CHESS

Lost ploys

Raymond Keene

R

Leningrad eaders of this article will have the advantage over me of knowing the result of Wednesday's 21st game, where Karpov enjoys the plus of having the white pieces. As I write there remain just four games to be fought. Each player has notched up 10 points. Kasparov retains his title if he can reach 12, while Karpov must score 121/2 to reestablish himself as champion.. On top of this, if either of them can get to six wins (so far, they each have four) the match ends automatically, in that player's favour.

The current score is like this:

London Kasparov 1/2 ih 1/2 1 0 1/2 1/2 1 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2

Karpov 1/2 1/2 1h 0 1 1h 1/2 0 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2

Leningrad

Total

Kasparov lh 1 1/2

1 0 0 0

11/2

10 Karpov 1/2 0 1/2 0 1 1 1 1/2 10 So Wednesday's game is crucial. If it is drawn, the final outcome is still wide open, while a win for either of them would virtually clinch the destination of the title. This cliff-hanger finish is undoubtedly a boost for popular interest in chess, but I find it staggering that Kasparov — of all great players — should have collapsed in this dramatic fashion. Having established a commanding three-point lead after game 16 Kasparov had apparently proved beyond all doubt that he is vastly superior to Karpov in all departments of the game. But then he fell apart in an immature way which recalled the disastrous first nine games of his match with Karpov in 1984. The subsequent course of that marathon revealed Kasparov as perhaps the most iron-willed grandmaster in the history of chess. All the more mysterious, then, that the young champion should have fallen apart with such ease over games 17, 18 and 19.

One thing is clear: Kasparov tends to become extremely excited after decisive results against Karpov, whether a win or a loss, and there was even an excellent case to be made for his taking a time-out after the 16th game which catapulted him into his colossal lead.

So many opportunities were lost and Wasted by Kasparov during KarPov's 17-19 hat-trick. Surely it was lunacy in game 17 to repeat the, risky opening of game 15. With so little time on his clock, was it not madness for Kasparov to play uncomprom- isingly for a win in game 18? The more so when he could have stopped the rot by forcing a draw which would have main- tained a two-point advantage. Finally, was it not high time in game 19 to defend solidly with black rather than launch out on a reckless counter-attacking adventure? The noted grandmaster Yuri Averbakh has attributed Kasparov's collapse to 'euphor- ia.' It seems to me as well that Kasparov is an iconoclast who loves to defy rules and reason. Often this works, as in games 16 and 24 of their last match, or games 8, 14 and 16 of the one now in progress. But on occasions the logic of chess bites back with a vengeance. In their fifth game from the London leg Kasparov encouraged his great opponent to establish a mighty protected passed pawn on d6. That pawn won the game for Karpov.

In game 17 here Kasparov repeated a line where one of his knights was chased to an absurdly passive square and where his pawns could be wrecked. Although Kar- pov had rejected this approach in game 15 — when the variation first emerged from the swamp — he seized it the second time round with both hands to score an over- whelming victory. The logic of chess strategy cannot always be flouted with impunity. Eduard Gufeld, the chief of the press centre in Leningrad, made perhaps the most pertinent comment: Kasparov com- mitted the same match-plan blunder here as Karpov did in 1984. He did not just want to win, but to destroy his opponent, and in so doing he overreached.

Game 20, where Kasparov had white, stemmed the flow of Karpov's victories. It was a non-game, where Kasparov steered for a draw from the opening moves. How much different this match would now look if Kasparov had already adopted such fabian tactics for game 18.

Anyway, the charismatic young cham- pion, far from coasting home, is now fighting for his life. He has not scored with black since game 15, and if, when this is read, he has lost Wednesday's game, his number will be up.