Chess
New event
Raymond Keene
In mid-February an original and imaginative project materialised in Mar del Plata, Argentina. This town used to enjoy a great chess reputation, with regular international tournaments, but the activity gradually died out, until this latest attempt to revive the tradition. The occasion was a four-a-side match between Europe and the Americas, in which each player contested two games against the four members of the opposing team. The result was a resounding win by the touring visitors over the New World (191/2-121/2) and the individual scores (out of a possible 8 points) were: Andersson (Sweden) 6; Ljubojevic (Yugoslavia) 5; Larsen (Denmark) 41/2; Portisch (Hungary) and Christiansen (USA) 4; Browne (USA) 31/2); Quinteros (Argentina) 3 and Seirawan (USA) 2. This provides further confirmation of Ulfs current tremendous form, which has continued from Malta and Hastings. One can only hope that he sees sense for the coming World Championship cycle and competes himself, rather than acting as second for someone else, as he did the previous time. The only real surprise was the very poor showing of Seirawan, who may be suffering from 'seconds' blight'. He might have had a chance to redeem himself in the super-tournament now under way in Moscow (which I shall be writing about next week), had his expected participation not fallen through.
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