Portoroz-Ljubljana Grandmaster Chess Tournament 1975
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$5 95 Pnrtnroz Ljubljana Grandmaster Chess1[^riiiawn0nt mam WtEN Venezia Aij-efc* ■ Vlastimil Hort »/ ► ''■s'* • with notes by the Players Krf ‘ ^ a v g ftfia Rimiat Portoroz/Ljubljana Grandmaster Chess Tournament 1975 Portoroz/Ljubljana Grandm aster Chess Tournament 1 9 7 5 by VLASTIMIL HORT with additional annotations by BARLE, FURMAN, GLIGOR1C. JANOSHVIC, KARPOV, LJUBO.IKVIC, MARIOTTI, MUS1L, PARMA, PORT1SCH, RIBL1, VEL1MIROVIC, VIDMAR and VUKOVIC. SIDNEY FRIED. Publisher DAVID LEVY & KEVIN O'CONNELL. Editors RHM PRESS a division of RHM Associates of Delaware, 3 nc. 417 Northern Boulevard, GrcaitKck, NY 11021 Copyright © 1977 RHM PRESS a division of RHM Associates of Delaware, Inc. 417 Northern Boulevard, Greatneck. NY 11021 All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be re produced in any form, except for brief passages in a re view, without the written consent of the publishers. Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 75-32892 ISBN 0-89058-022-7 Pholoseuing by Quickset 184-186Old Street, I^ndon EC1V9BQ Printed in the United States of America Publisher’s Foreword Thousands of beautiful chess games are played each year and we feel that they deserve to be published with illuminating analysis by top Grandmasters and Masters so that chess players around the world can improve their perception of favourite openings, middle game and endgame play, and be encouraged to strike out in new directions by insights gained from the study of these line games. Wc have also found that chess players all over the world are more in terested in tournament books than many publishers seem to realize. With these points in mind wc commissioned Vlaslimil Hort to write a tournament book for us on one of the strongest and most memorable events of 1975: the first appear ance of the world champion in the Yugoslav towns of Ljubljana and Porloroz. What Hort. ably abetted by the other players, has written will be one of the greatest tournament books of all time. Not only is there penetrating analysis of the most interesting games. Hort has also written something about every game, giving the reader an insight to the international tournament arena and helping him to understand what makes a chess master tick. Our list of outstanding chess books is expanding so fast that we fed sure you. the reader, will want to be on our mailing list to receive news of our future books as they come off the press. In particular, we wish to draw your attention to the description of the RHM Survey of Current Chess Openings which appears at the end of this book. This new survey will, we feel certain, prove of immeasurable help to all chess players in attaining rapid forward progress in the quality of their play. Wc take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in RHM chess books. Sidney Fried Publisher For details of future RHM chess books, please send a postcard, with your name and address to: RHM Press, 417 Northern Boulevard. Greatneek, NY 11021, or, in Europe, to P.O. Box 55, London N13 5BE. v Acknowledgements There are many people whom R.H.M. wish to thank for their help in the preparation of this book. All of the notes (except those to game 73 which appear by permission of The Chess Player) were commissioned especially for this book. The notes by Karpov and Furman were translated by Bernard Caffcrty, those by Ribli were translated by Katya Young, those by Velimirovic and the article on Vidmar were translated by Alan Ferguson. The bulk of the photographs were taken by David Levy, the exceptions being those on pages x and 3 (provided by Freddy Reilly) and that on page 95 (supplied by the tournament's organizing committee). The major part of the book was typed by Margaret Fitzjnmes. The final type script was edited by Kevin O’Connell who also compiled the indexes and cross tables and checked the proofs with additional help Irom Len Perry, V! Symbols ! A good move. !! An excellent, beautiful or hard-to-find move. ? A poor move. ?? A very poor move or a blunder. t? An interesting move, possibly involving some risk. ?! A dubious move. SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT The reader’s attention is directed ro the back of this book where we describe a new and exciting project — The RHM Survey of Current Chess Openings. - With a world-renowned Editorial Board which includes Anatoly Karpov. Viktor Korchnoy. Boris Spassky. Tigran Petrosian. Svetozar Gligoric. Bent Larsen and other top Grandmasters, we are presenting an important new approach ro the Openings in chess, which we arc sure you will find of great interest. Please refer lo the back of the book for full details. RHM Press Table of Contents I n tr o d u c tio n ....................................................................... 1 M ilan V id m a r .................................................................... ............................ , ,. 