September 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover'

This month's 'On the Cover' features two unique, historical chess events in the USA. Fifty years ago, four up and coming American players received the IM title at the 1974 FIDE Congress. Twenty-five years ago, a controversial World Championship tournament was held at Las Vegas, aka 'Sin City'. For last month's 'On the Cover', see August 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (August 2024).

Left: 'Mednis/Soltis/Rogoff/Tarjan'
Right: 'FIDE World Championship; Caesar's hosts the BEST!'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Our four new International Masters: Edmar Mednis (top left); Andrew Soltis (top right); Kenneth Rogoff (bottom left); James Tarjan (bottom right). Photos by Burt Hochberg.

A story inside, 'FIDE Titles' by Arpad E. Elo, Secretary, [FIDE] Qualification Committee, started,

After a drought of several years, four U.S. players were awarded the International Master title by the FIDE Congress at Nice: Edmar Mednis, Kenneth Rogoff, Andrew Soltis and James Tarjan. These, plus a Cuban IM and a Correspondence Master, were all the Western Hemisphere could claim of the 63 titles approved by the Qualification Committee.

All four American players went on to become grandmasters -- Mednis (b.1937; GM 1980), Rogoff (b.1953; GM 1978), Soltis (b.1947; GM 1980), Tarjan (b.1952; GM 1976) -- and all but Soltis played in World Championship Interzonals: Rogoff in the 1976-78 cycle, Mednis and Tarjan in the 1979-81 cycle; see FIDE Events 1948-1990 (m-w.com) for links. Coincidentally, all four had six-letter family names. The Arpad Elo article continued,

Among the interesting new title holders is a Woman Master of whom the USSR players are exceptionally proud, Maya Chiburdanidze, just thirteen years old!

Four years later Chiburdanidze won a match against the reigning Women's World Champion -- see 1978 Chiburdanidze - Gaprindashvili Title Match (m-w.com) -- who had held the title since 1962. When Chiburdanidze lost the title in 1991, it would mark nearly 30 years of an uninterrupted reign by Georgian women players.

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

By the time you receive this issue, the Second FIDE Knockout World Championship will be history. We were able to report the results of the first two rounds. Unfortunately, that was all that was needed to determine the fates of our nine participants. [...] Jose Angel Pardo put together the artwork for Chess Life in Adobe Photoshop. He holds a BA in Fine Arts from Jersey State College.

For more about the cover teaser, 'Caesar's hosts the BEST!', see two previous posts on my World Chess Championship blog:-

• Who Goes to Caesars Palace to Play Chess? (April 2009)
• Playing Chess at Caesars Palace (ditto)

A few months ago we saw the same paragraph about cover artist Pardo in July 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (July 2024). An article inside the September issue, 'Americans at Las Vegas' by Brian Killigrew, started,

The FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament has given chess fans a great deal to be excited about. One month of top-level chess, one hundred players, and speed games where one mistake can cost you a match. The format is exciting, if not controversial.

Do the short matches really prove who is the best? Should speed chess determine the winner of the world championship? And is the winner really the world champ if he hasn't beaten Kasparov -- or, for that matter, Karpov?

These are a few of the questions I posed to the players representing the United States at the tournament. While they were all excited to be part of it, their feelings about the format were mixed. But they all agreed on some points. The players said that it wasn't fair when Karpov was seeded directly into the finals last year, and they also showed a great deal of respect for their first round opponents.

The first (Groningen / Lausanne) and second (Las Vegas) FIDE World Championship Knockout events are documented on my index page for the World Chess Championship (m-w.com). There would be a total of five title events using the knockout format, which never escaped the 'exciting, if not controversial' criticism.