December 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover'

What do the Chess Life issues of December 1974 and December 1999 have in common? Yes, they are obviously the next in the 'On the Cover' series last seen in November 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (November 2024). On top of that, they were both dominated by rating lists.

Left: '?' (also 'Special Yearbook Issue!')
Right: '1999... 2000... and still going strong!'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Anatoly Karpov: if he beats Korchnoi, and if Fischer and FIDE cannot resolve their differences, he will be World Champion in 1975. Match games continue [inside].

Karpov's previous cover appearance was May 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (May 2024; 'Anatoly Karpov and Tigran Petrosian, winners of their quarterfinal candidates matches.') Everyone who knows anything about modern chess history knows what happened in 1975. I suppose we'll see the story unfold in next year's 'On the Cover' posts.

The December 1974 CL&R was 108 pages. Of those, 70 were allocated to the '1975 USCF Yearbook', and of those, 52 were allocated to the rating list. The Karpov - Korchnoi match, the inspiration for the cover, was a single page, with only raw game scores for games 11-21.

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

No, we will not enter into the argument as to when the millennium arrives. We do knows that the end of December 31, 1999, will usher in a new year. Appropriately, the babe (2000) is playing the decisive Rg7+ against the old man (1999). The artist, Jose Angel Pardo, of Orlando, Florida, notes "That was the winning move I played in the first game I was ever able to beat my father."

Whether you consider it to be the millennium or just the beginning of a new year, one thing is clear: Chess is still going strong. Of our 86,000 members, fully 74,000 played at least one rated game of chess between October 1998 and October 1999. We've separated the Annual Rating List from the rest of the magazine and included a few items we hope you will find useful throughout the new year. And that includes a comprehensive listing of all changes to the Official Rules of Chess, 4th Edition.

Again we see a rating list. Of the 128 pages in the December 1999 CL, 49 were allocated to the list. Interspersed throughout the list were a number of interviews by Jerry Hanken, including one with 13-year old Lawrence Trent for the World Open and another with 8-year old David Howell. The same Howell, now a GM, commentated for FIDE on the recent World Championship match between Ding Liren and Gukesh.

There was more to the 'On the Cover' introduction for the same December CL. It continued,

Transition is never easy or particularly palatable for many. The Executive Board, in closed session, passed an enigmatic resolution to terminate the contract of Michael Cavallo as our Executive Director. I say enigmatic not as a judgement as much as a statement of fact.

After four paragraphs on the same subject I still didn't have a clue why this was newsworthy for the general CL readership. There is a ton of relevant information in the rgcp archive at groups.google.com, e.g. search?q=Cavallo, but who has the time to plow through it? For a previous cover illustration by Jose Angel Pardo, see September 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (September 2024).