With a Youthful Appearance

When the Golden Sands international tournament began in 1957, there were only a handful of hotels at the resort and almost no entertainment, let alone sporting events. Yet chess established itself successfully from the beginning and gradually became a fine tradition associated with international friendship.

For many years Golden Sands served as a springboard toward the grandmaster title. Over time, however, the character of the event became increasingly youthful, and from 1976 onward it was firmly established as an important tournament on the road toward the first international title, International Master.

The nineteenth edition brought together representatives of eight countries at the pleasant Transtroy holiday centre. There were eight international masters and six national masters, with an average Elo of about 2401, higher than in the two preceding editions. This favourable composition meant that an international-master norm could be reached with 7.5 points.

Czechoslovak international master Eduard Meduna won convincingly. He was the most purposeful and stable player in the field and never once drifted into a seriously inferior position.

The hero of the opening rounds, however, was Bulgarian international master Valentin Lukov, who scored four points from his first five games. His familiar weakness - excessive maximalism - then led to setbacks, although such a fault could almost be applauded because it arose from his uncompromising will to win.

The greatest Bulgarian interest surrounded Prodanov, Donchev and Toshkov, each of whom already had one international-master norm and openly hoped to clear the second barrier. Prodanov and Toshkov pursued that objective boldly, without petty calculation. Prodanov in particular fought hard in every game while still keeping his play within reasonable limits, and he successfully achieved his second international-master norm.

Nikolai Yuchormanski