Omn.-gath.
Raymond Keene
Momentous as it was, England's victory in the Clare Benedict did not have the effect of stunning all other chess players into inactivity. Rather the opposite. At the lower end of the scale St Paul's School triumphed over Bolton in the final of this year's Sunday Times Schools Championship, held at St Ermin's Hotel. Julian Hodgson led his side to an effortless success, but an eagerly awaited topboard clash failed to materialise, since Nigel Short (Bolton's real board one) was absent, representing England in the World Under-17 Championship at Belfort. Nigel ultimately shared first prize in his tournament with the Argentinian Tempone, but was relegated on tie-break to second place.
A considerably more spectacular British achievement was Jonathon Mestel's 9i/13 in the Category 7 Danish 'North Sea' Tournament, which ended last week. Mestel was half a point off the Grandmaster norm, which he missed by losing to the Hungarian GM Vadasz in a crucial final round encounter. Mestel and Vadasz dominated the field, finishing two points ahead of Mortensen and two and a half ahead of Hartston and Reshevsky.
Meanwhile, reports are filtering through of the Spartakiad in Moscow, which brings together all of the best players in the Soviet Union in a massive team competition. This year's event was distinguished by the presence of FIDE President Fridrik Olafsson, on his first official visit to the Soviet Union, and young Kasparov rose to the occasion by beating Polugayevsky, for the second time. Karpov, apparently, did not, and lost badly to a player whose name is quite unknown to most English players. Karpov has lost a mere seven games in the past year, and all of them have found their way into this column. This may seem unfair, but every loss by the World Champion is a newsworthy occurrence. Here is the World Champion's loss from the Spartakiad: L Ivanov A. Karpov: Soviet Team Championship, Moscow, July 1979; Sicilian Defence. 1 P-K4 P-QB4 2 N-KB3 P-K3 3 P-Q4 PxP 4 NxP P-QR3The Kan system. White normally plays 5 13-Q3, but Karpov has just published an extensive review of this for RHM a kind of superior, US based Chess Archives. Ivanov prefers to try a less usual scheme, but it does not look particularly effective, 5 N-QB3 P-QN4 6 B-Q3 B-N2 7 0-0 N-K2 8 K-R1 QN-B3 9 IsbeN NxN 10 Q-N4 P-KR4 After this bold advance Black can hardly contemplate a future . • 0-0, but this drawback is outweighed by the K-side initiative he can seize. 11 Q-K2 N-K4 12 P-B4 N-N5 13 R-83 Q-R5 14 P-KR3 B-04 15 B-Q2 The logical conclusion to the game would now have been 15 . . N-B7ch 16 K-R2 N-N5ch 17 K-R1 N-B7ch etc. .. , with a draw by perpetual check. Karpov rejects this not, presumably, for any objective reasons, but because he felt he 'ought' to win against Ivanov. This sort of miscalculation is responsible for many of the losses sustained by powerful players against much weaker opponents. 15 P-N3 16 QR-KB1 Q-K2 17 P-R3 P-B4 18 R-K1 Q-B1 19 P-QN4 B-Q5 20 P-QR4 R-QB1 21 N-Q1 Q-B3 Karpov's last few moves have made it apparent that he was quite unable to form a coherent plan. While he has been wasting time with his queen White has carefully fixed a target (Black's QNP) which he now proceeds to undermine. 22 P-83 B-R2 23 RPxP RPx1) 24 KM' NPxP 25 BxP A logical sacrifice of the exchange which entails no risk, since Black's king is permanently stuck in the centre and he finds it impossible to disentangle his remaining pieces. It is noteworthy, in the further course of the game, that Karpov never succeeds in establishing any kind of cooperation between his QR and the remainder of his forces on the K-side. 25 . . . Bxit 26 QxB R-B2 27 P-B4 B-Q5 28 Q-Q5 K.Q1 29 Q-Q6 N-B7ch 30 NxN BxN 31 B-K3 BxB 32 RxB Introducing the danger of penetration into Black's camp via the QR file. 32 . . Q-K2 33 Q-Q2 K-K1 34Q-Q4 R-KN1 35 Q-N6 0-N2 36 QxKPch K-Ql 37 Q-Q5 R-R2 38 1-Q3 R-R8ch 39 K-R2 R-R7 40 B-B6 R-R2 Black could have tried the last ditch trap 40
. P-R5, threatening 41 Q-N6ch 42 RxQ PxRch 43 K-Ni R-R8 checkmate, but White would still have won with 41 QxPch QxQ 42 RxQch when the passed pawns will decide. 41 Q-B5 R -B2 42 Q-N6 Black resigns.
Another VIP soon to savour the hospital ity of the USSR Chess Federation is Tony Miles, who will be participating in the Yurmala Interzonal in September. It is planned to send British champion Jon Speelman as Tony's second, and the BCF has launched an appeal to help meet the costs. Since Speelman has agreed to send exclusive reports to the Spectator column on this important stage of the World Championship qualifying ladder, this is clearly a cause well worth supporting. All donations should be sent to the British Chess Federation, 4 The Close, Norwich. Cheques should be made payable to the BCF. Next week I shall make a start with my promised articles on the Far East.
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