Histt1ry

says "Yet apparentl y the price for Keres ' return was just a vague promise w ith Soviet officials not to hinder Botvinnik's campaign," which has a very different sense. Note especially his replacing "return" by "reprieve from execution" and his exaggeration of the meaning of "Botvinnik's campaign" (see point # 1 ) . Fabrication? A t best, flagrant inaccuracy. Schroeder's article is based more on opinion, perhaps even imagination, than fact. Unless authoritative support surfaces, his views must be regarded as more akin to tabloid headlines like "Elvis was a UFO Alien". Even CHESS now disowns him. In response to a detailed critique I sent to London, a senior CHESS editor admitted that in places "Schroeder is just speculating . . . [or] is just wrong," and that publishing the article "was a clear error of judgement."

Somewhat Less Extreme: Evans

The interest of many American readers was rekindled by GM Larry Evans' article "The Tragedy of Paul Keres" in the October 1 996 issue of Chess Life. While Evans (mostly) avoids Schroeder's extremes, he finds "little doubt that [Keres] was forced to take a dive." At first I found Evans' case persuasive (explaining two highly laudatory letters of mine written in late 1 996 but not published in CL until 8/97 and I 0/97). Since then my research has raised doubts. Among his supports Evans cites: ( 1 ) "Newly opened KGB files"; (2) Schroeder's article; (3) an article by Soviet master Feodor Bohatirchuk; and (4) analysis of Keres ' 1 948 games against Botvinnik. Let's examine these. A careless reading might lead one to think that Evans possesses once-secret Soviet documents on Keres. If so, he is not forthcoming about it. The only one quoted, a letter from Keres to Foreign Minister Molotov, was unearthed and published by the aforementioned Valter Heuer. In it Keres begs not to be stigmatized for playing in Nazi-organized tournaments, and pleads for reinstatement as a Soviet grandmaster. Relevant, but not, as Evans implies, directly illustrative of a plot to make Keres throw games. I asked Evans if he had a "smoking gun," stating clearly the KGB told Keres "lose or we kill you." He admitted ( CL, 4/1 997, p. 28) "I doubt such a document will ever surface." He then cited the aforementioned Oxford Companion entry: "In return [for official forgiveness] Keres promised not to interfere with Botvinnik's challenge to Alekhine." That, printed in 1 984, is nothing new. Its meaning is also clearly narrower than Evans' blanket statement "the price of [Keres' ] reprieve was to abandon his quest for the crown." Evans is claiming more than it appears he can document. Amazingly, Evans mentions Schroeder's CHESS claim that Botvinnik barred Keres from Groningen et al. As we have seen, this is like citing a comic book in the Warren Commission Report. I am frankly surprised that Evans would report this unsupported claim as fact without question or comment.
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Histtry

The Ukrainian Bohat i rchuk, writing in Chess Life in 1 95 l , is an informed character reference but not an eye-witness. Six times a USSR championship participant from 1 923 to 1 934, and co-winner in 1 927, he had first-hand acquaintance with Soviet chess politics, but he left the USSR during WW II and thus had no involvement in Kere s ' postwar situation. We will return to Bohatirchuk later, but for now suffice it to say that the Bohatirchuk excerpts Evans gives are not definite evidence; they are rather only an earlier statement of Evans' main thesis: that the low quality of Keres' games against Botvinnik in 1 948 indicates a fix. The bulk of Evans' article is devoted to analysis of points in those games which strike him as suspicious. It appears valid, insofar as he finds inferior moves by Keres. However, inference based on quality of play is highly problematic. Chess is a hard game, and even the greatest players have made horrendous mistakes. Take this position from the 1 977 Korchnoi-Spassky Candidates match.

Most D-players would see that 3 2 . .il.xf5?? E!. xf5 3 3 . "i!i'xf5??? .il.xf5 i s dreadful, yet Korchnoi, a player arguably superior to Keres, did just that. Those seeing conspiracy in this game involving a Soviet defector should note that Korchnoi still won the match. Alekhine and Petrosian each once hung his queen. Nimzovitch and Reshevsky each allowed mate in two, which Rubinstein and Szab6, respectively, overlooked, and such greats as Smyslov, Bronstein, Gligoric, Short and Yusupov have missed mate in one. Capablanca once hung a piece on move 9. If coercion is not required to explain these blunders, why must it be invoked to explain Keres' more subtle errors? Coercion can cause bad play, but bad play does not prove coercion. Yet Evans insists that Keres "left a trail in his first four losses [in 1 948] for those who are knowledgeable enough to follow it to an inescapable conclusion. " Apparently British G M John Nunn, generally considered a stronger player than Evans, is not "knowledgeable enough." Seeming to reply to Evans in his foreword to Paul Keres: The Quest for Perfection (ICE, 1 997), Nunn says "Attempts to analyze the games themselves for ev idence of Keres' suicidal efforts . . . appear to be misguided" and notes that Vishy Anand, in his 1 995 title match with
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Kasparov, committed two "el e m e n tary errors far worse than any c o mm i tted by Keres in . . . 1 948 . . . and nobody seriously suggests that Anand deliberately lost." Evans said in the 1 0/ 1 997 CL "Obviously a player of Keres' genius isn't going to make stupid mistakes that are easy to detect."
Yet ease of detection was his basis in 1 0/96 for suspecting Keres' 2 1 . el in this position.

"Incomprehensible . . . 9 out of 10 grandmasters would double rooks by 2 1 . afl without thinking twice." Evans wants it both ways: obvious errors show Keres taking a dive, subtle mistakes show him using his genius to cover the tracks. In this kind of logic, any and all evidence is interpreted to support an a priori conclusion. I do not agree with recent anti-Evans comments by Chess Life readers, calling his article "wild charges," "crackpot theory" and "a f rre sale on paranoia." Evans is raising important issues. However, by citing Schroeder he uncritically accepts dubious support. In the 4/ 1 997 CL he disturbingly misrepresents Hooper & Whyld, and later ( I 0/1 997) Heuer, implying the Estonian supports his conclusion, when as we will see, the opposite is true. His analyses are perhaps necessary to establish his case, but are not sufficient. He admits he has no direct evidence. His conclusion is far from "inescapable."

Alternate Explanations and Occam's Razor

Still, Evans is correct that "To put it mildly, Keres didn't play his best against Botvinnik in 1 948," and one wonders, if not because of coercion, then why? Research suggests some alternatives. One explanation may lie in military history. Chess masters, like most of us, do best in peace and prosperity. Estonia for decades had little of either. Its recent history runs: 1 920-39, independent; mid1 940 to mid- 1 94 1 , Russian occupation; mid- 1 94 1 to September 1 944, German occupation; then Soviet occupation until recent years. During these turbulent times, Keres' chief rivals were Alekhine, then Botvinnik. A correlation of their games with historical periods is revealing.
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Keres vs. Alekh ine: 1 935-39: + I -2 =5 ; Keres vs. Botvinnik: 1 938: +0 -0 =2;

1 942-43 : 1 940-4 1 : 1 947-48: 1 95 1 -56:

+0 +0 +1 +2

-3 =3 -1 =4 -5 =0 - 1 =2

During Estonian independence Keres' results against Botvinnik are equal, and nearly so against Alekhine. However, his score dips during foreign occupations, against Alekhine under the Germans, then twice vs. Botvinnik under Russia, finally recovering years later. There are precedents for this . A reason for Lasker 's poor showing against Capablanca in 1 92 1 was his suffering in the aftermath of Germany's defeat in WW I. Flohr's decline after 1 93 8 was due to the travails of his homeland Czechoslovakia. That during occupation, a distracted Keres would do poorly against the favorite of the occupying power, is not hard to grasp. If only Communist coercion explains his decline against Botvinnik, consistency requires that Nazi coercion be invoked to explain his dip against Alekhine, but no one has suggested that. During WW II, Keres and Botvinnik faced different levels of competition. From late 1 94 1 to late 1 945 the only top player Keres met was Alekhine; the rest were decidedly lesser masters and a washed-up Bogolyubov. Botvinnik meanwhile stayed keen against fellow Soviet GMs such as Smyslov, Kotov, Boleslavsky, Bronstein, and Flohr. Thus, like Muhammad Ali in 1 97 1 , Keres returned to competition out of shape, and his post-war quarantine limited his chances to play back into form. Botvinnik may simply have had Keres "psyched." Botvinnik states in Achieving the Aim "Keres had failings which were well known to me . . . when his mood was spoiled he played below his capabilities." When their rivalry resumed in 1 947, Botvinnik "resolved with the help of this game [against Keres in the Chigorin Memorial] to rob my main rival . . . of his confidence." (p. 1 1 0). Botvinnik did indeed win, and may have succeeded in "spoiling Keres' mood" for some time. This again is not uncommon: Lasker had Capablanca psyched at St. Petersburg 1 9 14; Capablanca had Alekhine's number before 1 927; Tal had Fischer's in 1 959. Heuer says "There is no doubt that . . . Keres suffered a certain ' Botvinnik complex"'. Botvinnik also observed that Keres had "a tendency to fade somewhat at decisive moments in the struggle," or in common parlance he wasn't a "clutch player." Sports history is rife with talented teams and players who can't or don't "win the big one" : the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1 950s, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Cowboys in the 1 960s for example. I don't recall that cries of "Fix ! " were raised when they consi stently lost to the Yankees, Celtics an d Packers, respectively.
27 1

Histt1ry

Keres was highly variable. Immediately after sharing I st with Alekhine at Bad Nauheim 1 936, he placed 8-9th at Dresden. After beating the world's best at AVRO 1 938, he next placed only l 2- 1 3th against a much lesser field. Hague Moscow may have been a similar downswing. Finally, as Keres himself said, "Anyone can lose to Botvinnik, he is a very strong player." Consider his triumph at Groningen, 1 946, ahead of most of the world's best including many un coercible non-Russians. To insist that Botvinnik could not succeed without a fix is a very shaky stance. I do not claim these facts disprove coercion, but they do show that many simpler, mundane, non-conspiracy explanations are plausible. Occam's Razor requires that more complex hypotheses have supporting evidence.

Botvinnik for the Defense

Since Mikhail B otvinnik is, in a sense, the accused here, fairness requires that he be allowed to speak. Like Keres, he is dead, but his autobiography and certain interviews contain relevant statements. On the charge that he instigated Keres' arrest, Botvinnik told Valter Heuer in 1 990: "I did not act against him, I never intrigued. To my mind this is below a chess player 's dignity." He added that such rumors had been fueled some four years earlier by Karpov, in an interview by a Dr. Bernd Nielsen-Stokkeby. This German journalist researched Karpov's claims, and concluded "I consider Karpov's words a lie." Botvinnik did admit that he did nothing in particular to help Keres in 1 944-47, but as for seeking to hurt him, "I am above such nonsense." Certain episodes, as described in Botvinnik's autobiography Achieving the Aim, are not consistent with conscious complicity on his part. His first game with Keres at Hague-Moscow 1 948, in which Evans sees "fix" from move 2 1 , lasted 58 moves. Botvinnik writes ''The game adjourned with me a pawn up. I had to find a forced win . . . but I cannot find it. I ask for help from Flohr. Salo does not let me down, and found such a 'quiet' move that it all became clear." (p. 1 1 4). This is the post-adj ournment position.

The winning line was 41 h4! 42. g4 (42. gh4? itl'f4+ 43. c;ffg2 .lf3!) hg3+ 43. xg3 J;lf8! (Flohr's move) 44. bxa7+ xa7 45. a6 xh3 46. xh3 "ltf4+! 47. g2 'l;t'fl+ 48. h2 f2+ etc. That Botvinnik, a strong
..

