The previous 'On the Cover' post,
January 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover'
(January 2024), had several twists on the World Championships of 50 and 25 years ago. In the current post, we return to important events of national interest.
Left: '?'
Right: 'EuroDisney and the World Rapids for Kids'
Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)
James Tarjan, winner of the American
Open in California.
Carl Budd's story is [inside]. Photo by
Paula Muller.
The Carl Budd story was titled, 'Tarjan Wins American Open', and identified Budd as 'President, Santa Monica Bay Chess Club'. After five paragraphs about the organizational challenges presented by the event ('403 players, 137 in the Open section and 266 in the Amateur'), the report continued,
The new American Open Champion is James Tarjan, a
popular master from Sherman Oaks, California, who now calls
Berkeley home. He earned his fine victory by defeating strong
competition, including GM Larry Evans and IM Anthony Saidy, After the seventh round, Tarjan
was a half point ahead of former California State Champion
Kim Commons and needed only a draw to clinch the title,
which he achieved. His final score of 7.5-0.5 was worth the
first prize of $1.000.
Tarjan. one of America's fastest-rising stars, is 21. In
1965, at the age of 13. he played in his first American Open,
winning a junior trophy. Top prizes eluded him until this year.
In the 1970 American Open he tied for second with Walter
Browne. In 1972 he tied for second with four others. But
then, at the National Open in Las Vegas earlier this year, he
tied for first with Browne and Laszlo Szabo (though Browne
took the title on tiebreaking points). He performed very well
in the West Coast Invitational, coming in second, and then
finished fourth in the strong U.S. Championship in El Paso.
Just one month before the American Open, he indicated his
latest playing form by winning the Capps Memorial in the
Bay Area.
He will be seeking an international title in 1974 and has
already had his first IM result at the Chicago Invitational
tournament played after the American Open. Later in the
year he will be going to Holland and Spain in furtherance
of his ambition.
I included these details because GM Tarjan has been mentioned before on this blog, but was never featured as the top finisher. See, for example, the 1973 National Open in
May 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover'
(May 2023).
Chess Life (25 Years Ago)
"Can you be in Paris tomorrow?"
asked Jami Anson, senior art director of Chess Life. Although it sounds romantic --
Paris/Chess/Disneyland -- I know
from experience that a working trip
is quite different from a pleasure
trip. After deciding to go, I knew I
wanted to get something unique for
the cover, like my April '98 cover of
Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono. Here is
the result. Exclusively for the readers
of Chess Life -- the current FIDE
World Chess Champion, Anatoly Karpov, with Asuka Nakamura, playing
the one and only (French!) Mickey
Mouse.
The reporting on the event started with 'Adventures in Fantasyland' by FM Aviv Friedman, who explained,
Once a year FIDE, with the
help of the French Federation, holds its
World Rapid Championship for Boys and
Girls Under 14 at the EuroDisney Theme
Park in Paris. Does that sound a bit
amazing to those who have often read
about the usual, army-style youth championships, with bad conditions, poor
food and nothing to do? Well, it is as
good as it sounds! It really can't be much
more fun that that.
This year, between the 15th and the
18th of November, 157 players from 55(!)
countries all flocked to EuroDisney on
the outskirts of Paris, to combine chess
and fun.
The reporting continued with 'Disney's World Rapid Chess Championship -- for Kids' by Brian Killigrew. His report included two pages of color photos, an interview titled, 'Anatoly Karpov Speaks', and another interview with Pierre Sissman, Disney Executive VP (Europe).
See also the previous post
Karpov at Disney
(October 2015).
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