Chess

Riotous assembly

Raymond Keene

Civil disruption in Manila turned out to %..."be less severe than I had expected from advance reports. True, in the Makati

business centre of the Philippine capital, there were frequent demonstrations involv- ing the dumping of ticker-tape and paper generally on to the streets. But where else in the world would the demonstrators reach accord with government authorities to clean up the mess themselves after each public manifestation?

Fide authorities, too, survived what ap- peared to be a major revolt on the part of the USSR federation. By deft diplomacy, aided, I like to think, by the preparatory work put in by my trip to Moscow and the meeting of the Fide Players' Council I sum- moned at Niksic, President Campomanes extracted an apology from the Russians, a confirmation of his own right to choose match venues, plus a number of other in- teresting concessions. The strong likelihood is that the Kasparov-Korchnoi and Smyslov-Ribli matches will now take place in November, with Holland, Austria and Yugoslavia front runners for the bid. England, too, is still in with a chance to hold these prestigious events. More on this if we succeed in finding a sponsor.

Korchnoi and Ribli have both been placated and are willing to contest the mat- ches they had originally won by default, but Korchnoi still required some sort of apology from the Russians, plus a guarantee that the boycott against him would cease. Accordingly, I proposed the following motion to the General Assembly, which was passed by acclaim:

The General Assembly unanimously ex- tols the sportsmanship of Grandmaster Korchnoi and Grandmaster Ribli in agree- ing to play their semi-final matches, and in the spirit of reconciliation the General Assembly urges that all boycotts especially that of Mr Korchnoi should be lifted for- thwith.'

It is my intention that the Fide Players' Council should summon a conference of top tournament organisers in the near future (possibly during Hastings) and read the riot act about boycotts. Although the Soviet side may be the source of boycotts against defectors such as Korchnoi, it is ultimately tournament organisers who im- plement them by withholding invitations. In this respect, the super-tournament at Tilburg (currently in progress) is a serious offender and by my calculation it has avoid- ed inviting Korchnoi to any of its annual events for the past seven years.

The other stormy issue at Manila was the restructuring of zones and introduction of the Fide plan to reduce the world cham-

pionship cycle from three years to two. Fierce opposition came from the ultra- conservative wing of Fide represented by the USSR, Hungary, Bulgaria,

Czechoslovakia etc, who managed to block the plan, elaborated by Campomanes, Kinzel and myself, by a vote of 13-12 against at the Central Committee stage. In the General Assembly, however, this was reversed in a preliminary vote by 71-13 (sic) in favour of the plan and the entire strategy was finally carried by the margin of 47 for and 24 against with various abstentions, though here the forces of East European

reaction were joined by Ireland and Scotland! Three years is really too long to wait for a world title match, and the effect of these measures should be a considerable boost in the popularity of chess.

A major feature of the reforms is to ex- tend the granting of free places in the Inter- zonal and Candidates' tournaments. This should encourage the participation of top players who might otherwise have been reluctant to fight their way through a cumbersome series of qualifying events.

Here is a lively game from Tilburg played earlier this week:

Ljubojevic — Seirawan: French Defence.

1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 8b4 4 e5 Qd7 5 Qg4 f5 6 0g3 b6 7 Nh3 a5 8 Nf4 Qf7 9 a3 Bxc3 + 10 Qxc3 Bah 11 Bxa6 Rxa6 12 Nxe6 Qxe6 13 Qxc7 Nc6 14 Qxg7 Qg6 15 Qxh8 Nd8 16 Bh6 b5 17 Bg7 Kf7 18 Bf6 Ne6 19 h4 Rc6 20 h5 Qh6 21 c3 Rc8 22 14 Nxf4 23 0-0 Ne2 + 24 Kf2 N14 25 g4 f5xg4 26 Bg5 Qxg5 27 Kg3 Nf6 28 Qxf6 + Qx16 29 e5xf6 Nxh5 + 30 Kxg4 Nx16 + 31 1(15 a4 32 Rae1 Rc6 33 Kg5 Rd6 34 Re5 h6 + 35 Kxh6 Kg8 36 Rg5 + 1(17 37 Rgf5 Ke7 38 Kg5 Ne4 + 39 Kh4 Nd2 40 Rel + Kd7 41 Rf7 + Kc6 42 Re8 Nc4 43 Rc8 + Kb6 44 Rb8 + Kc6 45 Rfb7 Nxb2 46 Rxb5 Nc4 Black resigns.