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e ndga m e pl a y e r needed help, seems totally at odds with the idea that both he and Keres knew the game was rigged. On Evans' claim that, ironically, Botvinnik
,

threw his last Hague-Moscow game so that Keres could tie Reshevsky, we find: "There remained my final game with Keres ... I was thoroughly tired and [missed] a repetition of moves .. . Some people concluded that I lost on purpose . .. I confess that I have drawn by agreement . . . but in my career I have never deliberately lost to anyone." (p. 1 2 1 ). Nor, in an earlier incident, would he accept a gift win. He recounts that before the last round of Moscow 1 935, Soviet chess czar Krylenko proposed that Rabinovich purposely lose, to ensure Botvinnik 1 st place. Botvinnik refused, saying "then I will myself put a piece en prise and resign" (p. 43). This testimony is double-edged. It shows the Soviets already willing to rig important results, but Botvinnik feeling honor-bound to resist it. Two other incidents from Aim seem at odds with coercion theories. These describe the friendship that later grew between Keres and Botvinnik. On p. 1 66: "[In 1 960] Keres had been a guest at my dacha. He saw how we struggled with the coal [and said] 'It's time to go over to automatic oil-fired heating . . . You will have a quiet life and the results of your creative work will be better. "' Later Botvinnik describes Keres helping with analysis of a game in 1 969: "Keres thought a little and said, 'Can't you play it like this?' We looked at each other and burst out laughing for a long time, . . . so simple, unexpected and elegant was the decision Paul found." If Botvinnik had stolen Keres' lifelong dream, and Keres knew it, it would seem far more natural to nurse an unending hate-filled grudge, than to be such a man's house guest, to offer him friendly advice, and laugh with him like schoolboy chums. Perhaps Keres had the forgiving nature of a saint, or Botvinnik was a very artful liar, a disinformation artist on a par with Felix Derzhinsky or Josef Goebbels. One or the other seems re.quired to sustain the coercion hypothesis, barring the idea that it was done without Botvinnik's knowledge or consent. Two things stand out in this. One, it is almost impossible to reconcile Evans ' view of Hague-Moscow with Botvinnik's account. Evans is mistaken, or Botvinnik lied. Two, Botvinnik's public statements make the stakes for his posthumous reputation very high. For example in 1 984 he said "[Keres] was psychologically unstable; when he had to win, he played weakly. Chess is a game for strong people with strong character." Botvinnik must be innocent of any complicity in any coercion on Keres, or these words stink of hypocrisy.

Keres Coerced but Botvinnik Innocent? The Vukcevic Hypothesis

Yet another scenario is offered by Milan Vukcevic, a Yugoslavian who emigrated to America in the mid- 1 960s, and who now lives in Cleveland, Ohio. Born in
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llistt1ry

1 937, Vukcevic is a FIDE Master i n OTB p l ay and an I n ternational G rand ma s te r for Composition. I contacted him because of a letter, published by Evans i n Chess Life, i n which James Schroeder cited Vukcevic i n support o f his extreme views on the Keres case (though, oddly, Schroeder omitted any mention of Vukcevic in his CHESS article). Vukcevic discussed the Keres-Botvinnik case with me in a lengthy phone interview in late 1 997. Vukcevic became acquainted with Keres in the 1 950s (at a tournament in Hastings, England) and later with Botvinnik. In a nutshell, he believes Keres was coerced in 1 948, but that Botvinnik had no part in it. He believes that Keres made inferior moves without Botvinnik' s knowledge, and that possibly Botvinnik was fed advance information about Keres' planned opening repertoire by duplicitous seconds (a tactic Vukcevic says was once used against himself, in a Russian tournament, and which has been alleged in some recent world title matches). Of Vukcevic's hypothesis we can definitely say : 1 ) It is much narrower in scope than Schroeder's, directly contradicting him on Botvinnik's involvement, and offering him no support on allegations of post- 1 948 coercion. It is misleading of Schroeder to imply that he has Vukcevic's full support. 2) It partially contradicts Evans, as a Botvinnik free of complicity could not have purposely thrown his 5th game with Keres at Hague-Moscow. 3) It is the only scenario in which a coerced Keres and an innocent Botvinnik can coexist. Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify. Vukcevic 's knowledge is not firsthand. Keres did not tell him anything related to Hague-Moscow while at Hastings. His opinion regarding coercion derives from a fellow Yugoslav, GM Petar Trifunovic, who died in 1 980. Where Trifunovic got his information, Vukcevic does not know. By our quasi-legal standard, that puts it into the category of hearsay. While Mr. Vukcevic impressed me as a man of integrity and intelligence, we must have more factual support before accepting his views.

Research, Not Speculation: The Heuer Article

In terms of factual research, Valter Heuer of Estonia appears at this time to be doing the best work on the Keres-Botvinnik case. Heuer, who knew Keres well, has described in New In Chess (#4, 1 995) his decades-long search for the facts. He uncovered such important documents as the Molotov letter, and he has conducted many interviews, with sources ranging from Garry Kasparov to Keres' widow, some of which I have already cited. Some highlights from his NIC article:

1) Keres appears to corroborate allegations that the 1 94 1 "Absolute" Championship of the USSR was organized for Botvinnik's benefit. In a letter he complained "The tournament conditions are appropriate for Mischenka [i.e. Botvinnik] but not for other contestants."
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2) Alekhine repeatedly offered Keres a title match circa 1 942-44 but Keres dec l i ned, not wanting a match during depressing wartime conditions. Some Russians, notably Kotov, unfairly imputed cowardice to Keres in this. 3) Keres was never imprisoned by the Soviets, contrary to assertions by Koltanowski and others. Furthermore, while Heuer cites GM Yuri Averbakh's claim of a warrant for Keres' arrest in 1 944, he describes no formal arrest ever taking place, contrary to Evans and Schroeder, who claim Keres was arrested and/or faced with imminent execution. This is not at all to say Keres was treated well during 1 944-46. His movements were circumscribed, and he was at least twice lengthily interrogated, once frighteningly at secret police headquarters while suffering from an ear infection. Worse, in October 1 944, he also had his home confiscated, though Keres said this was due to authorities confusing him with a criminal, one Robert Keres. Heuer does not say when or if the mistake was ever rectified. 4) Keres' ceding to Botvinnik of the right to challenge Alekhine probably took place on a visit to Moscow in December 1 945 . Heuer raises the question of a secret match deciding the issue but does not pursue it. 5) As late as 1 947 a group of Soviet players "lodged a complaint in which Keres was still stamped as a fascist."
In sum, Heuer shows that Keres had a very hard time in the post-war years leading up to Hague-Moscow, hardships which surely could have affected his play. Heuer quotes Boris Spassky, that a world championship aspirant "must forget everything else in this world, throw aside all the superfluous" - which a man in Keres' trying position could not possibly do.

Heuer's Conclusions
However, Heuer does not claim that these hardships constituted a policy aimed at sabotaging Keres' chess. He notes that Keres' widow Maria denies any fix. During the 1 948 tournament, Heuer "maintained contacts with the Hague and Moscow, in general I got a certain idea of Keres' ambitions and moods." Finally, Heuer concludes: "I have no proof that those historic competitions were only bad charades. On the contrary, the facts known to me confirm that Keres went to fight and win." (my emphasis) . So here is Heuer, a diligent researcher with more firsthand evidence, more opportunity than anyone else to prove conspiracy, and as a Keres admirer and fellow Estonian, more than ample motivation to do so. Yet he can not.

Bronstein

vs.

the Tin God

The glaring flaws in Schroeder's arguments, the more subtle flaws in Evans' , Botvinnik's denials, the plausibil ity of alternate explanations, and finally Heuer's reservations, were leading me to conclude that either there was no overt conspiracy in 1 948, or that if there were, it was far from being proven. Had I not
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read David B ron s te in s The Sorcerer :\ Apprentice, that is probably how this article would have concluded. The Ukrainian GM Bronstein was in 1 95 1 the first challenger for Botvinnik's crown. Bronstein led late in the match, but Botvinnik. managed to tie (+5 -5 =14) and by rule kept his title, by the least possible margin. As with Keres, it has been speculated that Bronstein was coerced to lose.
'

The Sorcerer s Apprentice (Cadogan, 1 995), part games collection, part memoir, never touches directly on the Keres-Botvinnik case, which is somewhat surprising, as Keres and Bronstein were close friends. However, it offers many relevant insights by a Soviet chess insider. Here are some of the most important:

1) Bronstein does not unequivocally say whether he was coerced in 1 95 1 : "A lot of nonsense has been written about this," he says, but adds "I was subjected to strong psychological pressure from various sources and it was entirely up to me to yield to that pressure or not" (p. 1 6). This annoyingly vague but ominous statement leads one to wonder what "strong psychological pressure" might have been put to Keres. 2) Botvinnik's first major international notice came in 1 933 by drawing a ten game match (+2 -2 =8) with Salo Flohr. Bronstein claims that Flohr, who at one point had a 2-game lead, was bribed to let Botvinnik draw the match (p. 83). 3) When American GM Reuben Fine declined to play at Hague-Moscow 1 948, many felt Miguel N ajdorf should have taken his place. According to Bronstein's co-author Tom Furstenberg, that was vetoed by Botvinnik out of spite, for Najdorf's boasting at Groningen 1 946 that he would "pluck Botvinnik like a chicken," and then doing just that at the board (p. 1 0). This directly contradicts Botvinnik, who says that Najdorf offered a draw beforehand (Aim, p. 1 03). 4) Botvinnik in 1 948 already realized the threat Bronstein posed, and tried (unsuccessfully) to keep him out of the Interzonal (p. 88). 5) Botvinnik personally dictated the championship qualifying rules adopted by FIDE, setting up a stacked deck to maximize his advantage as incumbent (pp. 1 7, 108, 1 20). Even a rule seemingly motivated by fairness, limiting the number of candidates from any one country, was a Botvinnik ploy to lower the number of opponents he had to prepare for (p. 1 20).
Bronstein in sum paints a very unflattering picture ofBotvinnik: a petty, pompous egoist who reveled in his role as a tin god of Socialist Culture, and who had few if any scruples about reaching and maintaining himself on that pedestal. What to make of this? It could be dismissed as the catty cheap shots of a disgruntled has-been, and some of Bronstein's book does smack of sour grapes and fogeyism. Yet Bronstein has always been respected for his integrity, and the accuracy of his memory. Clearly on the Najdorf veto, either he or Botvinnik is wrong or lying. And if points #4 or #5 are true, then Botvinnik lied when he claimed "I never intrigued." Ironically, and surprisingly, Bronstein even says string-pulling gave him the title shot in the first place. "Isaac Boleslavsky was leading in the [ 1 950]

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Candidates Tnurnumcnt but after a talk with [Soviet Chess Federation head] Boris Vainstein he decided to slow down to allow me to tie for first place with him , (p. 1 07; my emphasis) resulting in a play-off which Bronstein won. The iro n y is that this seems contrary to the policy usually ascribed to the Soviets.
"

Bronstein, with a politically tainted father, and a winning record (+ 1 = 1) against Botvinnik at the time, would appear to have been less desirable than the politically clean Boleslavsky, who couldn't beat Botvinnik with a stick (+0 -7 =4 through 1 950). If Soviet policy was to make the chess world safe for Communism and Botvinnik, why help Bronstein? Still, this is further testimony that the Soviets sometimes rigged results in FIDE events . And it is clear that Bronstein and Botvinnik cannot both be taken at face value. If Achieving the Aim's depiction of a stern but fair Botvinnik is valid, then Bronstein is a character assassin. If Bronstein is right, then Botvinnik's credibility is compromised, and with it some of his defense against charges of complicity. And if he is complicit, he is, arguably, the greatest cheat and hypocrite in chess history.

