A Step Toward a Higher Chess Rank

The history of the Varna international tournament already contained many famous names: Simagin, Krogius and Vasiukov. For players such as Bobotsov, Padevsky, Hort, Kavalek and Planinc, Varna had been part of the road toward the grandmaster title; for Lyuben Popov, Peicho Peev, Lyuben Spasov and Nikola Kirov it had served as a stepping stone toward international-master strength.

This year the beautiful Black Sea surroundings near Golden Sands attracted a colourful field distinguished above all by youth. There were relatively few international titles and no obvious favourite in advance. The principal qualification objective was the international-master norm, set at eight points.

Yugoslav master Hulak made the best start and remained at the head of the field throughout. Spiridonov began calmly with a series of draws, played solidly and carefully, remained undefeated and improved his scoring rate in the second half. Ermenkov lost only one game but played with exceptional purpose and scored the greatest number of wins.

Those three crossed the finish together and shared first to third places. Hulak and Ermenkov exceeded the international-master norm by half a point. For Ermenkov it was a double success: for the second year in succession he was a winner of the Varna tournament, and with his second norm he completed the sporting requirements for the international-master title.

The student Velikov also took an important step toward the same title by earning his first international norm. The youngest participant, Ventsislav Inkiov, deserved special praise. He began badly with losses but was not demoralized; in the second half he showed his real strength and exceeded the norm for Master of Sport by a full point.

Two Bulgarian players sharing first place, two international-master norms and one Master of Sport norm made the 13th Varna international tournament a particularly valuable contribution to the development of Bulgarian chess strength.