Equal Forces

A field consisting almost entirely of internationally titled players, together with four national masters, made up the ninth international tournament in Varna. It was a strong and colourful Category 2A event, offering every participant the attractive possibility of gaining an international title norm or confirming the class he already possessed. Eight points were required for an international-master norm and 10.5 for a grandmaster norm.

The crosstable contained a remarkable number of draws, but the figures alone did not tell the whole story. Kolarov-Hennings, for example, was drawn after only four minutes, whereas the battle between Szilagyi and Dobrev lasted ten hours and seventeen minutes. In the table, both results were represented by exactly the same half-point.

Statistics were kept on the duration of every game. If every game lasting less than thirty minutes is classified as a non-fighting draw, no more than about twenty-five games fell into that category. Most of the remaining encounters were genuinely hard-fought. There was, however, one conspicuous "island of peacefulness" among several of the Bulgarian Olympiad candidates, whose games with one another were almost invariably drawn.

The event was therefore much more evenly balanced than the abundance of half-points might suggest. In such a field, scoring 10.5 out of 14 was an extremely difficult task requiring exceptional sporting drive and creative tension. Most players concluded that the grandmaster norm was too high a summit and adopted solid tactics with "a draw in the pocket".

The great exception was the young Yugoslav Albin Planinc. Every one of his games was a genuine display of sporting energy and creative daring. He showed how the grandmaster summit should be attacked and conquered it fully deservedly. His charge recalled the victories of Bobotsov in the first Varna tournament and Padevsky in the second, when both were themselves advancing toward grandmaster strength.

The tournament was played shortly before the Olympiad in Siegen and therefore provided a useful test of Bulgaria's leading players. Several of them occupied prize places, but excessive peacefulness prevented some from finishing even higher. Planinc's exceptional finish ultimately decided the tournament.

Andrey Malchev