The Testimony of Sztein

Some months after writing the above paragraph and, I thought, completing this article, Hanan Russell brought a new source to my attention: Emanuel Sztein, whom I interviewed by telephone in March 1 998. Sztein, a Russian emigre, is a chess master, historian and writer with contacts among the older generation of ex-Soviet grandmasters. He has, for example, served as press attache to Viktor Korchnoi, and was friends with the aforementioned Feodor Bohatirchuk in Canada c. 1 973-80. Sztein is certain that Keres was coerced, with Botvinnik actively complicit. In support, he first offered two incidents as indirect evidence. One, at the 1 935 Moscow tournament, Bohatirchuk defeated Botvinnik in their game. Sztein says that according to Bohatirchuk, immediately after that, B ohatirchuk was told by Krylenko, then supreme administrative head of Soviet chess, in a manner heavy with thinly veiled threats, that he was never to defeat B otvinnik again. Two, at one time Botvinnik desired to obtain a dacha (summer house) in an area normally reserved for the highest of the Soviet nomenklatura. This request was opposed by Lavrente Beria, politically an extremely powerful man, perhaps second then only to Stalin in the Soviet hierarchy. According to Sztein, Botvinnik went over Beria's head, and got his request granted. These incidents, he says, illustrate the tremendous influence Botvinnik wielded. When I pointed out that this did not necessarily mean that Botvinnik used this influence against Keres, Sztein had an extremely interesting response. Sztein said he is privy to the memoirs of GM Yuri Averbakh, which are to be published (in Russian) in the near future. Averbakh (born 1 922), has been not
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only a strong player, but also editor of the principal Soviet chess magazi ne Schachmaty, a member of several important FIDE committees, and president of the Soviet Chess Federation ( 1 972-77). He therefore has been heavily involved in all aspects of Soviet chess. Sztein, tantalizingly, said he was not yet at liberty to divulge excerpts from Averbakh's memoirs until they are published, but he made it clear they included revelations about dirty deals, including the Keres case. He further stated that Botvinnik, while he lived, was extremely concerned about his posthumous image (note: Vukcevic also mentioned this), and that some in Russia who might have spoken against Botvinnik have to date held their tongues due to fear of reprisal from Botvinnik's friends and heirs.
The tantalizing ambiguity of the Averbakh implications was frustrating to me, but Sztein refused to elaborate further. So I asked him point blank: did he believe Keres was coerced in 1 948? His response: "I know it with certainty." And Botvinnik was actively complicit? "Yes ."

This Way Lies Madness

The reader can now appreciate the maddening complexities of this affair. Mystery, contradictory claims and implications abound. My conclusion? Frankly, few things would give me more pleasure than to say that Keres, by all accounts one of the kindest gentlemen who ever pushed a pawn, had been cheated by the humorless Stalinist Botvinnik. It may yet come to that, but has not quite yet. On the one hand we have the diligent researcher Heuer, who cannot, with his available evidence, conclude that Hague-Moscow 1 948, or any other tournaments involving Keres and Botvinnik, were "only bad charades." He clearly shows that Keres suffered under handicaps, some government-imposed, which probably affected his play, but lacks clear proof that Soviet policy was to sabotage Keres or that Botvinnik had the KGB order him to lose. Heuer hardly succeeds in allaying all suspicion, however. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and the testimony of Vukcevic, Sztein and Bronstein at least raises eyebrows, perhaps even stands one's hair on end. However Vukcevic and Sztein are in part corroborative, in part contradictory. Bronstein says nothing directly about the Keres case, and Sztein's testimony would be more forceful if directly corroborated by a primary source such as Averbakh. By the quasi-legal standard I have tried to uphold, their status as evidence is problematic . Heuer has reason to believe that the complete government files on Keres are "in the foreign policy archives of the Russian Federation," but as of 1 995 his requests for access had been denied. If those come to light, and the expected memoirs of Averbakh are published, the Keres case, and other unresolved questions of the highly politicized world of Soviet chess, may be definitely settled. Heuer pleads that "the Keres dossiers must be made available. This is the demand made by his honour and dignity as well as B otvinnik's, the honour and dignity of the chess world." I would add to that a
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plea that the Averhakh memoirs be published in English as well as Russian. I ulso urge the chess journalism community to heed Heuer's plea. Help him, or send someone to Russia and Estonia to investigate, to dig into archives and to interview people who may know, such as Bronstein, Smyslov, Averbakh or Yefim Geller, and soon, before they are gone. Find out as much as can found, and replace opinion and speculation with fact. The honor and dignity of the chess world, not to mention its sense of justice and its burning curiosity, do indeed demand it. (June 1 998)

The Keres-Botvinnik Case Revisited: A Further Survey of the Evidence

Taylor Kingston
Was Paul Keres was coerced by Soviet authorities to throw games to Mikhail Botvinnik in the 1 948 world championship? The question has intrigued and baffled chess historians for over 50 years. Especially since 1 995, interest has intensified, with everything from sound research to baseless opinion being offered. This writer attempted his own contribution in 1 998 with "The Keres Botvinnik Case: A Survey of the Evidence", published both on this web-site and in Chess Life (5/98). Since then new evidence has surfaced, justifying a further look, and perhaps something that eluded me in 1 998: a conclusion.

Background
Briefly, the 1 948 Hague-Moscow tournament was organized by FIDE to decide the world title, vacant since Alekhine' s 1 946 death. Botvinnik, scoring 14-6 (+ 10 =8 -2), won convincingly over Smyslov ( 1 1 -9), Keres and Reshevsky (each 10lh-9lh), and Euwe (4- 1 6). Important was Botvinnik's +4 -1 score against Keres, his best against any opponent, the loss coming only after 1 st place was clinched. Because Keres was a non-Russian and by Communist standards politically tainted, it soon was suspected that the oppressive Stalin regime had pressured him to lose to Botvinnik, who was acceptable as an icon of Socialist Culture.

State of the Evidence

Suspicions have persisted ever since, despite a scarcity of direct evidence. Keres said next to nothing on the subject publicly, Botvinnik slightly more but only to deny any wrongdoing. No Soviet official made any significant announcement, either pre- or post glasnost. Friends of the principals, e.g. Bronstein, said nothing definite. After the USSR broke up, various documents surfaced, but no clear "smoking gun." Ideally coercion theorists would like the dusty KGB archives to divulge something like "The reactionary traitor and fascist collaborator Paul
-

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Hi,,,,,
Keres is hereby instructed to expedite the H i sto ri ca l ly Inevitable Triumph of Communism by rendering all possible assistance to People's Hero Mikhail Botvinnik, particularly when they play each other. In recognition of Keres' service to the cause of Socialist Revolution, the People 's Committee for State Security will refrain from shooting him. (signed) J. Stalin, General Secretary." In the absence of such documentation, arguments for a fix have rested mainly on inference, politics and probability.

Inferring from the Games

Inference has focused mainly on the games. Some say Keres made such bad moves at key points that to a trained eye they are strong indications, even dead giveaways, that he was playing to lose, a prime example being GM Larry Evans' "The Tragedy of Paul Keres" (Chess Life, October 1 996), about which more later. Evans has gone so far as to imply that his analyses are comparable to the Zapruder film of the John Kennedy assassination. Others say Keres ' mistakes look no worse, and in some cases far less bad, than countless other errors, made by even great players, under circumstances where coercion was obviously no factor. Errare humanum est, and all that. I consider analysis potentially relevant, but by itself neither necessary nor sufficient to establish coercion. I have consulted several very strong players, without finding consensus. Those who see the games as evidence of coercion include GMs Hans Ree and Jan Timman, as well as Evans. On the other hand, IM John Watson and GM John Nunn are on record to the opposite effect. A full discussion of the five Keres-Botvinnik games, and the various interpretations of them, could fill a small book, which perhaps I will write someday, but not here and now - there simply isn't space. Therefore this aspect of the case will, reluctantly, be bypassed for now - not because it has no bearing, but because it cannot be properly dealt with in a few paragraphs. I will note in passing that Evans' Zapruder analogy is specious. The Zapruder film at least clearly shows a crime. We know a man is shot, but not by whom or why. In contrast, Keres' games show no crime, only chess moves, but if he was coerced, the political situation tells us by whom and why.

Politics and Probability

Compared to analysis, this line of argument is perhaps stronger and easier to grasp. Today relatively few recall the severity of Stalinism or the intensity of Cold War ideological passions. In World War II, Red Army soldiers, if captured by the Germans and later freed, would often be shot by their own army on grounds of ideological contamination. Keres was not a combatant or defector, but he was under a definite cloud for playing in Nazi-organized tournaments while Estonia was under German occupation, and later he was suspected of assisting
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anti-Soviet Estonian patriots . While his international fame, and the intervention

of a friendly Estonian Communist Party official, helped spare him, it can be argued that the likelihood of the Stalin regime blithely allowing him in 1 948 to
become World Chess Champion, and thereby a major representative of S oviet Culture, was comparable to that of a Mormon becoming Pope. It is well established that Soviet authorities

1 945. By virtue of AVRO 1 938,

Keres still

had already pressured Keres as early as had the right to challenge Alekhine for

the world title. However, with Estonia back under Soviet control, Keres stood aside for Botvinnik. Alekhine's death denied the Soviets this easy path to the world title. But havhg once held Keres back, would they hesitate to do so again? Also since

1 948 it has become known that various forms of cheating and coercion

were employed by the Soviets for years : fictitious results to manufacture titles,

1 935 and most famously at Curaao 1 962 (see Soltis' Soviet Chess 191 7-1991 , pp. 257 -258), bribery (e.g Taimanov Matulovic, 1 970), machinations within FIDE to goad Fischer toward abdication,
collusion in major tournaments as early as covert threats in the Karpov-Korchnoi matches, to name but a few. There are indications of game-fixing as far back as

1 933.

If the Soviets used such tactics

so often, would they have played fair when it mattered most, in

1 948?

Despite their plausibility and seductiveness, I rejected probability-based arguments in my in

1 998

article, taking a quasi-legal stance. In American courts a

murder conviction requires proof of motive, method, and opportunity. Certainly lacking, in fact there was no factual support. Reaction in some quarters to my

1 948 the Soviet regime had motive and opportunity. But proof of method was prima facie evidence of any crime. Furthermore Evans in 1 996 employed arguments from probability, but made a mess of his

1 998

article indicated that my motives, in this

regard, were misunderstood. My reluctance to accept probability and inference did not stem from any pro-Soviet or anti-Keres bias . Quite the opposite. Keres, both as a man and a chessmaster, has long been one of my favorite players, and Botvinnik one of my least favorite.

I consider the

Stalin regime to have been an

abomination, not j ust on humanitarian, political, economic, military or cultural grounds, but also for its corruption of chess . I consider arguments that it "advanced the game" like praising Hitler for the Autobahn. So just because I refuse to jump to conclusions, let no right-winger call me "soft on communism." No, I would not hesitate to say that the Evil Empire took a crooked path to the world title, but if the Communists ' guilt is to be established, it must be on a solid, factual basis, not just the "Everybody knows Commies are cheaters" sort of knee-jerk prej udice. That takes research. As

stated in

1 998,

some of the best research in this area

has been done by Estonian Valter Heuer (born

1 928),

a friend of Keres. His

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HL11ttry

article "The Trou bled Years of Pau l Keres" (New In Chess, #4, 1 995) i s an excellent examination of Keres' WW 11 and postwar situation through 1 948. However, though coercion theorists (e.g. Evans, Schroeder) have cited it as supporting their ideas, it does not go that far. Heuer does demonstrate that over 1 945-48 Keres suffered many hardships and distractions that surely hurt his chess performance, but these are not construed as deliberate Soviet policy to help Botvinnik. To the contrary, Heuer says "the facts known to me confirm that Keres went to fight and win."
However, it appears Heuer has not uncovered any major discoveries since 1 995. Let us examine what has turned up elsewhere since then.

