SIMPSON'S
IN-THE-STRAND
SIMPSON'S
IN-THE-STRAND
CHESS
In steppe
Raymond Keene
I AM OF 1EN asked the question, why were the Soviet Russians so overwhelming- ly successful at chess, dominating the world championship from 1948 to 1972 and thereafter still providing the vast majority of the world's elite grandmasters? Natur- ally, this has a lot to do with the gigantic material resources that the USSR ploughed into achieving victory in virtually every international sport. In the collective mind of the Soviet regime chess was not only a sport but one which conferred intel- lectual respectability. Hence the game was worthy of a substantial financial investment in order to seize the world championship and, by the systematic nurturing of young players, consolidate and retain it.
There is, however, a deeper reason. The Soviet state was notable for the lack of opportunity for free thought it offered to its citizens. Chess offers a wide field for individual thought, where the state has no remit to interfere. By playing chess, Russians freed their minds from the shack- les of state dogma. Not even a Soviet com- missar would have dared to utter the words: 'Comrade, that move is ideological- ly unsound.' The sole criterion in chess is whether the move is good or bad, whether it wins or loses. When they played chess, ordinary Russians could reclaim a measure of personal liberty in their everyday lives, over which the state had no control.
The overwhelming threat to the Soviet Union lay in the fact that their entire regime was constructed on restriction of information and ideas at the precise moment when much of the rest of the world was about to become heavily driven by an explosion of information-based tech- nologies. This message was rammed home to me with great force during the 1986 world chess championship between Gam Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. The cham- pionship match was held in two equal halves, 12 games in London, 12 games in Leningrad. I organised the London half of the world contest. As a standard facility to the international press corps we printed, within five minutes of the end of every game, a complete record of the moves, times taken by the players, plus key com- ments to critical moments by grandmasters, as well as diagrams of important situations in the game. Not only was this report avail- able in multiple copies within minutes for the press corps on site, it was also faxed to all interested journalists around the world within, at most, a further five minutes.
In Leningrad, the contrast in dissemina- tion of chess information could not have been more marked. Three elderly babush- kas typed up the moves as the game pro- gressed, but at the championship site in the Hotel Leningrad there was no photocopier. The match director, secretary, and press chief had to sign a document in triplicate, enabling the press assistant to take a cab to the Communist Party headquarters several miles away, where the only official photo- copier in the city existed. Only on the press assistant's return — and the round trip took about 45 minutes — could the assem- bled press in Leningrad even discover what the official moves of the game had been. It was at that moment that I first realised that the game for the USSR was up. Here is the best game from that 1986 championship. Kasparov–Karpov: World Championship, Game 16, Leningrad 1986; Ruy Lopez.
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 0-0 Bel 6 Rel b5 7 Bb3 d6 8 c3 0-0 9 h3 Bb7 10 d4 Re8 11 Nbd2 Bf8 12 a4 h6 13 Bc2 exd4 14 cxd4 Nb4 15 Bbl c5 16 d5 Nd7 17 Ra3 c4 18 Nd4 This is a heavily theoretical line which Kasparov and Karpov have tested in many of their games. Broadly speaking, Black dominates the queen- side, while White goes for chances against the black king. This should be meat and drink for Kasparov, though in this game his queenside becomes so exposed as to appear that Black is on the verge of victory. 18 ...Qf6 19 N2f3 Nc5 20 axb5 axb5 21 NxbS Rxa3 22 Nxa3 Ba6 23 Re3 Rb8 24 e5 dxe5 25 NxeS Nbd3 26 Ng4 Qb6 27 Rg3 g6 28 Bxh6 Qxb2 29 Q113 Nd7 30 BxfS KxfS 31 Kh2 (Diagram) If now 31 ...Qxa3 then 32 Position after 31 Kh2 Nh6 grants a terrible attack. This aside, it would seem that Black has crashed through on the left flank and this move with White's king is mad- deningly slow. However, it is a vital piece of preparation for White's final onslaught. 31 ... Rb3 32 Bxd3 cxd3 Confused by the huge number of alternatives, Karpov misses 32 ... Rxa3 33 Qf4 Rxd3 34 Qd6+ Kg7 35 Qxd7 Rxg3 36 Kxg3 c3 37 Ne5 Qb7 which holds on for a draw. 33 Qf4 Qxa3 34 Nh6 Qe7 35 Rxg6 Qe5 36 Rg8+ Ke7 37 d6+ This blows Black away. 37 ...Ke6 38 Re8+ Kd5 39 RxeS+ NxeS 40 d7 Rb8 41 Nxf7 Black resigns.
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