Bled 1961, a most interesting tournament

ty BG

TAL, the first: 11win / 20 rondes, no comment.

fascinating, i'm curious as an MVL supporter to know if Najdorf ( 75% wins or draws in Bled 61) systematically used his famous system Sicilienne with black, on what ratio. Nadjorf system seems today highly surperforming lotta others.

+1, slightly different from a downtown SUMA. 

Oh my gosh, that's what Bled looks like? I have been to Ljubljana in Slovenia, which is absolutely beautiful. Bled looks perhaps even more stunning than Ljubljana! I plan to visit Zagreb in the summer of 2018. I will try to make a visit to Slovenia then, too, to see Ljubljana again and to visit Bled. Bled looks gorgeous. BTW thanks, Batgirl, you have done it again. I am always happy to see when you have posted one of your historical pieces.

Petar Trifunovic was a very strong GM. His only loss at Bled was to Fischer, and he won the Yugoslav championship the same year. Top GMs found him to be almost unbeatable, and he had a reputation as a drawing master. Unfortunately, he was too often focused on other interests, which made him willing to play easy draws even against players he could have beaten. (This is not my interpretation; it was related to me by two chess players who knew him well.)

Yes, Mike. I remember Fischer discussing Trifunovic in exactly those terms in a game with him annotated in 'My 60 Memorable Games'. I'm not sure if it was the Bled game as I don't have Fischer's book in front of me as I write. In those days the Yugoslavs were only second to the USSR in terms of chess strength (probably with Hungary an honorable third), as I imagine perusal of Olympiad results from that time might indicate. The USSR in those days of course included Estonia (Keres), Armenia (Petrosian), Latvia (Tal), Ukraine (Geller) besides a host of specifically Russian players. Kasparov coming along later was of course from Azerbaijan, then also part of the USSR.

"In those days the Yugoslavs were only second to the USSR in terms of chess strength"

Yes, quite a difference compared to today, when there is not a single Serb or Croat in the top 100.

Nice article. Back to the day when people organised and played chess for the sake of the chess! By the way, MSC157, wasn't Bled the site of a chess olympiad? Did you visit?

I'm not sure about Bled but I'm pretty sure that there was an Olympiad around 1974 or something in Skopje, now the capital of Macedonia but then also (like Slovenia) part of Tito's Yugoslavia. (Went to Skopje too around that time [mid 70s] though not for the Olympiad. Visited Lake Ohrid in Macedonia not far from Skopje and close to the Albania border but no skinny dipping in the lake with Canadian Mennonite girls there, I'm afraid, batgirl.) If I correctly recall Batsford produced a very readable book on the Skopje Olympiad which I used to own.

Just checked. Yes, Bled had an Olympiad in 2002. It was won by the Russians led by Kasparov (I thought he might have wanted to represent Azerbaijan!). Second was Hungary led by Leko and Polgar, and third were Armenia. Yugoslavia (now pretty much only Serbia and Montenegro, I guess, the other countries having seceded) led by Ljubojevic finished tenth. And the Skopje Olympiad was in 1972 (not 1974). It was won by the Soviet Union and their team consisted of Petrosian, Korchnoi, Smyslov, Tal, Karpov and Savon. Hardly surprising that they won with that line-up. Curiously Savon was only an International Master then, I read.

"Bled had an Olympiad in 2002. It was won by the Russians led by Kasparov (I thought he might have wanted to represent Azerbaijan!)"

Kasparov never returned to Azerbaijan after leaving at the start of the 90s, and the dislike between the state and him is quite mutual so he would never represent Azerbaijan :-)

Batgirl produces some nice articles on the golden age of chess. I remember playing through a game of Bronsteins in one of the articles on the radio match between ussr and usa, very interesting long endgame against Ulvestad, where Bronstein was outclassing his opponent but Ulvestad missed a very difficult to execute drawing sequence.

Yes of course. I was being a little mischievous.

It was and too bad I was 7 years old and not interested in chess! 

I'd love to visit it.

The game posted Tal vs Fischer has a nice background story. This period Tal was working with he's trainer and coach Alexander Koblenz in a new Soviet program adjusted to him : The opening innovation. They were playing dozens of games every day with the rule to think and play alternative options. Tal say " I was written down what move should was the best one to play but I tried something different ,unfortunately that influenced my tournament games where I mixed a lot of times the move order.

 For this particular game he say : I was played Nf6 having in mind that already had played a6 restricting the knight from using the b5 square. I walked away from the table to watch the other games, when I returned Nb5 was played by Fischer! I said : Nice! A knight sac! but then I saw I forgotten to play a6?! Apparently the position was lost from that moment.

Life and games of Mikhail Tal.

Was just thinking back to the early 70s and why Savon was chosen to represent the USSR at Skopje (see above). As I recall (and I may be remembering wrongly) Savon was considered very much the rising star of Soviet chess, having performed very well in recent USSR Championships. Maybe the Soviet chess people thought it would be good to blood this up and coming youngster at an Olympiad and that he would benefit from working with some particularly illustrious talent. He didn't ever scale the giddy heights it was thought he might, I seem to remember. As is sometimes said, "there's no greater burden than potential".

It's also interesting to note that Vladimir Savon was, at the time, the only non-GM the Soviets had ever sent to the Olympiads (since titles were established, of course).  That's a name one seldom hears.

I learned from a Russian chess site that  despite his success in during the 1960s, Savon was never promoted into the elite of Soviet chess.  He instead became a noteworthy chess  journalist/author but then surprised everyone by winning the 1971 USSR Championship ahead of Tal and Smyslov by 1.5 points and without a single loss.  This won him his place on the 2nd reserve board (Karpov was onthe firsr reserve board) in 1972 at Skopje (+3=3-2) in which the Soviets once again won the gold.  His career seemed to be advancing when a most tragic mishap occurred.  After an unspecified tournament in the mid 70s .  There was an argument in a restaurant at which Svaon had just picked up a take-out meal and was returning to his hotel.  A melee took place in which he had no part but was attacked anyway and he was hit over the head with a bottle.  He awoke in the morgue, having been mistaken for dead.   Vladimir Andreyevich was never able to fully recover and suffered terrible migraines ever since the attack. His playing career ended but he still contributed to chess by coaching both the national Ukrainian teams and at his chess club "Yurakademiya" in Kharkov and later  in the chess club in Kramatorsk.

Right-click/view-image for full size:

What a line up!

 

1971 USSR Championship:

The sheer fact that Geller finished 14th shows just how strong this tournament was. A tremendous achievement for the undefeated Savon. (Smyslov was, it shows, also undefeated.)

The line-up is a pretty good indicator too.