Cafferty's Comments
In the February 2000 British Chess Magazine appeared a one-page article by Bernard Cafferty, "Keres and the KGB". Cafferty, a respected historian with considerable expertise on Russia and Soviet chess, discussed recently unearthed documents not mentioned by Heuer, but which support Heuer's account in NIC. Cafferty wrote "A document of 29th August 1 946 states that Botvinnik and Smyslov had been investigated by the 'organs of state security' and there was no compromising material on them. However, serious compromising material had been discovered on Keres, by reason of his collaboration with the Germans . . . and his links with active participants of the Estonian 'bourgeois-nationalist underground' ." On this basis Keres was denied permission to travel abroad, for example to the 1 946 Groningen tournament, won by Botvinnik. However "A handwritten PS added to the document and dated 17 September 1 946 stated that the Secretary of the Estonian Communist Party vouches for Keres and considers it possible for him to be sent abroad." This was, I believe, Nikolai Karotamm, who according to Heuer was a "true Stalinist" but also an advocate for Keres as early as May 1 946. He apparently aided Keres' reinstatement, for, says Cafferty, "A document dated 19 March 1 947 and signed personally by Stalin authorises the admission of the USSR to FIDE and the participation ofBotvinnik, Keres and Smyslov in a world title event ' ... in the USSR' ." This obviously was later expanded, allowing Keres to go to Holland in 1 948. Cafferty knows of "no documents giving chapter and verse to any fix," but he concludes that "Keres must have known what outcome the Soviet state deemed desirable. He may well have entered the event reconciled to playing only for second place." The phrases "must have" and "may well have" still smack of speculation, but as we will see there is more behind them.

Keres and Whyld

Briton Ken Whyld, co-author of The Ox ford Companion to Chess, is another highly respected chess historian. His contribution to this discussion is best expressed in his own words:
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"Keres told me i n private, when he was my guest in Nottingham, that he was not ordered to lose those games to Botvinnik, and was not playing to lose. B ut he had been given a broader instruction that if Botvinnik failed to become World Champion, it must not be the fault of Keres." (emphasis added) This was posted on Tim Krabbe's on-line Chess Diary (www.xs4all. nV-timkr/

chess2/diary_4. htm), as item #65, 1 1 June 2000. In a later e-mail to this writer, dated 14 September 2000 , Whyld expanded on it:
"At the end of 1 962 Keres made a visit to the British Isles, sponsored by the British Chess Federation and the British-Soviet Friendship Society, to give a series of simultaneous displays . . . Keres arrived in Nottingham on 27 November, and it was my pleasant task, as president of the Nottinghamshire Chess Association, to be his host. That evening he was my guest at dinner, just the two of us, and he expressed very frank opinions on a number of topics . . . Emboldened by his relaxed attitude I was impudent enough to ask if he had 'thrown' those games in the 1 948 World Championship. Not so. He had never found it easy to play Botvinnik. However he would have been in serious trouble had B. not won the title because of any action by Keres." (emphasis added) This constitutes, I believe, an important corroboration of Cafferty's thesis, perhaps even a long-sought "smoking gun." The Krabbe Diary was its first publication. That Whyld would keep it secret for nearly 38 years puzzled me. In another e-mail dated 1 1 August 2001 he clarified, and hedged somewhat: "I never regarded it as something to repeat in his lifetime, although he was probably secure enough in his later years . Later I thought it not worth repeating. Firstly there is only my word for it, and secondly he might not have been telling the truth."

Mr. Whyld is becomingly modest, and a skeptic might focus on the doubt of that last sentence, but I am inclined to take the story at face value.

The Botvinnik Interview

A few months before Whyld 's revelation, another relevant item appeared on Krabbe's site. Item #42, posted 10 December 1 999, describes an interview with B otvinnik, by Dutch j ournalist Max Pam with emigre GM Genna Sosonko translating. Pam apparently did not realize the significance of what he had, for he did not publicize it widely to the chess world. Instead, the interview appeared only in the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland (20 August 1 99 1 ), a general-interest weekly not devoted to chess . It attracted little attention until Krabbe translated a portion into English and put it on his site over 8 years later. In the key passage, Botvinnik was asked if he had ever known of collusion between Soviet players. His reply :
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...

"I have experienced myse l f that orders were g i ven. In 1 948 I played with

Keres,

Smyslov, Reshevsky and Euwe for the world title. After the first half of the tournament, which took place in the Netherlands, it was clear that I was going to be world champion." (Note: strictly s peaking, Holland was venue for the first

2/

of the tournament, not "the first half." After two laps, eight rounds, when the Keres and Smyslov

contestants had played each other twice, the score stood Botvinnik 6, Reshevsky

4.

4,

Euwe

1 .)

"During the second half in Moscow something unpleasant happened. At a very high level, Smyslov]

it was proposed that the other Soviet players [i.e. Keres and would lose to me on purpose, in order to make sure there was going to be a Soviet World Champion. It was Stalin personally who proposed this."

(emphasis added) Amazing ! For the first time, B otvinnik publicly states the existence of a conspiracy, with orders from the very top, none other than Stalin himself. Obviously, we have here the long-sought smoking gun. Or do we? The rest of Botvinnik's statement clouds the picture: "But of course I refused ! It was an intrigue against me, to belittle me. A ridiculous proposal, only made to put down the future World Champion. In some circles, people preferred Keres to be World Champion. It was disgraceful, because I had already proven by and large that I was stronger at that time than Keres and Smyslov." Bizarre. The fix proposal was intended to insult him, and perhaps to help Keres? Nonsensical, as Krabbe notes. B otvinnik had something of a persecution complex, and it seems to be badly skewing his interpretation of events here. And what of the claim that he refused? Not his only such; see for example

Achieving the Aim, p. 43, where he rejects Krylenko 's suggestion that Rabinovitch throw him a game in 1 935. B ut the two incidents are not entirely comparable.
Rejecting a suggestion by Krylenko is perhaps conceivable, but refusing orders from Stalin himself? Hard to believe. In most areas of policy Stalin was no more flexible than Hitler, and at least as brutal . Was chess so different, or Botvinnik so privileged? Other details are odd. Botvinnik says the idea of a fix did not come up until the tournament moved to Moscow, like it was a sudden whim. The statistics ambiguous. Botvinnik's Moscow score his Hague score

are

(8-4, 67%)

was in fact slightly below Only if we

(6-2, 75%).

His combined score against Keres and Smyslov

shows the same trend: Moscow difference: in laps

+3 -1 =2, 67%; Hague +2 =2, 75%. +3 = 1 , 88%,

throw out the last lap , after Botvinnik had already clinched the title, do we see a

3-4

he scored

against his fellow Soviets. This

included his only win over Smyslov, but Botvinnik' s easiest game against Keres had been their second, at the Hague.

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History
So do we accept Botvinnik 1 00%? Do we dismiss it all as the grousings of a grumpy paranoid octogenarian, or pick and choose what to believe? I prefer to avoid speculation on each detail. Clearly it is at very least another confirmation of the basic thesis of official pro-Botvinnik pressure. Coupled with Whyld's testimony, it shows, at a minimum, that there was an officially desired outcome, and both Keres and Botvinnik knew what it was.

There is another argument for at least partial acceptance. Botvinnik's admission of a fix order is so different, so at odds with everything he and Soviet officialdom have said before, that it is very hard to explain unless it were a fact.

Refuting Evans' Gambits

An inspiration for my foray into this subject was GM Larry Evans' 1 996 article "The Tragedy of Paul Keres". Evans considered it "an inescapable conclusion" that Keres "was forced to take a dive." At first I found Evans ' case persuasive, and sent two laudatory letters to him and Chess Life in late 1 996. However further research revealed flaws. Having discussed these in 1 998, I would not now bring Evans up, except that his actions since then demand some response. One example will illustrate the slipshod and misleading aspects of Evans' approach. In 1 995 James Schroeder, a splenetic, boorish American with no particular expertise on Soviet chess, wrote a severely flawed, biased, baseless article on Keres and Botvinnik, which eventually appeared in the British monthly CHESS (411 996). It was quoted by Evans as if it were established fact. This is something like regarding The Mikado as a documentary on Japan. Evans further misled CL readers by never naming Schroeder as the author, instead presenting it as an official report by CHESS. In fact Malcolm Pein, executive editor of CHESS, later repudiated the article and expressed regret they had ever run it ( e mail, 5 September 1 997). Such discoveries prompted me to revise my opinion of Evans' article, a revision I stated publicly here and in Chess Life, and privately in letters to Evans in late 1 998. My tone was always cordial and I was open to discussing our differences, but Evans gave me no response, nor did he publish any of my critical letters in his column. That was his prerogative, but in other things Evans went beyond his rights. On at least two occasions he has written about me, in connection with the Keres case, in a misleading, deceptive manner. The first occurred in late 1 999, the now well-known Kingpin letter. Evans quoted my laudatory 1 996 letter, giving the impression I still supported "Tragedy" when he knew full well I no longer did. This drew a sharp response from me, Kingpin editor Jon Manley, and from Edward Winter in his article "The Facts About Larry Evans" (see the Skittles Room archives).
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Hlstflry

And yet, Evans seems not to have learned from this, for in the Septe m be r 2lX) J Chess Life he committed an even more blatant act of deceit, saying " B ut [Kingston's] ' Survey of the Evidence' (Chess Life, May 1 998) devotes six pages to the topic without reaching any conclusion despite what Keres told Whyld and Botvinnik's startling admission in a 1 99 1 interview that Stalin did
intervene" (emphasis added). Amazing ! By saying "despite" Evans alleges that in 1 998 I overlooked or dismissed important evidence. Yet in 1998 this evidence was unknown to me. Furthermore, it was also unknown to Evans. The Botvinnik interview was not published in English until l 0 December 1 999. Whyld never allowed publication of his 1 962 secret until 1 1 June 2000. I have corroboration of the dates and facts from Pam, Krabbe, and Whyld themselves. Evans' "despite" gambit is the low trick of a dirty politician, not the act of a responsible historian/journalist.

The Tragedy of Larry Evans

It is a minor tragedy that Evans has taken this adversarial attitude. Unlike some of his critics, I never dismissed his ideas out of hand. Nor did I claim he had reached wrong conclusions; I questioned some of his evidence and methods. Questions on which he has never deigned to answer me. Had he been responsive like Whyld, Cafferty, Krabbe, Watson, Ree, Yasser Seirawan, Milan Vukcevic, Emanuel Sztein, Leonard Barden, Andy Soltis, Anthony Saidy, and others who aided my research, we might have had a constructive dialogue. Ironically, on the Keres case I have arrived at conclusions similar to Evans ' . However about Evans himself I have come to a new opinion, a much lower one. Evans has every right to disagree with me, but not the right to mislead.

Summation and Verdict

A summation of important points:

1. B otvinnik was preferred by the Soviet government as a world champion, as shown by the pressure put on Keres not to interfere in his challenge to Alekhine. 2. Keres was in political disfavor circa 1 945-46, as is amply documented. It is therefore unlikely that the Soviet government would accept Keres as world champion in 1 948. 3. B otvinnik says that there was an official order, or at least proposal, from Stalin that Keres and Smyslov to lose to him. 4. Whyld testifies that Keres knew he would have been in serious trouble had he somehow caused Botvinnik not to win the title.
From my 1 998 quasi-legal standpoint, is this enough for a conviction? Probably not. However, from an historian's standpoi nt, it is probably more reasonable to
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HisttJry adopt a scientific standard. As explained by Stephen Gould, a scientific

hypothesis is considered proven if "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." Based on all the above evidence and testimony, not to grant provisional assent to the hypothesis of coercion on Keres seems willfully obtuse. Conclusion: the Commies did it. One wonders exactly how the coercion was carried out, what form it took. Some writers seem to envision the KGB holding Keres or his family at gunpoint. More plausible seems a scenario described by Cafferty in an 8/200 1 e-mail: "Such a message may have been imparted to Keres by an Estonian CP boss (i.e. by an ethnic Estonian) and represented to him as a way of regularising his position vis-a-vis potential accusations of wartime collaboration with the Nazis by participating in 'Fascist' tournaments." Cafferty says "this was not necessarily a fully blown order to throw games." Perhaps, but it seems the next closest thing. Semantically nicer than a brutal "lose or we kill you" ultimatum, but with the same practical effect on Keres at the board.

