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It s youth vs. experience in chess playoffs20-year-o!d Soviet genius may be most exciting player since Bobby FischerBy Donald KimelmanKnight-Ridder NewspapersVILNIUS, U.S.S.R. — If he were American, Garry Kasparov might be on the cover of this week's People magazine — a dark, handsome young man hunched over a chessboard, his heavy-lidded eyes staring down at the pieces with enough concentration to levitate the entire table.A month shy of his 21st birthday, he is that rarity that comes along perhaps once in a generation, a bona-fide chess genius. On March 10, he sat down across the table from his 62-year-old countryman, Vasily Smyslov, and, assertively moving his queen’s pawn forward, began a marathon contest for the right to challenge Anatoly Karpov, the reigning world champion.The 10th game of 16 ended in a draw Sunday, the official Tass news agency said.Kasparov is ahead 6.5 points to 3.5 points in the match that started March 17 in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Kasparov has won three games against the 63-year-old Smyslov, and needs two more points to win the match.The speculation among chess experts is that, barring some loss of nerve or desire, Kasparov is destined — if not this year, then three years hence — to become the most dynamic world chess champion since Bobby Fischer held the title a decade ago.Kasparov and Fischer — the comparisons are being made. Both arc aggressive players with a flair for unorthodox variations, nervous and intense men who wear down opponents by constantly pressing for an advantage rather than playing cautiously for that single victory among a host of boring draws.And yet Fischer, who won the world championship in 1972 and then gave it up in default to Karpov three years later, created a popular interest in the game that it had not enjoyed previously and has not enjoyed since.Fischer was not only a genius whose mercurial temperament kept him in the headlines. He was an American who achieved dominance in what seems increasingly like a Soviet intramural sport. With the exception of Fischer's three-year reign, a succession of Soviet players has held the world chess championship since 1937.As much as the Soviets love winning, they recognize that their dominance of chess has diminished world interest. For this reason, even ordinary citizens (this is a nation of chess aficionados) speak with longing of Fischer’s heyday and still hope for his comeback.Despite the certainty that the world chess championship will stay in Soviet hands this year, no one would suggest that the reigning champion and the two remaining contenders were stamped from the same mold.Indeed, their differences are so striking that this intricate, cerebral competition lends itself quite nicely to pulp-novel synopsis. To wit:Anatoly KarpovHe won the world championship nine years ago by default and has successfully defended it twice against Soviet defector Viktor Korchnoi. Slightly built and boyishly handsome at 33, he is a model Soviet champion. He travels the country giving speeches and demonstrations and has played a leading role in the Young Communist League and the Soviet Peace Fund.But Karpov is still looking for the respect that should be his due. His playing style has been criticized as derivative and overly cautious. And like American boxing champion Larry Holmes, he suffers from never having faced a truly great opponent.Garry KasparovHis style is reflected in his appearance. Swarthy and strongly built, Kasparov's body movements are quick and jerky, as if the connections to his extraordinary brain are a bit askew,A native of Baku in the Transcaucasian Republic of Azerbaijan, he became a chess master at the age of 14 and received international acclaim two years later when he defeated 14 grandmasters in a major tournament in Yugoslavia. Even before reaching this round of the championship playoffs, he was ranked second only to Karpov.His Armenian mother, Klara, hovers over him and seems to run his life, a source of considerable smirking in the Soviet chess world. His father was Jewish and named Weinstein, the son taking his mother's surname after his father's death in the late 1970s. The name change smells of politics — Kasparov having a better ring as the name of a great Soviet champion. Vasily SmyslovA large, benign-looking man with silvery blond hair and thick spectacles, Smyslov has a transcendent calm about him. World champion in 1957 the lost thetitle the following year in a revenge match), his performance has been this year's greatest surprise in the chess world.Championship chess is a grueling sport, and few men past 50 can withstand the physical and mental strain of a month or more of near-daily play. Yet Smyslov not only defeated younger, higher-ranked players to reach the challengers’ finals, but did it with the kind of creative play expected of a much younger man.
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Orange County Register
Santa Ana, California, US
Mon, Apr 02, 1984
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Los A.
CA, USA 14 Jan 2023
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