Chess
Plovdiv preview
Raymond Keene
Portorozh On June 24 (Friday) the European Team Championship starts in Plovdiv, tiulgaria. Our team is: Miles, Nunn,
Speelman, Mestel, Keene, Chandler, Short, Hebden, P. Littlewood and Hartston and the opposition England has to face is: USSR, Hungary, Yugoslavia, West Ger- many, Holland, Bulgaria, Denmark. It will be a major success if we can repeat our bronze medal performance of Skara 1980 and against this opposition fourth or fifth position would be par. Once again, Duncan Lawrie, the merchant bankers, are sponsor- ing the team, this time on an unusually generous scale. Without this support it is unlikely that so many of the top players would have been available.
Not that it matters, but the USSR side is weakened by the absence of Kasparov, preparing for his Korchnoi match, while Hubner is sulking Achilles-like in his bunker after failing against Smyslov, and has refused to play for Germany. The only notable absentees from the English squad are Stean and Plaskett. The latter has just celebrated a splendid success in the EEC Open in Paris, where he scored 8 from 9, notched his first GM norm and came 21/2 points ahead of Nunn.
Here are three of Plaskett's active wins:
Plaskett — Lobron: Queen's Gambit.
1 d4 d5 2 Nf3 e6 3 Bf4 Nf6 4 e3 Nbd7 5 c4 Bd4 + 6 Nc3 c5 7 Bd3 cxd4 8 exd4 dxc4 9 Bxc4 Nb6 10 Bd3 NbdS 11 Bd2 0-0 12 0-0 Be7 13 Bg5 b6 14 Ne5 Bb7 15 Qf3 Rc8 16 Rfel Ne8 17 Bxh7 + Kxh7 18 Nxf7 Rxf7 19 Qxf7 BxgS 20 Qxb7 Nd6 21 Qa6 Nxc3 22 bxc3 Rxc3 23 Rxe6 Qc8 24 Qe2 Qc4 25 Qe5 Bd2 26 Qh5 + Bh6 27 Qg6 + Kh8 28 g3 Rcl + 29 Rxcl Qxcl + 30 Kg2 Qc6 + 31 f3 Black resigns.
Plaskett — Johansen: Bogo-Indian Defence. 1 Nf3 Nf6 2 d4 e6 3 c4 Bb4+ 4 Bd2 Qe7 5 Bxb4 Qxb4 + 6 Qd2 Nc6 7 Nc3 Qxc4 8 a3 Qb3 9 e3 a6 10 Bd3 Qb6 11 0-0 0-0 12 Ne5 d6 13 Nxc6 Qxc6 14 Racl Qe8 15 e4 Qe7 16 e5 dxe5 17 dxe5 Nd7 18 f4 Nc5 19 Bc2 a5 20 Qe3 Bd7 21 f5 Na6 22 Khl exf5 23 Nd5 Qc5 24 Nf6 + gxf6 25 Qh6 Rfd8 26 Rf4 Be6 27 Rg4 + fxg4 28 exf6 Black resigns.
Plaskett — Vincent: Dutch Defence. 1 d4 f5 2 c4 Nf6 3 Nf3 g6 4 g3 Bg7 5 Bg2 0-0 6 0-0 d6 7 Nc3 c6 8 d5 e5 9 dxe6 Bxe6 10 b3 Ne4 11 Nxe4 Bxal 12 Nfg5 Qd7 13 Nxd6 Rd8 14 Bf4 Bf6 15 e4 Be7 16 exf5 BxfS 17 Bd5 + Kg7 18 Be5 + Bf6 19 Bxf6 + Kxf6 20 Qd4 + Black resigns.
Snippets of news from the Fide meeting here: the US representative brought Fischer's latest book, not on chess, entitled I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse! The Russian delegate, V. D. Baturinsky, came primarly to protest about the location of Candidates' semi-finals — Smyslov v Ribli in the UAE and Kasparov-Korchnoi in Pasadena (no coincidence). Finally, Karpov has just divorced. More on all this at a later date.
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