2 F irst V id m a r M e m o ria l 1 9 6 9 .................................. .9 Second Vidmar Memorial 1973 ............................ 10 P layers in th e O rd e r of th e D r a w ......................... 11 T o u rn a m e n t T a b le s ........................................................ 12 Index to Games ................................................................. 14 T h e T o u r n a m e n t.............................................................. 15 Index of Annotators....................................................... 191 In d e x of O p e n in g s ........................................................... 193 IX Viastintil Hart x INTRODUCTION Portoroz/Ljubljana will have a permanent place in chess history as the first tournament appearance, as world ehamion, of Anatoly Karpov, This tourna ment book will also take its place as one of the all-time-greats. The story begins, as is fitting, with a memorial to Milan Vidmar. Vlastimil Hort then steps in as our narrator to guide us through the tournament and to introduce us to the players, their thoughts, their hopes and fears. He describes the events of all fifteen rounds; the first eight in Portoroz and the last seven in Ljubljana. Twelve of the players, including all the top ten, provide further insights into the tournament in the notes to their games. It is inconceivable that anyone will fail to be impressed not only by the world champion’s victory but also by his deep and revealing annotations. Not that the other players' notes are less interesting b ut Karpov’s contribution is the icing cm the cake. Kevin O’Connell London, Summer 1977 1 MILAN VIDMAR by Vladimir Vukovic Vidmar was born in Ljubljana on 22 June .1885 (remembered also as the day of Paul Morphy’s birth) and began to play chess when he was 15. He was a student in Vienna from 1902 and graduated in engineering in 1907. He took his doctorate in 1910 and was on official work in Austria and Hungary until 1919. He was particularly noted in the field of electrical engineering after 1912 when, under the supervision of O. T. Blathy, head of the 'Ganz' factory, he became involved in work on transformers, at that time a secret known to only a small number of specialists. After the founding of the University of Ljubljana in 1919 Vidmar became a lecturer in electrical engineering in his home town and Later an Academician and Hoad of the Institute of Electrical Engineering. Vidmar's career in chess began in 1904 at the International Deutsches Schachbund 'main totirnament', and tic was given the title of ‘master’ at the masters’ tournament in Nuremberg in 1906. while still a student. Vidmar achieved good results at subsequent masters’ tournaments (in Vienna 1907. 3rd-5th; in Karlsbad in the same year, 6th; in Prague 1908, 3rd) but at his first Grandmasters’ tournament in St. Petersburg, 1909. he was less successful; the intensity of his work in engineering apparently delayed the development of his talent. Nevertheless, in 1911. at the Grandmasters’ tournament in San Sebastian he shared 2ud-3rd place with Rubinstein and henceforth the specia list press acknowledged his title as ’Grandmaster'. Further achievements were at Karlsbad in 191 1 (7th) and Mannheim in 1914. a tournament interrupted by the outbreak of war. where he was second to Alekhine. During the war. in 1918. Vidmar won first prize at the lour-cornered Grandmasters' tournament in Berlin, and in the same year was second in Kosice. After the war. Vidmar appeared in London in 1922. where he came third, after Capablanca and Alekhine. Thereafter he ranked as one of the leading candidates for the title of world chess champion. This was confirmed in Hastings. 1925-6. where he shared first prize with Alekhine (8| in 9 games) which provoked the comment that there had been two players and eight "participants" in the tournament. Sernmering in 1926 was nevertheless the peak of his career. Although only third, he was generally considered to have been the moral victor through the quality ol his play and "the size of his points" against the greatest contemporaries. In New York 1927. Vidmar was fourth; there he was virtually ‘tournament director" and made chess history; having defeated Nimzowitsch, he helped Alekhine to second place in a four-cornered “battle of the giants” . Vidmar's subsequent results were London 1927 (4th). Karlsbad 1929 (5th- 7th). then Bled 1931 (4th-7th) and 51iac I932(lst-2nd). On the whole these were not so good as his results had been in the period 1922-7: in his autobiography Vidmar himself ascribes this to a decline in self-confidence, itself the result of a “life crisis” which came upon him in 19.30. Whatever the actual phenomena of a subjectively perceived “life crisis", there were also objective reasons for the decline of the chess powers of a Grandmaster of Vidmar's standing in an age when the old method of perfecting one’s skills in chess was disappearing and the younger generation was turning to chess as a subject to be studied, as a life vocation.