A blog post featuring annotations to five of Tal’s victories (v. Spassky – twice!, Larsen, Hübner & Portisch) from the ‘Tournament of Stars’ (Montréal, 1979), together with some background on the tournament. Mikhail Tal in play at the 46th USSR Championship, Tbilisi, December 1978 (Photo: TASS) Mikhail Tal’s career famously featured many ups and downs…
INTRODUCTION A short blog post about a classic book by two famous Soviet masters, Grigory Levenfish and Pyotr Romanovsky, on one of the most celebrated chess matches of all time. Some brief biographical details on Romanovsky are also presented. Among the oldest and most prized books in my collection is Levenfish & Romanovsky’s survey of…
A short biography of Mikhail Podgaets, International Master and Honoured Trainer of the USSR (and later, the Russian Federation). Includes a .PDF download of his spectacular victory v. Gennady Zaichik from the 54th USSR Championship qualifier (Sevastopol, 1986), with translated annotations by Podgaets and Khodarkovsky. Mikhail Yakovlevich Podgaets (1947-2009) was a noted Soviet and Ukrainian chessplayer and trainer. …
A blog post featuring some background to the 1968 Candidates’ final match, including translated annotations of all five decisive games by the ex-World Champion, Mikhail Tal. The tenth World Chess Champion, Boris Spassky (Novosti Press). Having lost the first of his World Championship duels against Tigran Petrosian in the spring of 1966, Boris Spassky had…
A short blog post featuring translations of Lev Polugaevsky’s annotations to three of his victories (v. Wedberg, Chiburdanidze & Korchnoi) from the Haninge International Tournament of 1988. The participants at Haninge, 1988 (L to R: Schüssler, Chandler, Korchnoi, Sosonko, Pintér, Wedberg, Agdestein, Andersson, Karlsson, Polugaevsky, Chiburdanidze & Barlov.) In the spring of three successive years…
A blog post featuring Tal’s annotations to his wins v. Miles and Gerusel, from the international tournament at Port (West Germany), held at New Year 1981/82. Mikhail Tal, pictured in January 1982 At New Year 1981/82 an international tournament was organised in Porz, a city-district of Cologne, in what was then West Germany. It featured…
Exactly 40 years ago the first of two World Championship matches between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi was in progress in Baguio City, on Luzon Island in The Phillipines. Korchnoi and Karpov had contested the Candidates’ Final match in Moscow four years previously. In a 24-game match, Karpov had won by the narrowest of margins,…
A short blog post featuring a Bronstein’s translated annotations to his game v. Korchnoi from the tournament at Hastings, 1976, and the background to this encounter. The traditional Hastings tournament at the end of 1975 took place at the town’s White Rock Pavilion, from 29th December 1975 until the 15th January 1976. It was normal…
Lev Psakhis’s report on the tournament at Troon (Scotland) in 1984, translated from ’64’, and including detailed annotations to his dramatic final-round game v. Craig Pritchett (available to download in .PDF format). At the Press Centre for the World Chess Championship in Moscow, September 1984. Left to right: Semyon Palatnik, Lev Psakhis, Sergei Dolmatov, Mark…
Among the 22 participants in the final of the 39th USSR Championship (Leningrad, 1971) were Smyslov, Tal, Karpov, Bronstein, Polugaevsky, Geller and Stein. Taking part in such distinguished company for the first time, the master from Belarus, Albert Kapengut, took 10th place. This blog post features Kapengut’s annotations to his win over Stein, together with some biographical…
A short blog post featuring World Champion Mikhail Tal’s annotations to his entertaining draw against Karl Robatsch, from the preliminaries of the 14th Olympiad. This game was played in the 5th round of the preliminaries, on 21st October 1960. The USSR and Austria were drawn in Preliminary Group 2. The top three teams would qualify for the…
A short blog post, featuring Bronstein’s annotations to his striking victory v. Lubosh Kavalek at the Asztalos Memorial tournament in Szombathely (Hungary), 1966. Lubosh Kavalek (left) shakes hands with David Bronstein at the Amsterdam IBM tournament, July 1968; on the right is grandmaster Aleksandr Kotov (photo source: Dutch National Archives). In July 1966 in Szombathely,…
