Bronstein Won Ahead of Sax and Gipslis

Memorable Performances * Report by Ervin Haág

On all five continents, in more than one hundred countries, Tungsram incandescent lamps, electronic tubes, electronic components and other electrical products are used. After Munich, Innsbruck and Montreal, Hungarian light bulbs also received the Olympic flame in Moscow. The worldwide reputation of this Hungarian company is increasingly supported by its patronage of sport as well.

As far as chess is concerned, it was as co-organizer of the 1934 international tournament in Újpest, won by Lilienthal, that the company first appeared on the chess scene. Their third tournament in recent years, now held in succession, was once again a major international chess event. So it was this time too. The field of 18 participants was of a very high standard, with an Elo average of 2476 after the withdrawal of Nona Gaprindashvili, which meant Category X. For this reason the grandmaster norm was 10 points, while the international master norm was 8 points.

Ten countries were represented by five Soviet players, by players from Romania, Colombia, Czechoslovakia and Finland, and by three players from the Soviet Union, including the former world champion David Bronstein and the best woman chess player in the world, Nona Gaprindashvili. Six Hungarian players took up the struggle with them, in the front rank Grandmaster Gyula Sax and the Hungarian champions. This level and composition guaranteed the rank of the tournament and promised memorable games, while for the organizing company it also meant publicity in the best sense of the word.

After tremendous sacrifice and considerable organizational work, the tournament reached its goal successfully. Among our players, Sax Gyula shared second place, while Rajna György completed his international master norm. A small explanation is needed here, because the reader may be confused by the final table: the norm was 8 points, while Rajna’s name is followed in the table by 7 points. But let us not forget that, according to the table, Gaprindashvili also appears, and for that reason the normal point count is misleading: Rajna actually scored 8 points. The 7 points shown in the table count only from his results without the woman world champion, but the norm is still valid at 8.

At the tournament, János Gáspár was chief arbiter, László Nyárady and Miklós Miskey were his assistants. From the demonstration boards the games could be followed well. Although the Tungsram Cultural Hall, IV District, Váci út 77, lies some distance from the city centre and traffic conditions in the afternoon and evening hours are already quite poor, attendance was nevertheless higher than last year. At the opening, closing ceremony and during the rounds, leaders of the federation appeared, including Zoltán Gábos, vice-president; Tibor Flórián, general secretary; and Béla Dienes, managing director of Tungsram. We express our thanks to them, and especially to László Izzó, for holding the tournament and for their assistance. We hope that this fine tradition — the series of Tungsram tournaments — will continue in the future.

The rounds took place between 29 July and 18 August in the headquarters of the United Incandescent Lamp and Electrical Co. in Újpest, in an international grandmaster tournament. Adjourned games were completed in the premises of the chess federation. Let us add: in excellent and disciplined fashion. In the air-conditioned rooms no one suffered from the scorching dog-day heat, and the players and spectators could concentrate undisturbed on the games. Several valuable and memorable games and positions arose.

Bronstein — As in the Old Days

As for the chances, many tipped Bronstein as the final winner, although he was already well past his prime at the age of 53. The grandmaster exploited his enormous opening knowledge and made his way easily into the lead. He began well and immediately produced something lasting.

We were also curious to see the performance of the Colombian international master Oscar Castro, “a candidate master with stars”, as it were. The reputation of his talent had preceded him, but his tournament results had also been uneven. Seeing his play, we were not made much wiser: he achieved his high sixth place with a great deal of luck, but not undeservedly. There is a reason for this: he is endlessly inventive, and his tactics are anything but conventional.

Pintér’s Inspired Ideas

Our young international master, who finished 5th–7th last year, could rightly be called successful. His performance this year was no worse. In the second round he played one of his best games.

Roses for the General!

The GDR has two young grandmasters: Lothar Vogt and Rainer Knaak. About Vogt we can say only the best: he has achieved two major successes in our country in recent years. His colleague Knaak now made his first appearance here. True, not with the same success, but in individual games he showed his talent and strength.

Perhaps we have overpraised this game? Then let the reader — our eternal critic — read the words of the Roman consul Cato to our mind’s eye: “Nowadays, even after easy and insignificant victories, generals are honoured with roses.”

