A blog post dedicated to four key games by Anatoly Karpov played at the 41st USSR Championship – one of the strongest championships of them all – plus some brief background to the event. The 41st USSR Championship final, an 18-player all-play-all, took place in Moscow from 2nd-26th October 1973. The line-up featured five world…
A brief blog post devoted to Karpov’s annotations to the six victories from his 1978 match v. Korchnoi in Baguio City that allowed him to retain the title of World Champion. Translations of the contemporary annotations by Tal & Averbakh to the games of the 1978 World Championship match, together with some background to the…
A blog post dedicated to the 1968 Candidates match between Mikhail Tal and his old rival, Viktor Korchnoi, featuring translations of the annotations of the games of the match from the contemporary Soviet press. In Moscow in June and July of 1968, ex-World Champion Mikhail Tal faced fellow Soviet grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi at the semi-final…
A short blog post featuring links to translations of Mikhail Tal’s annotations to some of his later games, as they appeared in the contemporary Soviet press. Mikhail Tal, pictured in play at the international tournament in Leningrad, 1977 (photo: N. Naumenkov, TASS.) Mikhail Tal, the 8th World Champion and six times champion of the USSR,…
A blog post featuring links to translations of Vassily Ivanchuk’s contemporary annotations to some of his early games, as they appeared in the Soviet publications ‘Shakhmaty v SSSR’, ‘Shakhmaty (Riga)’ and ’64’. Vassily Ivanchuk, one of the greatest chess talents to emerge during the final years of the Soviet Union, was born in the Ternopol…
A blog post dedicated to the 6-game match held in early January 1983 to determine one of the reserve spots in the 1983-84 FIDE Candidates’ cycle. In the Interzonal tournament that took place in Moscow in the autumn of 1982, the two qualifying places for the 1983-84 Candidates’ cycle were taken by Garry Kasparov and…
A blog post dedicated to the annotations, from the contemporary Soviet chess press, of the games of the 1966 World Championship match. In the spring of 1966 the World Champion, Tigran Petrosian, faced Challenger Boris Spassky in a 24-game match for the game’s highest honour. The contest was held in the Estrada theatre, on the…
In the foreword to his book Izbrannie partii (‘Selected Games’, published in Leningrad in 1949), Mikhail Botvinnik writes about his development in a chessplayer. He describes how, during the period 1927-1933, he learned how to make his mark among masters (he himself had gained title of Soviet Master in 1927, at the age of 16). …
A short blog post dedicated to an interesting draw between the Hungarian grandmaster, László Szabó and ex-World Champion Mikhail Tal, from the 5th Central Chess Club International in Moscow, 1963. During October-November 1963, the fifth in a series of international tournaments organised by the USSR Central Chess Club took place in Moscow. The 15-round all-play-all…
A blog post dedicated to Mikhail Botvinnik’s annotations of the games of the 1974 Candidates’ final between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi. The 18th game of the match in progress. (Photo: V. Savostianov / TASS.) During September-November 1974, Soviet grandmasters Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi faced each other in a match of 24 games to…
A short blog post dedicated to one of the most beautiful victories of the 13th World Champion, on the occasion of his 57th birthday. Kasparov & Karpov in play on the stage of the Hotel ‘Leningrad’ during the 14th game of their 1986 match. (Photo: D. Donskoi, Novosti Press.) In a match of 24 games…
A short blog post dedicated to the final tournament in the long career of the 6th World Champion. To mark the 75th anniversary of the Leidsch Schaakgenootschap (the Leiden Chess Club), attempts were made to organise a match between Mikhail Botvinnik (USSR) and Bobby Fischer (USA) that would take place in the spring of 1970. Preparations…
The biographical work Akiba Rubinshtein by Yu. S. Razuvaev & V. I. Murakhevri, published in Moscow by the state publishing house Fizkultura i Sport in 1980, is generally considered to be one of the most important books written in the latter part of the twentieth century. Here, for example, is what Boris Gelfand has to say…
A blog post dedicated to the dramatic 1986 Candidates’ match between Artur Jussupow (USSR) and Jan Timman (Netherlands), which was won by the Soviet grandmaster by the score of 6:3 (+4, -1, =4). It features translations of the contemporary annotations by Jussupow’s trainer, Mark Dvoretsky, supplemented by notes and comments by the two players. Artur…
A blog post dedicated to a forthcoming work on the ‘Match of the Century’, written in collaboration with ‘Chess Informant’, featuring some background to the event and extracts from the new book. The ‘Match of the Century’, between teams representing the USSR and the ‘Rest of the World’, took place in the capital of Yugoslavia,…
