Short shrift
Harry Golombek
The tournament for the British Champion ship which ended last week at Chester was a magnificent struggle full of tense and excit ing moments with the lead twisting and turning among half a dozen talented players. Before it commenced it looked to be about average British Championship in strength with the usual mixture of master and firstclass amateur players; but the addition of the Birmingham grandmaster, Tony Miles, at the last moment not only gave the event extra strength but added a piquant spice of interest in that Miles has never won the title and, despite being the acknowledged leading British player for the last few years, has never really looked like winning it.
Would he fare better this time? The chief opposition standing in his way looked to be that rapidly improving and genuine grand master, John Nunn, and the reigning British champion Jonathan Speelman, who has also been going from strength to strength in the last year or so. There were also two former champions who could easily win the title provided they hit their best form, Jonathan Mestel and George Botterill, together with a veritable flood of young, almost kindergar ten talent, headed by Nigel Short, fresh from sharing first place at the World Cadet (under 17) championship.
With Short losing to the variable but dangerous Australian Max Fuller in round two the lead was taken by Nunn who won his first three games. But half a dozen players were not far behind with 211 points each, amongst these being Miles, Speelman, Mes tel and Bellin. It was Miles who then took the lead by beating Nunn, but he was rejoined in the lead by Nunn and also by the champion Specimen so that these three had 4 points and were closely followed by Short, Bellin, Mestel and others with 3.
Defeating Nunn in the sixth round Speelman held on to the joint lead with Miles with 5 points and these two remained at the head with 5i points in the next round.
Then came the most dramatic turn of events I have witnessed in the British Championship for many a year. The 14year-old Nigel Short well and truly beat grandmaster Miles in round eight and followed this feat up by defeating the champion Jonathan Speelman in the next round to enjoy the sole lead with 7 points. Miles, having lost to a player Nile more than half his age in round eight, put himself out of the running by losing his next game to a player twice his age, the formidable John Littlewood.
It is my experience, however, that when one has seven points at this stage in the British Championship one needs to win one game and draw the other in the remaining two rounds if one wishes to win the title outright. This Nigel Short failed to do. He drew both games and the event ended in a tie for first place amongst three players, Short, Nunn and Bellin, with 8 points each.
The way in which this tie was .resolved made me recall T.S. Eliot's 'This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper'. In all the previous years, a play-off has taken place and it would indeed have been interesting to see a match-tournament between these three. But, I understand at the insistence of the financial sponsors of the event, Messrs Grieveson Grant, new provi sion had been made to resolve all championship ties by reckoning up the sum of the opponent's scores of each player. On this count the international master Robert Bellin won the title and whilst it must be admitted that he is a worthy winner and also that Grieveson Grant deserve every consideration for their generous support of the event one cannot help regretting that such a stirring tournament was followed by so dim an anti-climax.
How indeed would the 14-year-old Nigel Short have fared against the other two in the play-off? Just look and see how he beat grandmaster Tony Miles in round 8 and you will have some inkling.
Miles-Shorts French Defence, Winawer Variation. 1 P-Q4P-K3 2 P-K4 P-Q4 3 N-QB3 B-N5 4 PxP The oldfashioned 19th-century line instead of the modern 4 P-K5. Probably Miles plays this in the belief that his young opponent will not know much about this antiquated line but such a belief is not substantiated by the sequel. A position arises in fact in which Nigel's natural good tactical sense makes itself felt. 4.. . PxP 5 B-Q3N-QB3 6 P-QR3 BxN ch 7 PO N-B3 Against 7. . KN-K2 White has the dashing and dangerous 8 Q-R5. 8 B-KN5 Expecting Black to Castle K side when he will play 9 N-K2 and, with the pin on h is opponent's Knight, have the better game; but now he s shocked by quite another line with which Black prepares to castle 0, 8. Q-K2 ch 9 N-K2 B-Q2 100.0 P-KR3 11 11-KB4 A limp way of playing that eventually yields the initiative to Black. Better seems 11 BxN QxB when White can choose between 12 Q-Q2 and 12 P-0B4, in both cases with a.good game, 11, . . 0-0-0 12 P-Q114 B-K313 P-113 P-KN4 14 B-Q2 N-KS IS R-NI Better was 15 B-K1 and then 16 P-KB3. 15 . . P-B4 16 P-S3 NxB 17 QxN P-I35 Black has played all this with refreshing energy and by now it has become difficult for White to find a positive line of action. 18 B-NS B-Q2 19 KR-KI Q-B3 20 Q-B3 Probably still thinking in terms of playing for more than a draw; if so he is utterly mistaken. Correct was 20 BxN BxB 21 N-B3. 20 . . QR-K1 Rightly obeying the good oldfashioned principle that in the exchange variation of the French Defence it is vital to gain control of the K file. 21 Q-N3 11-K6 22 8-Q3 N-QI. 23 P-84 8-8424 Bx0 ch QxB 25 Q-R2 KR-K1 26 R-N2 White is now really on the run and it is almost painful to see a grandmaster in such straits. 26. . . P-N5 27 R-KBI PxP 28 PxP R-N1 ch 29 K-R1 Q-R6 30 R-02 RxBP 31 N-NI R-K6 32 R-N2 Q-K3 33 RxR QxR 34 PxP Restoring material equality, hut he is positionally quite lost. 34. . P-B6 35 P-Q6 Q-N4 Threatening R-K8. 36 P-Q7 ch KxP 37 Q-N1 N-K3 38 Q-R7 ch K-B3 39 Q-K7 NxQP 40 Q-B4 QxP 41 Q-R4 ch P-N4 42 Q-Ql Q-Q4 43 R-KB2 R-K7I 44Q-B1 ch K-N245 NxR PxN disch OR-NZ N-87 White resigns. Possibly with the remote consolation that he has probably lost to the player who might well become world champion after Kasparov — say, in 1987.
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