The World Champion’s Swan Song

The fifth round was the last in which the women’s world champion sat down at the board. The next day she was taken to hospital with convulsions, and as her illness proved persistent she could not continue the tournament. Thus the game against the Scottish master was her farewell. And the farewell was beautiful.

Splendid Play

Among our players, Sax’s performance attracted particular attention. Would he repair the blemish he had incurred in Ljubljana? The first four rounds gave no reassuring answer, but in the fifth we could breathe more easily.

The winner of the tournament probably played his best game in the fifth round. To us it seems that he reached the average standard of his prime years.

I Love Chess...

“I love chess as a musician loves music,” Bronstein told the reporter of Népszabadság. Continuing the comparison: he approaches chess not as a member of an orchestra, but as a composer. As a creative artist. He spent nearly four decades at the top, composing ever more beautiful and better games. Perhaps that long period explains it, or perhaps it lies in the secret of his individuality, that he is still constantly considering reforms. When, in the auditorium, he caught sight of old chess friends — among them Grandmasters Lilienthal and Barcza, who regularly visited the tournament — he could not resist leaving his opponent at the board and explaining his views. We quote only the headings: “Why is there no veteran championship?”; “Why support only the hard and difficult form of chess?”; “What sense does it make that players belonging to the world elite are brought together by the exhausting tournament form every third or fourth year?”; “This world championship system is not perfect either!” and so on.

Perhaps it is not a secondary factor that the Soviet grandmaster is still almost the same today as, say, twenty years ago: defying time, youthful, impossible to elicit, full of energy, quick and light in his play. Sometimes too light — certainly against Ostojic he ran into a fatal check, because while trying to convince us of his correctness, he overlooked a strong interposition.

Deep in the Whirlpool

Every chess game is complicated — except for salon draws, which were not exactly lacking this time either — and in these games there is usually a great deal of “action”. But when the pieces remain under attack for a long time, the situation becomes rather nerve-racking.

Ree’s Endgame Technique

The Dutch international master played very well. True, he has already taken part in countless international tournaments, has faced many grandmasters, has played in Olympiads, and belongs among the best Dutch chess players. This time he fell short of the grandmaster norm by barely half a point. Among his particularly attractive games perhaps his victory over Knaak should be mentioned, but we would rather show a very fine technical achievement.

If we look at the final result, we do not see much change compared with the score at the halfway point; yet the second half was more eventful than the first. Sax, with an excellent “second half”, fought his way up to second-third place, and so, to some extent, did Lukács. Vadász’s decline was the negative feature, as was Csom’s continuing enigmatic underperformance. Filip successfully caught up and finished the tournament in first place in the lower half. All this can be supported with games and diagrams: let us therefore continue with them.

In the ninth round, material was sacrificed in two games by the player with the initiative. Sax’s game, however, ended peacefully against Spasov.

Poor Vadász!

Grandmaster Vadász, who had finished first-second in last year’s Tungsram tournament, did not start badly this time either: at the halfway point he had 3.5 points from 7 games. His supporters placed their trust in the fact that in the next two rounds he would “jump” in the draw and have Black twice — against Gipslis and then Filip. Anything but a lucky draw! Against the Riga grandmaster, in his favourite Pirc Defence, which he had so far used successfully, he suffered a change-of-variation defeat, while the Prague grandmaster converted his opening advantage with fine handling of the game.

Those two defeats would have been enough for us to feel sincere sympathy for him, but the bitterness was not yet over: two rounds later, in round 12, he again had to fight with Black, and this time against a very strong opponent. A bad pairing can ruin anyone who is not in explosive form.

Real strength was shown in this — it is good to see such a thing.

But let us not stray from the subject; let us stay with Vadász’s poor draw. Three defeats in three consecutive games with Black — that is certainly disheartening. Nevertheless, he deserves praise for not losing heart and for still having the mental strength to undertake the mind-testing complications of the next round.

A Sprig of Laurel...

We expected international master Lukács to obtain his second grandmaster norm. This hope soon vanished, and for a time the Spartacus player’s good mood also disappeared. He played with varying success. Among these results, his best performance came precisely against his clubmate.

Csom could take some consolation from the fact that in the following round, with Black, he defeated Ree. In connection with his performance, one may think of Montaigne: “Fame and repose never sleep in the same bed.”

