Thursday 26 February 2009

Linares 1983

Speaking of Linares, I came across a book covering the 1983 tournament. The book was written be renowned chess journalist Dimitrije Bjelica, and the tournament itself was won by former World Champion Boris Spassky (still listed as USSR on the crostable). Spassky finished on 6.5/10 (+3=7) and although 40% of the games were decisive (22 out of 55) this was mainly due to an out of form Bent Larsen who score 2 wins and 8 losses. Even fighting players like Tony Miles managed 7 draws from his 10 games.
Karpov and Andersson tied for second on 6, with the next 6 players on 5.5 or 5. The top 6 players only played 1 decisive game amongst each other, which was Karpov defeating Sax.
The following game was Spassky's first win of the event, and the final position deserves a diagram.

Timman,J (2605) - Spassky,B (2605) [C73]
Linares Linares, 1983

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 d6 5.Bxc6+ bxc6 6.d4 exd4 7.Qxd4 c5 8.Qd3 g6 9.Nc3 Bg7 10.Bf4 Ne7 11.0-0-0 0-0 12.Qd2 Re8 13.Bh6 Bh8 14.h4 Rb8 15.a3 Be6 16.Ng5 Qc8 17.Nxe6 Qxe6 18.Kb1 Rb7 19.Ka1 Reb8 20.Rb1 Nc6 21.f4 Bd4 22.Qd3 a5 23.Qh3 f5 24.Rhe1 Nb4 25.axb4 axb4 26.Na4 Ra7 27.Qb3 c4 28.Qa2 Rba8 29.exf5 Rxa4(D) 0-1

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If I remember right - I´m at work now - Larsen started with 2/3 and lost the rest...

Cheers

Henrik Mortensen

Shaun Press said...

Yes. He went Win (Yusopov), Loss (Miles), Win (Timman). At least he ensured there was at least one decisive game each round!