BBC: The Master Game 1981

Now that I've worked my way through most of Sirb0b1's YouTube clips from BBC: The Master Game 1980, I'd like to move on to the following year.

Group A: Robert Byrne, Svetozar Gligoric, Vlastimil Hort, Nigel Short (15 years old!)

• Gligoric - Short; 'Round 1', including an introduction to the players
  
• Byrne - Hort; 'Round 1'
  
• Hort - Gligoric; 'Round 2'
  
• Short - Byrne; 'Round 2'
  
• Gligoric - Byrne; 'Round 3'
  
• Short - Hort; 'Round 3'

Group B: Jan Hein Donner, Bent Larsen, Tony Miles, Lothar Schmid

• Miles - Larsen; 'Round 1'
  
• Schmid - Donner; 'Round 1'
  
• Donner - Miles; 'Round 2': Part 1, Part 2
  
• Larsen - Schmid; 'Round 2'
  
• Miles - Schmid; 'Round 3'
  
• Larsen - Donner; 'Round 3': Part 1, Part 2

Final:

• Short - Miles: Part 1 (displays final scores for both groups), Part 2

Most of the games are presented in a single video.

The Thread of the Game

Continuing with 1921 Capablanca - Lasker, Game 11, I had a hard time figuring out what is going on in the diagrammed position. The notes of Capablanca and Kasparov were not particularly helpful on their own, but by considering them together and trying my own ideas, I finally grasped the thread of the game.

Of 32.Nd2, Capablanca wrote, 'This was my sealed move (*) and unquestionably the only move to keep the initiative.' It's clear that White is better. The Black Pawns are split into three islands, with the b- & d-Pawns vulnerable. The Black King is exposed to attack and White has one each of the four pieces, meaning there is lots of opportunity to rearrange the pieces into various attacking configurations. Black's own trumps are the Knight on d5 and the ownership of the c-file.

At this point there is a difference of opinion about how to continue. Black played 32...Nf8, and Capablanca noted, '32...Rc3 would have been met by Qa1', implying that Lasker's move was satisfactory. Kasparov assigned 32...Nf8 a '?!', quoted Lasker ('Better is 32...Rc3! 33.Qa1 Nf8 34.Ne4 Rc7 gaining an important tempo'), and added 'I agree: after 35.g3 White has a marked advantage, but even so not as great as in the game.' • Q: What is this 'important tempo'?

Havana 1921 (g.11)
Lasker, Em.

Capablanca, J.R.
After 32.Nf3-d2

After 32...Nf8, the game continued 33.Ne4, and Capablanca commented,

The White Knight stands now in a very commanding position. Black's game is far more difficult than appears at first glance and I believe that the only good system of defense would have to be based on ...f5, after ...h6, driving back the White Knight. (Q: Why is it so important to 'drive back the White Knight'?)

After a further 33...Qd8, White played 34.h4. Kasparov gave this a '!, preventing ...f5'. Now on 34...Rc7, comes a flurry of remarks by the two World Champions.

Capablanca: 'This might be said to be the losing move. Black had to play ...h6 in order to be ready to continue with ...f5, forcing the White Knight to withdraw.'

Kasparov: 'Playing the Rook onto the 7th rank leads to conceding the c-file.'

Capablanca: 'There is much more than meets the eye in this position. This is a crucial point in the game. Apparently there is not much on either side, yet if Black can save the game it must be done at this point, and the chances are that the only move that may save the situation is 34...h6, threatening to drive the Knight away with ...f5. The situation is most interesting and will repay study.' (Primer of Chess, p.222)

(Q: Why was 34...Rc7 'the losing move'? What's this about 'conceding the c-file'? Why the obsession about 'driving the White Knight away'; what is it threatening?)

Then White played 35.Qb3 and Capablanca noted, 'White's plan consists in getting rid of Black's powerfully posted Knight at d5, which is the key to Black's defense.' Now it all clicked: White will play Bc4 and Nc3, forcing the Knight off d5; that's why control of the c-file was so important. It was also important to kick the Knight off e4 in order to prevent it from going to c3. Once the Black Knight is gone from d5, the e-Pawn becomes vulnerable.

Only three moves have been played on each side since the diagram, but what a lot of chess knowledge was packed into those six moves. Incredible! Now if I could just figure out what was meant by that 'important tempo'...

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(*) I'm almost certain that adjournment analysis was frowned on in 1921, but I need to verify this. When did adjournment became fair game for the sort of extensive analysis that disappeared when computers became too strong?