Coercion After 1948?

The most extreme coercion theorists (e.g. Schroeder) assert that the leash put on Keres in 1 948 stayed the rest of his career, explaining his near-misses in the Candidates Tournaments of 1 953 (2nd-4th behind Smyslov), 1 956 (2nd again to Smyslov), 1 959 (2nd to Tal), and 1 962 (2nd-3rd behind Petrosian). Attractive and consistent though this idea is, it lacks basis. Perhaps there were lingering psychological effects, but for post- 1 948 official repression, especially after Stalin's death in March 1 953, evidence is lacking. Furthermore, Cafferty points out that in mid- 1 954, Botvinnik suffered something of a fall from grace, the result of a 4-page letter he wrote to the leaders of the new post-Stalin regime, which appeared in the Russian journal /storichesky Arkhiv (#2/ 1 993, pp. 58-67). The letter dealt with the highly-charged topic of socialist revolution in western countries. Evidently its ideas were too unorthodox. The official reply from the Central Committee was sternly critical, going so far as to suggest that Botvinnik might not belong in the Communist Party ! Botvinnik apparently recanted his heresy, but the damage was done. Cafferty says "So, Botvinnik was not in such good standing with the CP after 1 954, when the emergence of other challengers meant that support of [Botvinnik] was no longer such a vital government priority." Thus with Keres politically rehabilitated, and Botvinnik no longer in favor, it seems likely that whatever kept Keres from winning a Candidates Tournament and finally getting a title match, it was not government coercion. However, unofficial Soviet chicanery may have spoiled Keres' last chance, though ironically in this case he was a voluntary participant.
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HL,tory

At the 1 962 C a nd i d a tes Tournament, in Curac;ao, Tal was i l l , while Fischer had not reached mature strength. Thus the favorites were Keres, Petrosian, and Geller. Petrosian talked the other two into a "gentleman's agreement," whereby they would play short draws with each other (see Soltis, p. 257). This perhaps helped them to keep Fischer at bay, but it also hampered Keres, who at the time was probably stronger than Petrosian or Geller (Keres won a post-Curaao playoff with Geller +2 -1 =5). Had Keres played to win, chances are he would have won at least one game against either or both. Other things being equal, that would have been enough, because Keres missed 1 st place by only Y2-point. Then it might have been he rather than Petrosian who finally dethroned Botvinnik for good. A story line rich in irony and poetic justice, but only a might-have-been. In the next Candidates cycle, 1 965, Keres was eliminated by the younger Spassky and never again was a serious challenger.

Unanswered Questions
Assuming 1 948 coercion on Keres to be established, a major question remains: Botvinnik's degree of complicity. The stakes for his posthumous image are high. As a passive beneficiary his image, at least in terms of ethics, is spared; as an active instigator he becomes a major hypocrite. In 1 998 I cited Korchnoi associate Emanuel Sztein, who claimed to know that Botvinnik was actively complicit, and who promised damaging revelations in a forthcoming memoir by Yuri Averbakh. This memoir has yet to appear. More recent, and tending to an opposite view, is this comment by Cafferty: "I cannot decide whether [Botvinnik] was merely a compliant receiver of privilege or an instigator. Gut feeling, though, says the former." (e-mail, 20 Feb. 2000) . More substantive, though, is a very recent interview with Smyslov. In the 1 2/ 2000 issue of the Russian magazine 64, the only surviving participant of Hague Moscow said: "Many years later Botvinnik, giving an interview in Holland, said that Stalin, through intermediaries, suggested that in the Moscow part of the 1 948 match tournament the other Soviet participants should 'ensure' Botvinnik' s leadership. When Botvinnik knew about Stalin's ' advice' he was very angry. This mistrust of his chess strength was humiliating for him. During the closing ceremony of the match-tournament he 'forgot,' as was the rule at the time, to thank Stalin for his attention to chess players. And in their tum, the authorities 'forgot' to award Botvinnik with the Order of Lenin, which he received together with me in 1 957 after he had lost a match to me ...
"

Very interesting. Smyslov 's account supports the idea that Botvinnik did indeed say "no" to Stalin, or at least honestly resented his interference. That Botvinnik, who sent a gushing, sycophantic telegram to Stalin after winning Nottingham
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History

1 936, would neglect to thank him in 1 948, thereby incurring the displeasure of authorities he had always cultivated, seems more than slightly significant.
Other questions : What does Bronstein know? What else on Keres may still await discovery in Soviet archives? Why Keres' unusually long resistance in his first, third and fourth games with Botvinnik at Hague-Moscow? Did Botvinnik deliberately let Keres win their last game, to prevent Reshevsky finishing ahead of Keres? Most of these and others will probably remain forever unanswered. If Bronstein can divulge anything more, he had best be asked soon. As for archives, the diligent investigator Valter Heuer has found little new since 1 995. Has the resurgence of Keres-related research Heuer helped start run its course? One hopes not.

Does It Matter?
It's sometimes said "So what if there was a fix? Botvinnik would have won anyway !", or "Who cares what happened 50 years ago?". I find these attitudes disturbing. To make a political analogy, Richard Nixon would probably have won re-election as U.S . President in 1 972 no matter how his campaign was conducted. Yet during and after the campaign he and/or his subordinates engaged in manifold illegal activities, most notably the Watergate break-in and cover up. The threat of impeachment led to his resignation. To argue that Nixon should have been forgiven, because "he would have won anyway," is to flout the Constitution of the United States. As for the "50 years ago" argument, discovery and prosecution of Nazi war criminals still goes on today. Granted, fixing a chess tournament is not a comparable crime. Yet the game has values that must be upheld. In this writer's opinion, the most important value to uphold in chess, at any level, whether a world title match or a beginners' skittles game, is this: free and fair competition. When games are decided by something other than the players themselves, chess is corrupted and perverted. The Keres Botvinnik case is a major, but by no means the only, and arguably not the worst, instance of such corruption. In American baseball, in 1 9 1 9, eight members of the Chicago White Sox took bribes from gamblers to lose the World Series. When it was discovered, those eight men were banned from baseball for life, and there has been no comparable scandal since. Chess, in contrast, has never been willing or able to police itself in that manner. It is not surprising then that corruption has persisted and spread. As George Santayana said, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to fulfil it." That is why the Keres case matters. (October 2001)
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Standing Tal: Mikhail, Yin; Bobby, Yang

Lev Alburt and AI Lawrence
These writers make an interesting team. GM Lev Alburt (born 1945, Orenburg, USSR), was one of the Soviet Union best players when in 1979 he defected to America, where he has done well, thrice winning the U.S. championship. He has also been a prolific teacher - the only top-class GM to develop materials for non-masters - and author of instructive books, such as the 7-volume Comprehensive Chess Course. A partner in this work is Al Lawrence (born 1947, Illinois, USA). Once Executive Director of USCF ( 1988-96), Lawrence has himself authored 8 books and now serves, among other posts, as Director of the World Chess Hall ofFame and Executive Editor of the Chess Information and Research Center, publisher ofAlburt books. As player and administrator, they have been eye-witnesses to much of recent chess history. Their column "Hoisting the Hippopotamus " has been a ChessCafe feature since May 2000.
To several current generations of chess players, Mikhail Nekhemyevich Tal was muse. At the close of the 1 950s, chess was entrenched in a sort of "scientific determinism" of positional play. Modem defensive technique and strategy had seemed long ago to put an end to the 1 9th-Century fireworks of Adolf Anderssen and Paul Morphy. Chess on a high level was seen as simply too "correct" to allow such nonsense. World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik, hero of the Soviet Republic and leader of the Russian chess hegemony, himself claimed only to be "first among equals" such as compatriots Smyslov and Bronstein. We can almost see a circle of Soviet GMs with white lab coats and clipboards somewhere in an antiseptic chamber in Moscow, squinting with scientific detachment through microscopes at chess positions and scratching out lines of algebra on a chalkboard. Into this exalted Kremlin chess "laboratory" burst young Misha Tal, the irreverent "gangster of the chessboard" (to take a line from Smyslov himself), shaking up the formulae and stirring in a large beaker full of fun. Mikhail Tal, eighth chess world champion, the "Wizard of Riga", succumbed in Moscow on June 28, 1 992, at the age of only 55, after a more than 30-year battle against ill health. Tal restored the Heisenberg Principle to chess in the form of the imaginative sacrifice - what he called "fantasy" - saving us from the dull pomposity of chess as pseudo-science, and showing that there was still room for beauty and poetry. Where his contemporaries shuffled, Tal sacrificed. As Ragozin said, ''Tal doesn't move the pieces by hand; he uses a magic wand ! " Or, as Bronstein
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put it, "Tal develops all his pieces in the center and then sacrifices them somewhere." Tal was unique, even among the men who have held the official world championship. He was unpretentious and uninterested in wielding the influence - in Russian, vliyaniye normally relished by the kingpins of the old Soviet dynasty. Tal also showed that even a chess world champion could be completely free of gravitas and that it was possible for a man to rise to the very top of his profession and not have an enemy in the world.
-

Born in Latvia on November 9, 1 936, Tal was not a child prodigy. When he did begin to ascend, however, he soared so rapidly that in 1 957 he was both the youngest Soviet champion ever and a rare case that required FIDE to award him the title of international grandmaster while waiving the normal requirement that it first recognize him as master. When Tal beat Botvinnik for the world championship in 1 960, he was at the time the youngest world champion ever, full of vigor and brilliance, an uneven, raw talent. Then, within months, he developed what was to become a lifelong illness and handicap to his play. He was found to have a diseased kidney. Ever devoted to chess, Tal would play blitz between rounds of even important tournaments. In the hospital for the removal of the offending organ in 1 969, Tal reportedly talked chess until the anesthesia-mask was strapped on. During his convalescence, he would sneak out of the hospital to play at the local chess club.

Shades of Rasputin
Some of Tal's GM colleagues found it hard to accept what was happening to them. It was natural for his peers to look for reasons to explain why suddenly what seemed "coffee-house" chess was chalking up wins against them. How could they succumb to such brutal tactics? Some actually thought that they were victims of mesmerism. After all, there was The Stare. The famous story about Pal Benko' s wearing dark glasses to avoid being hypnotized by the Wizard is true. It's also true that Tal countered Benko by donning a pair of comically oversized novelty shades he had borrowed from Tigran Petrosian. Misha wore his dark glasses for only a few moves for a laugh from the spectators and the directors, while Benko kept his on until hopelessly lost at move 20, victim of another "hypnotic" performance by Tal. Let's take a peek, being careful of the glare. Benko-Tal, Zagreb, 1 959, Sicilian Defense: 1. e4 c5 2.f3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4.

xd4 f6 5. c3 a6 6. 11,c4 e6 7. 1l,b3 b5 8. f3 .Ae7 9 . .Ae3 0-0 10. 'l;td2 'l;tc7 11. g4 c6 12. xc6 'l;txc6 13. g5 d7 14. d5

29 1

Tal himself probably won more games with this last move against the Sicilian than anyone else. Is Benko, behind his glasses, holding up a mirror to the Wizard? Of course the knight is untouchable. If 1 4 . . . exd5 1 5 . Axd5, x-raying the rook.

