Life-changing draw

BY BOBBY ANG

(As published in Chess Piece, BusinessWorld, March 19, 2010)

Leningrad Interzonal Leningrad, USSR June 3-27, 1973
Final Standings

(Top 3 qualify for candidates)

1-2. GM Viktor Korchnoi URS 2635, GM Anatoly Karpov URS 2645, 13.5/17
3. GM Robert Byrne USA 2570, 12.5/17
4. GM Jan Smejkal CZE 2570, 11.0/17
5-6. GM Robert Huebner FRG 2600, GM Bent Larsen DEN 2620, 10.0/17
7. GM Gennadi Kuzmin URS 2565, 9.5/17
8-10. GM Mihail Tal URS 2655, GM Svetozar Gligoric YUG 2595, GM Mark Taimanov URS 2595, 8.5/17
11-12. GM Miguel Quinteros ARG 2480, GM Ivan Radulov BUL 2510, 7.5/17
13-14. GM Wolfgang Uhlmann GDR 2550, IM Eugenio Torre PHI 2430, 7.0/17
15. IM Josip Rukavina YUG 2460, 6.5/17
16. GM Vladimir Tukmakov URS 2560, 6.0/17
17. GM Guillermo Estevez CUB 2385, 4.5/17
18. GM Miguel Cuellar COL 2400, 1.5/17

Today let us stroll down memory lane and recall one of the great tournaments of 37 years ago (good grief -- was it that long ago!? I was a small kid then and played through every game of that tournament as they came in through the newspapers) -- the 1973 Leningrad Interzonal.

Eugene Torre had won the 1972 Asian Zonal (at that time China and Oceania, which now have their own mini-zones, were still part of it) and represented the region. He arrived in Leningrad with his long hair and with bell-bottoms and, although the crosstable above won’t show it, made a great impression.

First, he felled the main favorite of the tournament, former world champion Mihail Tal, in the second round.

Tal, Mihail (2655) – Torre, Eugenio (2430) [A39]
Leningrad Interzonal (2), 04.06.1973
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Did you know that from July 1972 to April 1973, just before the Interzonal, Tal played a record 86 consecutive games without a loss (47 wins and 39 draws)? This was his first loss and destroyed the tournament for him. One more thing, after Leningrad, between Oct. 23, 1973 and Oct. 16, 1974, he played 95 consecutive games without a loss (46 wins and 49 draws), shattering his previous record. These are the two longest unbeaten streaks in modern chess history.

But Eugene’s draw in round 4 against Bent Larsen was a life-changer. Bent Larsen is a mountain of a chessplayer. He was a candidate for the World Chess Championship on four occasions: 1965, 1968, 1971, and 1977. He won three Interzonal tournaments: Amsterdam 1964, Sousse 1967, and Biel 1976 (the only one ever to do so), and was also among the favorites to win in Leningrad.

There was this interview recently where Larsen was asked "When did you understand that you wouldn’t get the title?"

The answer was: "Frankly, I don’t remember the date. Anyway, I didn’t think about it when Fischer defeated me (in their 1971 Candidates’ Match in Denver -- the score was 0-6!). Maybe it happened in 1973, when I was taking part in an Interzonal tournament in Leningrad. I felt nervous before the tournament. The beginning of the competition turned out to be successful for me. However, then I lost my energy and the hunger for battle -- I wanted to fight, but I couldn’t."

It could be because of this game with Torre.

Larsen, Bent (2620) – Torre, Eugenio (2430) [A27]
Leningrad Interzonal (4), 1973
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Larsen is a great chess journalist -- his writings were deep in substance and his style was easy reading and humorous as well. A lot of great authors came after him like Nunn, Miles, Soltis, Watson, to name just a few, but Larsen was the first. Larsen was one of seven top Grandmasters who wrote that very excellent 1974 book How to Open a Chess Game. You’ve got a copy of that book, right? Who can forget this passage:

"Now comes a shocker! Look at a Sicilian: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6. Almost everybody plays 3.d4, but isn’t this a positional error? I am not joking. I like my center pawns, and I like a d-pawn better than a c-pawn! I know that sometimes White sacrifices a knight on d5 or 36 and smashes Black before he can castle, but in those games where this has been done, haven’t improvements always been found for Black afterward? Well then, isn’t 3.d4 something like a cheap trap? I know it can be combined with purely strategical ideas, but I find it easier to discuss strategy when I have an extra center pawn!"

Bent Larsen, a great player, thinker and journalist. I wish him a happy 75th birthday.