Efim Geller Memorial 2013

Yefim Geller was born in Odessa, in the Ukraine, on March 2nd 1925 (according to Jeremy Gaige one article in 64 Magazine gives 8th March) and died on Tuesday 17th November 1998 at the age of 73. One of the top ten players in the World for a period of twenty years he was rightfully regarded as one of the greatest opening theoreticians and a fine all round player with an emphasis on tactical play, especially early in his career. A six time Candidate between 1953 and 1971 he only missed out on playing in the 1959 Candidates by failing to qualify from an exceptionally tough Soviet Championships in 1958 (from which Boris Spassky too failed to qualify).

Geller developed into a strong player relatively late after the war intervened in his chess development. He was a first Category player in 1946 and his early play was based on a cavalier attacking style. Only later did he become a more rounded technical player. He was a true student of the game "I personally gain the most satisfaction from chess when, like Botvinnik, I am engaged in studying the secrets of this ancient and eternally youthful game". According to Tal he made more one move mistakes than most players of his strength (due to his comparative late start he thought) and was quite a slow player frequently getting into time trouble. Another source of errors was undoubtably his uncompromising style which is pretty much bound to lead to errors on occasion. Later being such a student of the game he developed the ability to play a more conservative style, quite necessary as on trips to foreign countries Soviet players were expected to take first place before anything else.

He exploded on the chess scene in 1949 when he tied for third-fourth place in the 17th Russian Chess Championships (+10=5-4). He followed this up with second equal in 1951 (+10=3-4) and third in 1952 (+8=8-3). In 1952 he finished second behind Keres in his first major international tournament in Budapest (+8=8-1) ahead of Botvinnik, Smyslov, Petrosian and Szabo amongst others). He was awarded the IM title in 1951 and the GM title in 1952. He solidly qualified for the Candidates by finishing fourth in the interzonal in Stockholm. He also played for the Soviet Union in the Olympiad for the first time (10.5/14). He was to play in seven Olympiads (the last in 1980 after a gap of ten years) for the Soviets.

One of the measures of a player is how they did in the World Championship cycles. He finished in a very respectable tie for 6th with Najdorf in the Candidates tournament in Neuhausen-Zurich August-October 1953. In the next cycle he qualified with a tie for 5th-6th place from the interzonal in Gothenburg 1955 (although in a deal of trouble at one point scoring only 4 points from 11 needing probably 7-8/10 to qualify, which he did). In the 1956 Candidates in Amsterdam he was leading at the half way stage with 6/9 but a poor second half of 3.5/9 dropped him into a tie for 3-7th places behind Smyslov and Keres. He was pretty influential in Smyslov's win in the event as he lost twice to him.

A normally successful competitor in the Russian Championships (taking the title in 1955 after a playoff with Smyslov, and in 1979 at the age of 55 (his last appearance was in 1995 in Elista) he either took or shared 2nd or 3rd place on another seven occasions. However in 1958 there took place probably one of the most dramatic and tense Soviet Championships. This was partially because of the ridiculously few qualifying places for the interzonal available from the event which doubled as a zonal. In the end Tal, Petrosian, Bronstein and Averbakh took the places leaving Polugaevsky, Spassky, and Geller amongst others at home. This was a pretty unfortunate time to miss out as he would have had a very good chance in the Candidates. Instead he had to wait until 1962 to resume his World Championship career. He finished in a tie for 2nd-3rd in Stockholm to qualify for perhaps the most controversial Candidates event. It took place in Curacao and saw Tigran Petrosian emerge in first place by only half a point from Keres and Geller. Fischer's accusations of a drawing agreement between Geller, Keres and Petrosian are well known. But the main benificiary was probably Petrosian himself if such an agreement was in place. It does have to be said that Curacao was a lousy venue for chess, 28-29 degrees on a cool day didn't aid good chess and Tal had to withdraw due to ill health after the 3rd cycle. Key to Geller's chase for the qualification was his loss to Fischer in round 23. He then drew shortly against Petrosian in round 24. Round 25 he needed to beat Filip as black (probably his last opportunity in the event to reach the tie for first with so many draws going on) but didn't, drew against Keres briefly, had the bye in round 27 caused by Tal's withdrawal and then won on time in a lost position against Benko in the final round to get a tie for second with Keres. So although he was half a point shy at the finish, qualification was perhaps not that near a thing for Geller. He subsequently lost a match with Keres to decide who finished second.