What the Numbers Show — and What They Do Not

The merciless truth of mathematics sometimes causes even tournament victories to lose Elo points. Bronstein, however, could leave satisfied with a gain of +11. He remained undefeated — although in this respect, in one or two games, his position was critical — and finished alone in first place. Sax almost caught him. We present Sax’s dramatic game from the last round, annotated by Bronstein, in the next issue as a major analysis.

To avoid repetitions, let us mention here that, as can be seen from the table, a considerable share of the many draws were salon draws. There was even a round in which serious play took place on only three boards. In this regard, the leading players “set an example”. Since the pure playing time of 16 rounds is little more than five weeks, let us charitably regard the rest gained in this way as tournament tactics, part of the sensible allocation of energy. There is no doubt, however, that the quality of the tournament, chess literature and the sports press also suffered as a result.

Gipslis and Sax scored the same number of points, but the value of their performances was different. While Gipslis applied his well-prepared routine, Sax did not work from templates. At times he sparkled, although he never seemed completely free from turning points. Had he not spoiled the winning position against Castro — or had he beaten Bronstein — he might have climbed to first place. He came very close.

Filip also pulled himself together: he corrected his small derailment in rounds 6–7 with good games and good energy management. He handled the tail end of the field professionally. How did he miss out on the Czechoslovak Olympic team? As a player he could certainly have done more for his country’s colours than as captain.

The Dutch international master Ree fulfilled the grandmaster norm by half a point, and with a rating gain of +20 he closed the tournament. In the final sprint he pushed hard, pressed the issue, but until then he had played in a grandmasterly manner. In this round-robin, Castro gained even more Elo: +27. Even so, I would not rush to draw the conclusion that he has improved so much recently. He was simply lucky. If someone has such a judgement on his record, then yes. Of course, his tactical sense helped him, but it is not a sufficient explanation.

Pintér once again performed well at Tungsram, earning a gain of +13. He was unable to defeat his best-ranked opponent. His fellow round-robin competitor, W. Schmidt of Poland, started very poorly — four losses and half a point — and fell apart after that. Knaak gave a taste of his talent, but still has much to improve in versatility.

Among those who finished in the lower half of the field, we expected Péter Lukács to achieve a grandmaster norm. He was soon forced to abandon this and played only to preserve his rating. Ornstein managed the same, as did the newly minted Bulgarian grandmaster Spasov: neither lost much rating, and they showed themselves in only a few games.

Three Hungarians then follow in the table: Csom, Rajna and Vadász. Rajna’s performance can be called a success, since he fulfilled the international master title and increased his rating by +15, whereas the same score by the two grandmasters may be called less satisfactory. This is also reflected in the Elo calculation: Csom lost 24 points and Vadász 15 at this tournament. Their rating for 1978 will be determined by their average performance over the year. Csom’s performance remains a mystery: a good start with 3 points from 3 games, then three losses. Later he recovered, but could no longer repair the damage. In my view, this was already Vadász’s sixth tournament in 1977. He fought bravely, but lost a great deal; we mentioned that his unfavourable pairing also played a role, and he no longer had the strength to compensate.

Ostojic also seemed exhausted: like Vadász, he had overplayed himself and lacked strength. From the last seven rounds he managed to scrape together only one and a half points. Blackstock came better prepared than expected, played all his Turk-Sokolsky openings to win, and then lost his last seven games in a row. He is a cultured chess master, but tactically very vulnerable, and time trouble also played a part in this. Rating loss: -44.

After five rounds Gaprindashvili withdrew because of illness. Until then she had not shown much, and yet it is a pity, because she had not yet played in Hungary. Fortunately, her health recovered during hospital treatment.

Overall it was a good tournament, and there is much to learn from it. Even without detailed analysis, we present a few games.

Bronstein’s Simultaneous Exhibition

After the Tungsram tournament, Grandmaster Bronstein spent a longer period in Hungary as a tourist. He visited Balaton and later returned to Budapest. He met chess friends, gave an interview to our editors and gave a simultaneous display at the Budapest Spartacus club. On 23 September he played on 15 boards at once. Five youngsters died at the board, waiting for the grandmaster’s move. Among the field there were several candidate masters, and yet the youngsters lost in 13 games; only two managed to draw: Gábor Pirisi of the catering trade and Károly Baranyi of Budapest Spartacus. It is a pity that other sections did not take the opportunity.