14 ... .Q.d8 1S. a4 eS 16. 0-0 bxa4

Now neither the rook nor the bishop can recapture. If 17. k! xa4, then 17 . . . exd5 18. Axd5 xa4. If 1 7. Axa4, then 17 . . . b7, and Black threatens . . exd5, as well as . . . 4Jc4xe3, with the possibility of . Ab6 preventing White from recapturing with his queen.
. . .

17. b4 b7 18. };!xa4 .Q.d7 19. };!a3 e7 20. d4 };!fc8

In a hopeless position, his pieces forced into awkward posts with no prospects, Benko has played "through a glass, and darkly." Having ruled out hypnotism, he finally removed his glasses.

21. -'ld2 -'lbS 22. };!f2 aS 23. d3 c4

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Hi.'ltory

Black begins to cash in his positional winnings.

24. Jlxc4 . xc4 25. 'ite3 . xc2 26. -'l.c3 .xf2 27. xf2 'itc7 28 ..a1 'itc4 29. h4 a4 30. g2 .c8 31. 'ita7 .Q.f8 32 ..e1 'itb3 33. 'itb7?? .Q.fl+ 0-1.

Mikhail, Yin; Bobby, Yang Three-time World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik was in a singular position to judge Tal. Botvinnik lost his crown to Tal in 1 960 and then won it back from him in 1 96 1 . In general, Botvinnik was a man who revered his own opinions (we admit that he had a lot of justification) and was not one to shirk the responsibility of criticizing those who dido 't share them. Additionally, Botvinnik preferred to enter an important match with some dislike for his opponent, or at least some psychological distance from him. (We can see this psychology today most frequently in professional boxing matches, framed by threatening glowers during referee instructions and empathetic hugs after the bell.) Botvinnik' s complaint about Tal? H e confided t o Lev Alburt this damning fact: " I couldn' t make myself dislike him." For example, when Botvinnik, the challenger after all, approached Tal for his thoughts about the lights that the former champ preferred or the set and board he wanted, Tal would say he was sure that anything Botvinnik chose would be just fine. Tal showed none of the pre-match maneuvering, tension and histrionics that characterized Fischer's off-the-board behavior. In fact, in a sense, Tal put all of his "incorrect" behavior into the moves he played, while Fischer put all of his "correct" behavior into his moves. Fischer, with his ultra-dry classicism, took no deliberate chances on the board and relished the moment he "crushed his opponent's spirit." Tal would sacrifice a piece if he saw no direct refutation, even in a world championship match game. He relished for its own intrinsic beauty the explosive poetry that he consistently found under the noses of his more practical peers .

Hoisting the Hippopotamus

The story Tal tells in his wonderful autobiography, The Life and Games ofMikhail Tal, about his victory over Evgeny Vasyukov in the 1965 Soviet Championship is the perfect illustration of all these traits.
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Hlltory Sufferi ng from a wid in addition to his "normal" background of serious i l l health, Tal still played to win. He finished in a very respectable third p lac e , and his
game against Vasyukov was key. It began: Tal-Vasyukov, Kiev, 1 965, Caro-Kann Defense: 1. e4 c6 2. 4)c3 d5 3. d4 dxe4 4. 4) xe4 4)d7 5. 4lf3 4)gf6 6. 4)g3 e6 7. Jld3 c5 8. 0-0 cxd4 9. 4) xd4 Jlc5 10. 4lf3 0-0 11. e2 b6 1 2 .Q.f4 J}.b7 13. ad1 4ld5 14. Jlg5 'l2/c7 15. 4)h5! h8! 16 .Q.e4 f6! 17. .Q.h4 .Q.d6 18. c4 -'l,a6!

Black has made some very strong choices, and here Tal knew he was faced with difficult decisions of his own. "How is White to continue?" he writes. Moving the rook to defend the c-pawn is taking a step backward, and Black would still enjoy his pin. Tal points out that if 19. Ad3, Black has 19 . . .<14 20. <tlxf4 -'txf4 2 1 . ti'xe6 <tlc5, and Black enjoys himself. ''The position demands strong measures," Tal writes, "but 19 . ..11x h7 is insufficient in view of 19 . . . 'it>xh7 20. ti'e4+ 'it>h8! 21. xe6 -'lxc4." Tal began to calculate the knight sacrifice on g7. ''The sacrifice was not altogether obvious, and there was a large number of possible variations, but when I conscientiously began to work through them, I found, to my horror, that nothing would come of it. Ideas piled up one after another. I would transport a subtle reply by my opponent, which worked in one case, to another situation where it would naturally prove to be quite useless. As a result my head became filled with a completely chaotic pile of all sorts of moves, and the famous 'tree of the variations, ' from which the trainers recommend that you cut off the small branches, in this case spread with unbelievable rapidity. "And then suddenly, for some reason, I remembered the classic couplet by Komey Ivanovich Chukovsky:

Oh, what a difficult job it was To drag out of the marsh the hippopotamus.
"I don't know from what associations the hippopotamus got onto the chessboard, but although the spectators were convinced that I was continuing to study the
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Hi.'lttry

position, I, despite my humanitarian education, was trying at this time to work out: just how would y ou drag a hippopotamus out of the marsh? I remember how jacks figured in my thoughts, as well as levers, helicopters, and even a rope ladder. After a lengthy consideration I admitted defeat as an engineer, and thought spitefully: 'Well, let it drown ! ' And suddenly the hippopotamus disappeared going off the chessboard just as he had come on. Of his own accord ! And straightaway the position did not appear to be so complicated.

"Now I somehow realized that it was not possible to calculate all the variations, and that the knight sacrifice was, by its very nature, purely intuitive. And since it promised an interesting game, I could not refrain from making it.
"And the following day, it was with pleasure that I read in the paper how Mikhail Tal, after carefully thinking over the position for 40 minutes, made an accurately calculated piece sacrifice . . .
"

19. 4) xg7! \t'xg7

Black has to recapture. Now if 20 . . .<tlf4 2 1 . d2, and if 2 1 . . .ltxc4 22. <tlxe6.

20. 4)d4 4)c5 21. *g4+ \t'h8 22. 4) xe6 4) xe6 23. * xe6 .ae8 24. *xd5 J}.xh2+ 25. Ciflh1 *f4
The moves have been virtually forced since the Knight sac, except for Black's last. Vasyukov should have tried 24 ... xc4 to force an ending that, although better for White, is likely drawn.

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Now if 26 . . E!xe4, White wins with 27. E!d7.

.

26 : xe4 27. fe1

.

An error that could have let the hippo slip back into the marsh. Tal points out that 27. E!del was stronger. Now Black gets another chance . . .

21 "litg6 2S. '/txg6 hxg6

.

. . . but misses it again. The zwischenschach 28 . . E! xel + draws. As in many of Tal's sacrificial games, his opponent grows short of time under the pressure of trying to find a series of best defensive moves. Typically, Tal's sacrifices lead to a long-lived initiative, and out-of-time victims have to make momentous decisions in seconds.
.

29 . .Q.xf6+ gS 30. xeS xeS 31. xh2 -'l,xc4 32. d7

White's advantage may look ephemeral after all, he's but a pawn up in the dreaded bishops-of-opposite-color ending. Indeed, without the rooks, the position is drawn. But with his rook on the seventh and an unopposed dark-square bishop, Tal advances his king, whips up nothing less than a mating attack, and wins.

32 ... e6! 33 .Q.c3 .Q. xa2 34. xa7 Jlc4 35. g3 .Q.d5 36. f3 fS 37. -'l,d4 b5 3S. f4 .Q.c4 39. g5 e8 40. aS+ f7 41. a7+ e8 (sealed move) 42. b4 .Q.dS 43. a3 Cl;f7 44. g4 e2 45 .Q.cS e5+ 46. h6

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e6 47. d3 .A.c6 48. d8 e8 49. d4 e6 50. f4 1i!i'e8 St. CIJg7 J,te4 s:z .4.b6 .4.f3 53. d8+ lifi'e7 54. d3

If 54 . . . Axg4, then 55. AdS+ <i\?e8 56. Ag5 and wins.

S4 J1,e:Z 55. Jld8+ li!i'e8 S6. d:Z e3 57. JtgS Jld3 58. fS and Black
..

resigns. Actually, Lev Alburt had a run-in with The Dreaded Stare. During one of their first games together, Lev couldn' t help but glance up at Misha as his wide-open brown eyes, topped by their prominent dark brows, were riveted on Alburt. Lev, from a younger, less superstitious generation that had already incorporated Tal's imaginative approach into their own games, unconsciously reacted as if the stare were some kind of joke, laughing softly. Tal immediately roused himself from his trance. Never one to distract his opponent on purpose, he remembered Lev's reaction. Alburt was never again the recipient of The Stare. Our conclusion: the much-touted stare was probably only an absent-minded habit.

Life After Botvinnik

Sometimes it seems that current chess fans think of Tal as washed up after 1 96 1 , the year he began to battle his illness and the year Botvinnik took back the crown. It's true that Tal made his greatest accomplishment, the greatest accomplishment any chess player could achieve, as a very young man. But his love of chess and of competition was lifelong. (Indeed, he preferred to play more than 1 00 tournament games per year in top-flight competition.) He continued to study. Later he went from a one-sided attacking genius to a complete player of the highest level. (He joked that he would sometimes look at his old games and laugh, but envy the fact that he could play those old sacrifices because at the time he didn't know better! ) But even if Tal had never won the world championship, he would be remembered as one of the greats. Sound like an overstatement? Let's make a very brief list:
From 1 949 to 1 990, Tal played in 55 strong international round robins, winning first place in 19 and second in 7.

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HlsttJry

Played in eight Olympiads. In

fi ve he

sc o red best-board results, and in t h ree

Olympiads, he scored the best overall result.

Won the S oviet Championship an unsurpassed six times, a record shared World Championship Candidate in 1 965 and 1 968-69. Played 86 games in top-level competition without a loss 1 972-73. Tied for first with Karpov at one of the strongest tournaments ever held, Held a FIDE rating of 27 1 0 in 1 979. Placed 3rd in the 1 985 Interzonal at the age of 49.

only by Botvinnik.

Montreal, 1 979.

And that leaves out his prolific journalism. Many consider Tal the best who ever wrote on chess. He wrote many articles, authored and co-authored several classic books, such as

Tal-Botvinnik, 1960 and the already mentioned Life and Games.

What's more, from 1 960 to 1 970 he edited the Latvian magazine Zahs. Extraordinary talent, regular guy. Generosity of spirit was natural to Tal. He seemed interested only in creating the fantastic on the chessboard, not in using the influence his talent could have given him to wield power among his colleagues . Unlike many of his fellow che s s Olympians, he remained all unpresuming, accessible and good-humored, willing to play chess with

comers. When other world champions would be too conscious of their ranking to indulge relative patzers, Tal would play blitz with nearly anyone. Since the universal club tradition at speed-chess sessions is that winner keeps playing and the loser gives up his place, Tal was often to be seen at the board with a long line of players queued up behind his opponent, waiting their turns against the legend. When he was relaxing in a local cafe or tavern between rounds wherever chess took him, he was both a celebrity and one of the group. Complete strangers would recognize him, of course, and invite him to their tables . It would have been more than enough to shake some hands and be pleasant. But Tal would routinely join the group, swapping stories and sharing laughs . No wonder he was loved by the public.

In the Black
In 1 988 Tal won the enormous World Blitz Championship in St. John, Canada. In a post-event interview, a journalist referred to him as again a current world champion - which could be technically argued, since the event was billed as a FIDE championship. Tal, however, immediately interrupted. "I' ve been the world champion," he said, "and I can tell you that I am not now the world champion . " As a counterpoint t o Tal ' s self-effacing demurrer, it' s interesting t o note that, after winning the FIDE Action "World Championship" in Mazathin, Karpov, who at the time recognized Kasparov as the "normal" world champion, referred to himself as "World Action Chess Champion."

