64, issue 44, 1970. Second part of Tal's report.
An original match between grandmasters and masters is almost equal, and there's some concrete proof for that. As the readers already know, the teams get White pieces by turns. And that's what is interesting. Of ten rounds, only one was won by the team with Black. All other rounds were dominated by White, regardless of players' titles. Vladimir Tukmakov compared the results of our matches to a pendulum, the amplitude of which was slightly bigger at the grandmasters' side. Well, yes, there's sport, yes, there are results, but we can't disagree on one thing. The main goal of the Komsomol tournament isn't to determine who's the strongest player, but to facilitate the creative development of both masters and grandmasters.
Now, 10 rounds after the start, we can discuss the playing styles of each player, their strong and weak points.
I think that this tournament proves once again that sporting and creative successes go hand in hand. Gennady Kuzmin's play in the first few rounds left a good impression. Now this impression is corroborated just by a brief look at the tournament table. Four wins in a row! Doesn't it indicate both good aesthetic value and strong play?
The game Kuzmin - Suetin was also very interesting. It showed both strengths and weaknesses of the master. A very resourceful opening play (by the way, it was first tested in the world championship match between Botvinnik and Petrosian). A beautiful, carefully calculated combination that led to a completely won position, and... apathetical realization of this advantage, first in middlegame (instead of 23. Bxf8, 23. Ra3! quickly won), and then in the endgame. This allowed the grandmaster to snatch a draw with active defence.
Viktor Kupreichik's playing style is quite attractive. I remember that he called his article about the youth tournament at Sombor (Yugoslavia) "Who likes it hot". The Minsk player definitely likes it very hot and spicy. Yes, we can say that his style is rather one-sided. He plays the positions with limited space and little "spice" without much enthusiasm. But when he finds "his" play, he's dangerous to anyone.
With a sportsman's sadness and chess player's delight, I present you this game.
The best result against the grandmasters in the first leg was achieved by Vladimir Tukmakov, 5 out of 7. He hasn't lost a single game, even though once it seemed that he couldn't avoid it.
That's the adjourned position from the game Tukmakov - Shamkovich.
Sadly, after losing to the author in the second leg, the Odessa player obviously slowed down. I think that if the Sochi tournament could be considered a training session for other competitions, Tukmakov should pay notice to that psychological factor. Individual defeats shouldn't affect a chess player's mood so greatly.
Mikhail Podgaets' style is interesting and strictly positional. He likes to play White against the King's Indian Defence. GM Stein, one of our leading King's Indian authorities, barely managed to avoid defeat. The following game also left a good impression.
In our opponents' team, Vitaly Tseshkovsky and Boris Gulko play unsuccessfully. The Omsk master plays very badly with black pieces. He usually gets a totally unpromising position in the opening and can't do much after that. And the Moscow player seems too engrossed in his own plans. His interesting ideas often have a hole in them. Though both of them played some good games. Tseshkovsky defeated Shamkovich in a game that had some theoretical importance. And Gulko in a very complicated struggle made Korchnoi lose on time - that's quite a rare case in the Leningrad grandmaster practice.
After the first leg, the masters' team made a substitution: R. Vaganian went to Leningrad to play in the Army tournament, and the youngest participant was replaced by an even younger player: the almost 17 years old winner of Sukhumi youth international tournament, A. Beliavsky from Lvov. His first games already showed his confidence.
That's Beliavsky's first ever game against a grandmaster.
I don't think it's necessary to make a detailed report about the grandmasters' playing because we have all gone through thick and thin, and several kilograms of paper have been used to print articles about us. I'll just show you several games that we won.
After the 11th round. Grandmasters: M. Tal - 9 pts, L. Stein - 7, A. Suetin and L. Shamkovich - 6, V. Korchnoi - 5, A. Lutikov - 3.5 (the last two played 10 games). Masters: G. Kuzmin - 7.5 (of 10), V. Tukmakov - 6.5, V. Kupreichik and M. Podgaets - 5.5, V. Tseshkovsky - 3, B. Gulko - 2 (of 10). R. Vaganian scored 3 of 7, and A. Beliavsky who substituted for him scored 0.5 of 4.
The current score is 41.5 - 33.5, two games are adjourned.
Note: for some reason, GM Vladimir Liberzon's score of 5 was unmentioned. Probably the corrector's mistake.
