's Indian Defence.
1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 b6 4 g3 Ba6 5 Nbd2 Bb4 The fashionable move, but there is nothing wrong with 5 ... c5 e.g. 6 e4 cxd4 7 e5 Ng4 8 h3 Nh6 9 Nxd4 Bb7 and Black has an excellent position. 6 Qa4 e5 7 a3 Bxd2 + 8 Bxd2 cxd4 Temporarily winning a pawn, but White's B-pair grants suffi- cient compensation, since the exchange of a White B for a Black N will usually retrieve the material. 9 Bg2 Bb7 10 0-0 Bc6 11 Qdl Bxf3 12 Bxf3 Nc6 13 Bf4 0-0 14 Bd6 Re8 15 Bxc6 dxe6 16 Qxd4 Nd5 A new move. In the game Seirawan
Timman, Phillips and Drew earlier this year' Black played 16 ... c5 and had to struggle somewhat in order to draw. 17 c5 e5 18 Qa4 No! 18 Bxe5? bxc5. 18 ... Qd7 19 e4 bxc5 20 00' Nf4 21 Qdl After 21 gxf4 Qg4 + Black has at least a draw. 21 ...Qh3?! 21 Nd3 is quite OK. The text is speculative. 22 gxf4 exf4?? A terrible blunder. After 22 ... Re6! Black still has many threats. 23 f3 Re5 24 Qc2 Black resigns. He has nothing for the piece.
Ironically, it seems that Korchnoi had played the same opponent in 3 simultaneous display before the tourna- ment started. A feeling prevailed that this fact might have contributed to Korchnois lacklustre approach to this game, and, in" deed, the former challenger later comPlain1 ed that he was only being pitted against weaker opponents. Such opportunities for the inexperienced, though, are part of the point of the Lloyds Bank system, and co- winner Hort eagerly expressed a desire to return next year. During this week the third of the Inter- zonals has got under way in Moscow. The likely qualifiers are two of Kasparov, 141' Andersson and Beliaysky, but the sNek., results from Las Palmas and Toluca COW easily be repeated here. My next few reports will, in fact, be sent on-the-spot from Moscow.
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