Earthquakes, Upsets, and Controversy: The 1990 Manila Interzonal Tournament

Today I'd like to take a look into a very interesting tournament that is pretty unknown. The Manila Interzonal tournament took place in Manila, the capital city of the Phillipines, in the summer of 1990.  The tournament would take place just a few short months before Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov would face off in the 1990 World Championship. The stakes were high for this interzonal as the top 11 players in the 64 person tournament would qualify for the candidates, the winner of which would play Kasparov for the title. 

The Field and Format:

The tournament featured 64 players playing 13 rounds in a Swiss style format. The tournament was headlined by 3 rising stars of the chess world: 22 years Boris Gelfand, 21 Year old Vasily Ivanchuk, and 20 year old Vishy Anand. Being so young, this interzonal was the first championship cycle they had a real chance to make a run in.  Also among the field were 4 players who had lost in the candidates last time around and were looking for redemption. Of Yasser Seirawan, Nigel Short, Victor Korchnoi, Kevin Spragett and Gyula Sax, only Short and Spraggett had made it to the second round of the candidates in 1989. The tournament had a wide range of both youth and experience, as it featured 16 year old (2650) Gata Kamsky and a former world champion in 69 year old Vassily Smyslov.

The Tournament:

Through the first 6 rounds, the leaders of the tournament looked like this:

Invachuk-5/6

Gelfand-4.5/6

Sax-4.5/6

Gurevich-4.5/6

Halfway through some of the tournament frontrunners were indeed on top. Invachuk jumped lost his first game to GM Murray Chandler and promptly won all 5 of the next games. Gelfand's strong halfway result was highlight by a big victory vs Anand, which I will cover later. As the tournament finished off the next 7 rounds, there were a few major shifts in the standings.

Final Top 4 in the Standings:

Gelfand-9/13

Ivanchuk-9/13

Anand-8.5/13

Short-8.5/13

Anand recovered from the early loss with three straight wins in rounds 10, 11, and 12. Gelfand and Ivanchuk both cruised to the lead with a handful of draws including a draw between the two in round 7. Gurevich was in a comfortable position to qualify into the top 11, but in the final 2 rounds he lost to Anand and then to Short. These two losses dropped him all the way down to 12th and thus he just missed qualifying for the Candidates.

Decisive Games:

Round 3- Gelfand (white) vs Anand (black)

Round 10- Short (white) vs Seirawan (Black)

Earthquakes in the Phillipines and Controversy in the Chess World:

Just a few days after the final round of the tournament, a horrific earthquake struck the Phillipines. There was some significant death and destruction, especially in areas north of Manila. 

The chess world also faced some controversy and disputes in the year following the tournament. Essentially Kasparov and others who were upset with the way FIDE were running things split and had their own world championship as part of the PCA (Professional Chess Association). So in 1993 there were two world championships, one between Kasparov and Short and the FIDE match between Karpov and Timman.

Thanks for reading!

Sources and Further Reading:

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=85714

God Bless!