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Hi. tory

Hut Tal did accept another benefit of winning at St. John: the $50,000 first prize. Shortly after the event, he visited Steve Doyle at his Toms River, New Jersey, chess club to give a simul. Afterwards, Tal wanted to see Atlantic City, and Steve was accommodating. Steve drove Tal to Resorts International, but only after insisting that Tal safely lock up the bundles of cash and checks he was carrying in a safety deposit box in the Tom's River Holiday Inn. He cajoled Tal into limiting his traveling stash to $500. Once at the casino, Tal plopped himself down at the roulette wheel. To Doyle's dismay, Misha put the entire $500 on black. But he won. Steve grinned and suggested dinner. Tal left the $ 1 ,000 on black. He won again. Steve tried to convince the champ to set back most of his winnings. After all, Steve, now CFO of a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, had respect for financial risks. But the Wizard let it ride. After winning four in a row on black, he switched to red, but kept betting the house. Two more spins and Tal had amassed $32,000, truly a fortune in the old Soviet Union, and winnings he would not have to rebate to the authorities, as he would much of his tournament prize. Steve kept pleading, of course, but Tal went for the jackpot one more time. Predictably, he lost. Without changing his demeanor, Tal stood up and quietly headed to dinner with Steve. In fact, it turned into a long evening of nightlife. Afterwards Doyle had to drive them back to Toms River, of course. Heading north on the New Jersey Parkway, Steve was overwhelmed with exhaustion at the first rays of sunrise. Pulling over quickly to the shoulder of the highway, he mumbled a quick apology/explanation and immediately fell asleep. On waking up from a 45-minute nap, he looked across at the much older Tal to see him sitting wide-awake in the passenger seat, imperturbably chain-smoking, as always.

His last world championship move?

Co-author AI Lawrence was fortunate enough to sit next to Tal at a small table during the final World Championship of his lifetime, Kasparov-Karpov, New York, 1 990, about two years before Tal 's death. Sipping coffee in the protection of a private meeting room, Tal and Lawrence watched famous GMs comment on the game at an oversized board. Lawrence was shocked by Tal's appearance. His illness and his passion had demanded from him a great price. Although barely 54, he seemed physically an old and frail man. What hair he had left was white, swirled around his head to cover the most territory and making him look more Merlin-like than ever. He had just traveled halfway around the world, a jet-lag challenge to even the young and healthy. On top of that, this 30th anniversary of his own unforgettable victory had brought him together with old chess adversaries and old friends. It was clear that his day had already included frequent ceremonial toasts to past battles. Tal's prematurely wizened face was heavy-lidded as he hunched over in his
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Hlstt1ry

gray, double-breasted suit, his e l b ow s on the table, his chin resting i n his hands. The old stare was frankly a bit glazed. The position after 37 moves showed Kasparov with the initiative, letting a pawn go to build up an attack against Karpov's castled king. A top American GM was taking a turn at our private demonstration board when it became clear the battling K's were reaching a critical point. Kasparov-Karpov, Game 6, New York, 1 990, Ruy Lopez: 1. e4 e5 2. f3

c6 3 . .Q.b5 a6 4 . .Q.a4 f6 5. 0-0 .Q.e7 6. Jae1 b5 7. Jlb3 d6 8. c3 0-0 9. h3 d7 10. d4 .Q.f6 11. a4 J}.b7 12. axb5 axb5 13. Jaxa8 '/txa8 14. d5 a5 15 .Q.c2 c4 16. b3 cb6 17. a3 .Q.a6 18. h2 c6 19. dxc6 '/t xc6 20. J}.d2 J}.e7 21. g4 laa8 22. e3 f6 23. f5 J}.f8 24. Jl.g5 bd7 25. c4 bxc4 26. bxc4 .Q.xc4 27. xc4 xc4 28. .Q.b3 c3 29. h2 h6 30 .Q.xf6 xf6 31. lae3 '/tc7 32. laf3 h7 33. e3 e7 34. d5 xd5 35. Jl.xd5 Jaa7 36. b3 f6 37. b8 g6

Al's eyes darted between the position and Tal, covertly checking Misha's face for signs of reaction. Surely, such an attacking game between the current titans stirred the old juices in the Wizard somewhere down deep. Kasparov was now the young attacking genius whose games regularly amazed rooms full of grandmasters. How much of this new genius could the "old" one follow? The next Kasparov move was announced and repeated on the big board.

38. lac3
At the exact moment the piece found its new square, Misha's exhausted stare suddenly twisted into an exaggerated, cartoon-like grimace of pure revulsion. Lawrence thought for a moment that the famous icon might hold his nose and cry "Phew !". Obviously Tal had found the move to be a game-spoiler. Everyone else for the moment accepted Emperor Garry's new clothes in the form of this "obvious" move, and Tal's face quickly regrouped itself to a guarded stare. But from that point on in the game, Karpov's defense began to take control. Only four moves later, Kasparov sealed his move in a drawn position.

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Hi."tory

.i8 hSI (The game is suddenly equal .) 39.g4 'it1h6 40.gxh5 xh5 4Uk8 ..ll g7 42. t:!e8, draw.
...

Later, when the game had been analyzed worldwide, Kasparov's culprit-move was found to be the same one that instantly contorted Tal 's face for that revealing moment at the table. The right plan was unearthed: 38. g4!! . Is this what Tal saw i mmediately, jet-lagged and suffering from celebrations? Al bets it is. Right up until life's last checkmate, Mikhail Tal, eighth chess champion of the world, still had the sorcery in his wand and in his eyes. His games will continue to inspire new generations of players to find the swashbuckling and the beautiful in chess.

(June 2000)

A Conversation with a Legend

Gabriel Velasco
Gabriel V elasco Sotomayor (born 1 949, Mexico City), is by profession a Doctor of Mathematics, the author of several geometry textbooks. But by avocation he is one of Latin America best chess writers, contributing articles in Spanish to the magazine Tiempo and several web-sites, and in English to the British Chess Magazine and the ChessCafe. He has written several chess books, thefinest of which is The Life and Games of Carlos Torre (Russell Enterprises, 2000), about the Mexican chess genius of the 1920s. Here he describes a meeting with a more contemporary chess genius.
Former world chess champion Boris Spassky, now a French citizen, recently spent a few days in Mexico City, where he was invited to attend a massive simultaneous display of nearly 1 2,000 boards, run by 500 local first-category and master-level players, in downtown Mexico City on the morning of Sunday October 22. The following day, Spassky and his companions (the well-known author Alexander Roshal and his wife, as well as Spassky's son) dropped casually into a coffee shop where local chess players usually meet, and I was fortunate to be there together with a couple of chess-playing friends. We all ended up sharing two tables and spent a very enjoyable time listening to Spassky, who was in a particularly good mood. The former world chess champion asked for a chess set and board while he enjoyed a piece of chocolate cake and several cups of good coffee. It is a pity that I did not have a means to record that conversation, which lasted about three hours. Spassky answered all sorts of questions and showed us several interesting positions, either from his own games, or chess studies that he recalled. I will try to summarize the most interesting things that the legendary world chess champion told his improvised audience.

30 1

Spussky suid t hut he considered { 'upa h l mtcu, A l e k h i ne . Fi scher, Karpov and

Kasparov the fi ve greatest p l ay e rs of a l l t i me . I a s k ed him if he would also include Emanuel Lasker on the list of the greatest players, but S p assk y said he would definitely not.
When the conversation dwelled on Viktor Korchnoy, Spassky casually remembered that during the hard- fought match both grandmasters contested in Belgrade in 1 977, he was sure that Korchnoy was attempting to hypnotize him either by electronic or chemical means, because he felt rather dizzy or indisposed when he sat in front of Korchnoy, but as soon as he rose from the table and strolled elsewhere, the malaise suddenly disappeared. According to Spassky, that is why he decided to analyze the games far away, at the spectators' demonstration chessboard, something that got Korchnoy very upset. He now believes that it was under his wrist watch that Korchnoy was hiding a device aimed at disturbing him. When somebody asked him if the toughest opponent he' d had in his whole life was either Korchnoy or Bobby Fischer, surprisingly Spassky said that neither of them had been the toughest, but Anatoly Karpov probably was. As far as Garry Kasparov is concerned, Boris said he had played very few games against him, so it was not easy for him to assess his real strength. Spassky said that he was in top form when he lost a candidates match to Karpov in 1 974. He said that during the years 1 973 and 1 974 he had recovered his old top form of the sixties, but when he played Bobby Fischer in Reykjavik 1 972, he was in poor form from the psychological viewpoint. Somehow he considers that Karpov in 1 974 was a tougher opponent than Bobby Fischer in 1 972, but he is not quite sure. At any rate he insisted that Karpov was the toughest opponent he had ever met. When asked why he was in poor psychological form during the Reykjavik match in 1 972, Spassky said that it was on account of his off-the-board fight against Russian authorities, who were trying to impose on him all sorts of conditions, many of which he thought to be absurd. Spassky said that his off-board battle against Moscow had left him psychologically exhausted. He said he felt very upset and tired right before and during the first half of the Reykjavik match, and that put him very far from his top form. In addition, said Spassky, his appointed trainer, the late Grandmaster Efim Geller, was only interested in analyzing opening variations of his (Geller's) own interest, and right from the beginning of the match his relationship with Geller went from bad to worse, which also had an influence in the outcome of the match. However, he said that Bobby played extraordinary chess, and that was naturally the deciding factor. When asked if he still kept in touch with Bobby Fischer, Spassky said that he had lost track of the American grandmaster, and did n ' t even know his whereabouts. Boris insisted that Robert Fischer had been a great champion who had not been thoroughly understood by people; and he said that Fischer has
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Histtry

a l ways been a man uf pri nciples who strove in vain to raise chess above the petty corruption of FIDE and the Russian Federation. He added that in his opinion Fi scher was the ideal world champion, whereas Kasparov had done much harm In c h e s s with his selfish attitude.

Spassky said he considered the late Russian GM Igor Bondarevsky as the best t rai ner and coach he ever had. According to Boris, grandmaster Bondarevsky helped him develop a great strength in the middle game, because he did not place too much emphasis on opening variations, but rather on middle game and endgame planning. Bondarevsky' s typical training session, according to Spassky, started with some very interesting middle game positions that he was requested lo solve with a clock and without moving the chessmen. He recalled a very subtle position he had solved as a young master, after a lengthy reflection. On seeing that Spassky had solved the position without moving the pieces, Bondarevsky assured him that he would go far. "Some day you will probably become a world champion," said the late grandmaster.
Somebody asked him about the possible outcome of the 1 975 match between Fischer and Karpov, a match that never took place. Surprisingly, Spassky said he did not consider it clear that Bobby Fischer might have won, because in 1 97 5 Bobby had already been inactive for three years, and such a handicap might not be overcome even by a chess genius . Under such conditions, Spassky believes that Karpov would have been the favorite. Somebody told Spassky that Korchnoy did not share such an opinion, but Boris just smiled. Speaking about Viktor Korchnoy, Spassky said that all matches he had played against Korchnoy had been very bitterly fought. He said that Korchnoy has always had a gift of taking immediate advantage of any imprecision, however slight, made by his opponent. When I asked him if he considered Korchnoy the best endgame player of all time, at least as far as rook endings are concerned, Spassky said he did not at all agree with that view, and that in his opinion Korchnoy 's strength was of a different sort. When asked whether he still considered the Marshall counterattack a sound weapon for Black against the Ruy Lopez. Spassky said he did, and added that the Marshall hadn't yet been refuted. "It probably leads to a draw," he said. When asked why he had not played the Marshall in his 1 992 match vs. Fischer in Sveti Stefan, Spassky just shrugged his shoulders. He said that in some games of the 1 992 match, Fischer had played just like in his good old days and that had made him (Spassky) very happy. When the conversation turned to the 1 970 USSR vs. the Rest of the World Match in Yugoslavia I asked him if it was true that he had spent about 40 minutes pondering his fantastic combination against Bent Larsen. Spassky said that it wasn't true, that it had just taken him a few minutes, and that the whole game had lasted scarcely half an hour.
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HINitry l.arsen-Spassky, 1 970: l.b3 e5 2 . .Q.b2 4)c6 3.c4 4)f6 4.4)f3 e4 5.4)d4 .Q.c5 6.4) xc6 dxc6 7.e3 Jlf5 8. 't;tc2 1!/e7 9 .Q.e2 o-o-o 10.f4? 4)g4 ll.g3 hS 12.h3 h4! hxg4 13.hxg3 14. !lgl

14 lahl! l S . . x hl g2 16 . .fl ( 1 6 . . g l h4+ 1 7 .dl hl 1 8.c3 x g l + 1 9 . c 2 f2 2 0 . gxf5 >l!t x e 2 2 1 . 4)a 3 b4 -+ ) 1 6 '11} h4+ 17.<it'dl gxf11!/, 0-1.
.