Isidor Kaufmann

Isidor Kaufmann - The Chess Player © Flickr user Gandalf's Gallery under Creative Commons.

For more about the artist, see Isidor Kaufmann (Izidor Kaufman, 1853 - 1921) on Wikipedia, along with another well known chess image by Kaufmann showing two players.

Restraint & Overprotection

In my spare time I've been watching the clips from BBC: The Master Game 1980, and have learned quite a bit. The remarks on the following position made a definite impression on me.

BBC Master Game 1980
J.Nunn

W.Browne
After 12.Kg1-h1

The following comments were made at 6:25 into the first part of the Browne - Nunn video.

Nunn: I need to continue with my counterplay. I'd like to play ...Rb8 here. It doesn't actually threaten ...b5; he's got too many pieces on it. But it does restrain him a bit. It makes it difficult for him to move his pieces away to other squares. So it looks like the best move: ...Rb8. [Nunn plays the move.]

Browne: This is a good move. I was thinking of playing f4 and then Bf3, but then he'll be able to play ...b5. I guess I'll just have to play Petrosian's move, Ra3 with the idea of possibly coming over to the Kingside with my Rook later.

I'm a big fan of the Benoni and know that the sequence ...Rb8 & ...b5 is a standard idea. What I didn't know was that it incorporates a general principle involving restraint: 'It makes it difficult for him to move his pieces away to other squares'. Browne confirms the strength of the idea in his own comment.

This restraint is the flip side of what Nimzovich called 'overprotection': when several pieces are aimed at a strong point, one of them can afford to abandon the strong point because the other pieces are still doing the job. This leaves considerable flexibility for reorganizing the overprotecting pieces in search of other opportunities. In contrast, 'restraint' reduces the flexibility of the opponent's pieces. Now that I know what to look for, I'll watch for other examples of the same idea.

Eight Years of the Master Game

After writing the post The Master Game According to Burgess, I went looking for more information about the BBC series. When did it start and when did it end? By piecing together clues from different web sources I found answers to these questions and even managed to locate PGN game scores for the games that were played.

Two books were published about the events : 'The Master Game' by James & Barden (BBC, 1979), and 'The Master Game Book Two' by James & Hartston (BBC, 1981). The 1979 book covered the events from 1975, 1976, and 1977, while the 1981 book covered 1979, 1980, and 1981. There appears to have no event in 1978. A post on Chessforums.org, BBC Master Game, quoted from the first book,

The producer, Robert Toner, in his foreword writes: "I had seen many forms of television chess coverage, but none of them was satisfactory. Pieces would disappear from one square and appear in another, and only experts seemed to be able to follow a game. Also, it was so remote, I felt no involvement with the game or the players. What we needed was direct access into their thoughts, not the high-speed technical thoughts of a chess-playing mind, but thoughts put in such a way that anyone who knew the rules would be able to follow the most complicated game" (p.7) • He certainly succeeded. He also states the programmes were video taped. According to the book a million and a half people watched this programme in Britain.

In 1982, the event moved to Hamburg, and in 1983, its last year, to Bath. GM Keene, writing for the now defunct Chessville.com --
A NATIONAL DISGRACE - NO CHESS ON UK TV -- informed,

Another tragedy was the 1983 edition of the BBC Master Game. This was won by Tony Miles who dramatically defeated the then World Champion, Anatoly Karpov, in the final. Unfortunately a technicians' strike meant that this fascinating victory for the British grandmaster was never aired.

The winners for the eight events were:-
1975: William Hartston
1976: William Hartston
1977: Anatoly Karpov
1979: Bent Larsen
1980: Lothar Schmid
1981: Nigel Short
1982: Eric Lobron (the same year Karpov won the first FIDE World Cup, which used the Master Game format)
1983: Tony Miles

I've already posted about the fifth season, with links to the YouTube clips, in BBC: The Master Game 1980. Here's a big thanks to the mastermind behind Sirb0b1's Channel, for making these clips available. It's a tremendous service to the chess community.

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Later: Thanks to Omega Amigo, who informed me via a comment that I had erred for 1982; see my subsequent post A 'Master Game' Lookalike for a full correction.

1921 Capablanca - Lasker, Game 11

The last game in this series titled More Capablanca Annotations,
was played just after the previous game, 1921 Capablanca - Lasker, Game 10. Capablanca was leading +2-0=8 and Lasker needed a win to retain any real hope for a favorable outcome to the match.