Having failed to qualify via the Zonal where he finished bottom (with only one place) he then was seeded into the Candidates along with Keres after Botvinnik did not take the place allocated to him. He beat Smyslov 5.5-2.5 in the Quarter-finals. He then lost the first of two very one-sided matches against Spassky in the Candidates. Both times by 5.5-2.5, in both he struggled against Spassky's 1.e4 openings. He lost a playoff to Larsen for 3rd place but qualified in 2nd-4th place from the Souse interzonal in 1967 before losing to Spassky again in 1968. In 1970 he was again 2nd-4th and this time lost 2.5-5.5 to Viktor Korchnoi in the semi-finals. This was the last time as a Candidate although he came quite close in 1973 when he finished in a tie for a qualification place with Portisch and Polugaevsky but came bottom in the playoff and in 1982 where he shared 5th-6th.

Some other wins from his career were Kislovodsk 1966 (+6=5) ahead of Stein, Wijk aan Zee 1969 (+7=7-1) equal with Botvinnik, ahead of Keres, Budapest 1973 (+6=9), Hilversum 1973 (cat 12) equal with Szabo, (+6=7-1) Teeside 1975 (Category 12) (+5=9), Moscow 1975 (+6=9) ahead of Spassky, Korchnoi and Petrosian, Wijk aan Zee 1977 (+6=4-1) level with Smyslov, Las Palmas 1980 8.5/11 tied for first. He won the World Seniors in Bad Worishofen in 1992 half a point clear of Lein, Benko, Nikolak, Taimanov and Suetin. His last events seem to have been in 1995 before he became ill with what according to Eduard Gufeld was prostate cancer.

As a leading theoretical expert he was a second during the Fischer-Spassky match in 1972 and then went on to be a second for Karpov. His analytical abilities were not restricted to the openings, it was he who found some of the key analysis that allowed Botvinnik to draw his famous game against Bobby Fischer during the Varna Olympiad of 1962. Most thought the adjourned position lost for Botvinnik.

An ox of a man he was very still and calm at the board (apart from his chain smoking) and he certainly had a calm confidence in his own abilities. He was rarely flustered except in the famous rook and pawn ending against Fischer from the 1970 interzonal where he apparently became momentarily became confused as to which way the pawns were moving after a long defence.

Those who knew him say that he was a nice man although fairly reserved. His life pretty much seemed to be chess and he enjoyed the analysis and his books contained a lot of hard work.

One story he tells in his autobiography (Grandmaster Geller at the Chessboard, translated by B Cafferty 1969) is of playing in Belgrade for the Soviets against Yugoslavia. He complained that the Soviets didn't get any applause or credit for their games but in one game he was trying to find his matches in his pocket but couldn't. After a little while it became obvious to the audience what his problem was and out of the audience flew a box of matches, which he caught. That was the best applause he got.

In his games collection (The Application of Chess Theory, Pergamon 1984) he justly highlights his excellent record against the World Champions. Although some of the records changed a little after (he lost a game to Karpov to get a negative record but made up for this by levelling his lifetime score against Tal with two late wins, and of course Kasparov wasn't World Champion at that time) the book came out. As far as I can work out his lifetime scores were:

+4 -1 against Botvinnik, +10-7 against Smyslov, +4-2 against Petrosian, +5-3 record against Fischer. A level record against Euwe (+1-1) and against Tal (+6-6) and a negative record against Spassky (+6-9), Karpov -2 +1 and Kasparov -1 =3.