Regarding the match between Kramnik an d Kasparov, Spassky said he was glad to see that finally somebody had hit the nail on the head and found the correct way to play against Kasparov. He said that in his opinion, Vladimir Kramnik was using the same approach used by Botvinnik against Mikhail Tal in the 1961 return match, namely to avoid giving his opponent many chances for active play with the initiative. Spassky said he considered himself a happy man. He said he had no further ambitions. He made everyone laugh several times, like when FM Florentino Garmendiz approached him and challenged him to a blitz match for a stake. Spassky said he did not feel like playing blitz and declined the challenge; then Garmendiz, apparently not satisfied with that, insisted and said he had beaten some masters in the U.S. and won such and such (minor) tournaments in Tijuana or thereabouts. Spassky then raised his hands as though he had been scared, and said "Oh you did? That really frightens me; I'm utterly scared now !". Everybody laughed. Boris has a fine spontaneous sense of humor. He made everyone laugh when he imitated Karpov and Kasparov. It is evident that Boris takes a particular delight in subtle composed studies. He asked for a chess set and board and showed us the following interesting ending.

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White to play and draw. After everybody gave up, Spassky showed us the solution : I. \t>d3 fllf7 2. fl}c4 \t>g6! If 2 . . .'g7, then 3 . xb4 xh7 4 . \ftc4 and White' s king manages to stop the pawn i n time. Nevertheless, i f now j. 'itt xb4, there would follow 3 . . . h5! 4 . .\f8+ f5, and the knight could not prevent Black's pawn from queening. 3. 4)f8+ \t>fS 4. 4)d7 hS (or else 4 . . . b3 5. c3!) S. cSU The key: White's knight is heading toward fl . In case of 5 . .\b6? h4 6 . .\d5 e4!, Black's h-pawn would promote. S h4 6. 4)b311 But not 6 . .\d3?, h3 7 . .\f2 h2 8.xb4 <it>f4 9 . <it>c4 f3 1 0 . .\h1 <it'g2 1 1 . d3 xh1 and Black wins. 6...h3 7. 4)d2 h2 8. 4)fl+! hi-tit 9.4)g3+ and it's a draw. A study composed by N. Grigoriev in 1 934.

Spassky showed us and analyzed the critical position of his first game with Bobby Fischer at Mar del Plata 1 960. He also showed us his game vs. David Bronstein from the Soviet Championship of 1 960. Incidentally, that game was used in famous a James Bond film with Sean Connery (From Russia with Love), where it was supposed to have been a game between "Kronsteen" and "MacAdams," two characters created by Ian Fleming.

Spassky-Bronstein, USSR Championship 1 960: I. e4 eS 2. f4 exf4 3. 4)f3 dS 4. exdS Jl.d6 S. 4)c3 4)e7 6. d4 0- 0 7. 1td3 4)d7 8. 0- 0 h6 (8 . . .1g6) 9. 4)e4 4) xdS IO. c4 4)e3 11. Jl.xe3 fxe3 I2. cS .4.e7 13. ,A.c2 .e8 I4. 'titd3! e2!? ( trying to decoy the queen from a dangerous diagonal. The alternative was 1 4 . . . .\f8)
.

IS. 4)d61 4)f8 A complicated game would ensue after 1 5 ... exfl 'IW+ but, according to Spassky, the text move was "typical Bronstein." I6. 4) xf7!! exfl'tit+ I7 . xfi .itfS Compulsory, due to the numerous threats. I8. 'titxfS

itd7 I9. itf4 .4.f6 20. 4l3eS 'tite7 2I .4.b31 Jl.xeS 22. 4) xeS + \t>h7 23. ite4+ I- 0. If 23 . . . h8 24. t:l. xf8+ ! i1i"xf8 25 . .\g6+ and mate in two.

Unfortunately, after about three hours I had to return to my duties. Spassky recalled that back in 1 979 I had given him a copy of my first collection of Carlos Torre's games, but that material was in Spanish and in descriptive notation. Boris said he still kept that material, but confessed that he couldn't understand it on account of the notation. I said to him that it had just been released in

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English and in algebraic notation . S i nce Boris said he was really interested in the games of Carlos Torre, I promised to send a copy to him . Spassky left a very positive impression o n all u s . O n the face of i t h e is a very happy man, who fully enjoys life and is satisfied with what he has done. His conversation is enjoyable and his sense of humor is excellent. I consider myself really lucky to have had such a chance to spend several hours with a living legend. (November 2000)

Regicide
Tim Krabbe
At the start of the match between Kasparov and Kramnik, 1 36 games had been lost by reigning world champions. As the world championship began in 1 886, this is a little over one per year. Let me first explain how I arrive at that number of 1 36. For one thing, I do not recognize Khalifman as a world champion. From 1 972 on, the world champions were: Fischer until 1 975, Karpov until 1 985, and Kasparov until now. As said, I only count games that the world champions lost while holding the title, and only serious games; rapid, blitz, exhibition, computer, consultation, correspondence, cable and Internet games are not included in my number. I also don' t count games that were played in matches and tournaments for the world championship. The throne must somehow be seen as vacant during such competitions, and there would also be a categorizing problem: if the world champion loses the last game in a match, as did Tal against Botvinnik in 1 96 1 , or Karpov against Kasparov i n 1 985, then did the world champion lose, or did the world champion win that game? The 1 3 6 true cases of regicide that remain are divided over the 1 3 world champions as follows:

Steinitz (1886-1894): 0. Steinitz never played an official tournament during

those years - but there were very few tournaments then. He did lose some games, including both games in a cable match against Chigorin, but he did not lose any games that meet my criteria.

Lasker (1894-1921): 17. However few tournaments there were in Lasker's time, he holds the record for "most losses by a world champion in one year." In his first full year as world champion, 1 895, Lasker lost no less than seven games. On the other hand, during the last 1 1 years of his reign, Lasker only lost once but he only played 24 games during that period. Four of Lasker's losses as a world champion were against Pillsbury.
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History

Capablanca (1921-1927): 3. With only half a lost game per year, Capablanca
is

still, if we measure by this criterion, the least-beaten world champion.

Alekhine (1927-1935 and 1937-1946): 21. Four losses against Bogoljubow

and, at the end of his career, two against Lupi. This Portuguese player may have been the weakest ever to beat a world champion, and he certainly is the weakest to beat a world champion twice.

Euwe (1935-1937): 7. One against 67-year old Lasker (the famous blunder in
Nottingham, 1 936). With 3 losses per year, Euwe is the world champion who lost most often.

Botvinnik (1948- 1957, 1958-1960 and 1961-1963): 15. Three losses against
Geller. Botvinnik was not a very active world champion.

Smyslov (1957-1958): 1. Tal (1960-1961): 1. Petrosyan (1963-1969): 18. Belying his reputation of invincibility, Petrosyan
was second only to Euwe in being the most often beaten world champion. Three times each against Portisch and Korchnoi - the latter scored 2-0 against him in an inter-city match, Moscow-Leningrad, 1 965.

Spassky (1969-1972): 3. Fischer (1972-1975): 0. Of course, Fischer never played a serious game while
being world champion.

Karpov (1975-1985) 23. Almost 2 per year, but still a very good record, considering how much he played. Three losses against Timman. Kasparov (1985-2000) 27. Even better than Karpov. He lost 5 games against
lvanchuk (the greatest number of losses of a world champion against one single player) and three against Kramnik. The player who beat a reigning world champion most often is Bogoljubow with 6; 4 against Alekhine, and 2 against Euwe. Geller, Larsen and Ivanchuk each collected 5 scalps; Geller and Larsen also sharing the distinction of having beaten the greatest number of different world champions. Geller beat Botvinnik three times, and Petrosyan and Karpov once; Larsen beat Petrosyan and Karpov twice, and Spassky once. The other players who committed regicide more than once are : Four times: Pillsbury (4x Lasker), Korchnoi (3x Petrosyan, 1 x Spassky), Portisch (3x Petrosyan, 1 x Karpov), Timman (3x Karpov, 1 x Kasparov).
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Histtry

Three times: Tai manov ( 2x Botvinnik, Karpov), Kramnik (3x Kasparov).

Twice: Blackbume

(2x Lasker), Fine (2x Alekhine), Lupi (2x Alekhine), Keres (2x Botvinnik), Smyslov (2x Botvinnik) , Gligoric (2x Petrosyan), E. Torre (2x Karpov), Seirawan ( l x Karpov, lx Kasparov), Anand (2x Kasparov), Lautier (2x Kasparov), Topalov (2x Kasparov).

Among the players who never beat a reigning world champion, there are three world champions. Even if their eminences offered them fewer chances than ordinary players, it is still surprising to see who they are: Capablanca, Fischer and Kasparov. Of course most regicides are well known, sometimes even historic games, but here are three relatively obscure ones. The first cannot even be found in databases. It was played in a small national tournament in the Netherlands, a few months before the death of the 5 1 -year old White player. In the prewar years, Van Hoorn was a player of some national prominence, coming third in the 1 933 Dutch championship, the only time he competed, behind Euwe and Van den B osch.

Van Hoorn-Euwe, Leiden, 1937: 1.d4 dS 2.c4 c6 3.4)f3 4)f6 4.cxdS cxdS S.4)c3 4)c6 6.Af4 AfS 7.\!tb3 4)aS 8.\!ta4+ Jl,d7 9."tt c 2 J;lc8 10.e3 bS 1 1.\!td1 4)c4 12.Axc4 bxc4 According to Van Hoorn, B lack is now better. 13.4)eS e6 14.0-0 Ab4 But here, he should have been more careful with

e7,

followed by

0-0.

In the following ten moves, a pattern is visible that

logically also shows in other losses of world champions against lesser gods : the champion avoids a draw, underestimates his opponent, and goes too far in his

1S.Jl.gS i\'aS 16.Axf6 gxf6 17.4) xd7 xd7 18. i\'hS e7 19.4)e2 J;tb8 20.g3 Ad2 21.J;lfb1 J;tb6 22.4)f4 J;thb8 Black still had an easy draw with 22 . . . c3 23.bxc3 -'l.xc3 24. xb6 B ut he thinks the passed c pawn that he will create offers good chances. 23.\!txh7 x b2 24.J;lxb2 J;lxb2
efforts to win. Van Hoorn: "Almost all spectators thought White was losing. In reality it is White who has the initiative now."

c3 28.""ttf8+ c6 29.4)eS+ drawing chances. 29 ... b6?

Even now,

2S.4)g6+ d6 26:l;t xf7 \!tc7 27:l;t xf6 b7 would still have given Black

308