Just like that previous game, I had trouble assigning punctuation to Capablanca's notes, but the present game was even harder. After Black's 13th move, Capablanca wrote, 'I do not consider the system of defense adopted by Dr. Lasker in this game to be any good', without commenting on any of Lasker's preceding moves. The rest of his notes had an air of inevitability implying that the result of the game was a foregone conclusion. I weaseled out of the difficulty by using '!?' and '?!' when I couldn't decide if Capablanca meant that a move was the best of a bad lot or that something better had been overlooked. My interpretation of Capablanca's verbal comments is shown in the following game score along with Kasparov's punctuation from his first volume of 'My Great Predecessors'.

[Event "wcc"]
[Site "Havana"]
[Date "1921.??.??"]
[Round "11"]
[White "Capablanca J"]
[Black "Lasker Em"]
[Result "1-0"]

1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 e6 3.c4 Nf6 4.Bg5 Nbd7 5.e3 Be7 6.Nc3 O-O 7.Rc1 Re8 {KAS: '?!'} 8.Qc2 {KAS: '!'} 8...c6 9.Bd3 dxc4 10.Bxc4 Nd5 11.Bxe7 Rxe7 {KAS: '?!'} 12.O-O Nf8 {KAS: '?!'} 13.Rfd1 Bd7 14.e4 Nb6 {CAP: '!?'; KAS: '?!'} 15.Bf1 Rc8 16.b4 {CAP: '!'; KAS: '!'} 16...Be8 17.Qb3 {CAP: '!?'} 17...Rec7 18.a4 Ng6 19.a5 Nd7 20.e5 b6 21.Ne4 Rb8 22.Qc3 {CAP: '?!'} 22...Nf4 23.Nd6 Nd5 24.Qa3 f6 25.Nxe8 {CAP: '!'; KAS: '!'} 25...Qxe8 26.exf6 gxf6 {CAP: '!'} 27.b5 {CAP: '!'} 27...Rbc8 {KAS: '!'} 28.bxc6 Rxc6 29.Rxc6 Rxc6 30.axb6 axb6 31.Re1 {CAP: '?!'} 31...Qc8 32.Nd2 {CAP: '!'; KAS: '!'} 32...Nf8 {CAP: '!'; KAS: '?!'} 33.Ne4 {CAP: '!'} 33...Qd8 34.h4 {KAS: '!'} 34...Rc7 {CAP: '?'} 35.Qb3 {CAP: '!'} 35...Rg7 {KAS: '!'} 36.g3 Ra7 37.Bc4 Ra5 38.Nc3 {KAS: '!'} 38...Nxc3 39.Qxc3 Kf7 40.Qe3 Qd6 41.Qe4 Ra4 {CAP: '!?'; KAS: '?'} 42.Qb7+ Kg6 43.Qc8 {KAS: '?'} 43...Qb4 {KAS: '?'} 44.Rc1 {KAS: '!'} 44...Qe7 {KAS: '?!'} 45.Bd3+ {KAS: '!'} 45...Kh6 46.Rc7 Ra1+ 47.Kg2 Qd6 48.Qxf8+ {KAS: '!'} 1-0

The third and thirteenth World Champions appear to have a difference of opinion on the 14th, 32nd, and 41st moves, so I'll choose from one of those positions in my next post on this game. Again I discovered from Kasparov's notes (quoting Capablanca on his 27th move: 'the exposed position of the Black King is rather inviting') that the Cuban also included the game in his 'Primer of Chess', where his comments are more elaborate than his notes to the book of the match. Google Books has an incomplete copy of the 'Primer', so I'll try to find a complete copy or use what I can. To play through the complete game, see...

Jose Raul Capablanca vs Emanuel Lasker; World Championship Match 1921 [g.11]
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1241498

...on Chessgames.com.

The Tonight Show with Cory Evans

Jay Leno: 'My first guest, a remarkable young boy, I read about him in the paper the other day. He's a five year old chess champion.'

Cory Evans - Chess Master (9:13) • The United States kindergarten chess champion said, 'There was over five thousand million kids in the tournament.'

Was this the article that caught Leno's attention: Game Boy : At 5, He's Won a Kiddie Chess Title and Can Probably Beat You (LAtimes.com, 7 December 1992)? Elsewhere on the web we learn that Cory is the son of IM Larry D. Evans.