Vasily Smyslov 1921-2010

BY: BOBBY ANG

IN PHOTO: GM Vasily Smyslov

(As published in Chess Piece, 05 April 2010)

We interrupt our coverage of the European Individual Championship to bring you the sad news of the passing of the 7th world chess champion Vasily Smyslov from heart failure last March 26, 2010 at the age of 89.

Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov was born March 24th, 1921 in Moscow. His father, Vassily Osipovich, was himself a very strong player (formerly a student of Mikhail Chigorin) and had a good-sized chess library, so the future world champion had the benefit of early scientific training.

He started competing in chess events at the age of 14 and quickly graduated from junior to adult events. In his quick ascension to the top Smyslov built a reputation as a powerful player -- his best performance was third place in the 1940 Soviet Championship behind Bondarevsky and Lilienthal, but ahead of Keres, Boleslavsky and Botvinnik. These six were later on to contest the "Match Tournament for the Absolute Championship of the USSR" and Smyslov once again placed third.

Although he had not actually won a single high-profile event yet, this reputation was sufficient for him to receive an invitation to the first major postwar tournament, the Groningen tournament of 1946. His brilliant third place finish there (behind Botvinnik and Euwe) proved key, as this eventually meant that he was among the five (5) players selected to compete for the 1948 World Chess Championship tournament to determine who should succeed the late Alexander Alekhine as champion.

His selection was questioned in some quarters, but this criticism was amply rebutted when he finished second (although distant) behind Mikhail Botvinnik.

Because of this second-place finish from the 1948 World Championship, Smyslov was exempt from all qualifying tournaments and was seeded directly into the 1950 Budapest Candidates’ tournament. Smyslov scored 10/18 for third place, behind Bronstein and Boleslavsky, who tied for first place. Smyslov’s third place exempted him into the next Candidates’ tournament as well -- this was the famous 1953 Zurich Candidates tournament which David Bronstein immortalized by writing a great tournament book, perhaps the best ever.

Smyslov dominated Zurich 1953 and won with nine wins 18 draws and a single loss for 18/28. This was two points ahead of Keres, Bronstein and Sammy Reshevsky. He then played the first of three world championship matches with Mikhail Botvinnik.

Botvinnik, Mikhail -- Smyslov, Vassily [E68]
World Championship 20th Moscow URS (14), 15.04.1954
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Smyslov: "I must say that Botvinnik was very strong in strategical positions that could be analyzed in a scientific manner. Perhaps I didn’t see this right at that time, but I thought that the best way to fight against Botvinnik was, for instance, to play the King’s Indian as Black. Where you don’t have a fixed or determined situation anywhere on the board. No clarity anywhere."





The first match, in Moscow 1954, ended in a draw after 24 games (seven wins each and ten draws), meaning that Botvinnik retained his title. After that Vasily went through the candidates’ tournament again, winning in Amsterdam 1956 with a 1.5-point margin over Paul Keres to set up a second world championship match with Botvinnik, one that he claimed afterwards he was much better prepared for. Smyslov became the 7th World Chess Champion by winning six games against three with 13 draws.

Botvinnik exercised his right to a return match and took the title back (sven wins to five losses with 11 draws) in 1958. After this one-year reign as world champion Smyslov played in the 1959, 1964 and 1982 Candidates tournaments, but he was never again to become the challenger. Take note that in 1982 he qualified for the Candidates’ from the Las Palmas Interzonal 34 years after he participated in his first Candidates’ event. In 1982 Vasily was already 61 years of age, the oldest player ever to participate in such an event.

And his vigorous play was still there.

Smyslov, Vassily (2600) -- Ribli, Zoltan (2615) [D42] Candidates SemiFinal London (5), 1983
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This 12-game match was tied at this point (one win each and two draws) and Smyslov breaks through with a brilliant victory. In game 7 the former world champion won again and Ribli could put up no more opposition.





Smyslov almost brought this all the way -- he advanced to the final candidates match against Garry Kasparov for the right to challenge the then world champion Anatoly Karpov. Garry defeated the veteran with four wins no losses and nine draws, after which Smyslov finally bowed out of championship competition. He continued to compete in tournaments until 2001, after which he concentrated on composing chess studies.

Some statistics:
According to the Chessmetrics website of Jess Sonas, Smyslov was ranked no. 1 in the world for 59 different months between the January 1952 rating list and the September 1958 rating list. Some more figures:
1. His peak rating was 2800 in the September 1956 rating list
2. Best individual performance was in 1953 Zurich Candidates tournament, with a performance rating of 2824, scoring 18/28 vs 2719-rated opposition.
We will have some anecdotes and stories involving Smyslov in the next Chess Piece.