English Chess Forum

Adams is still there on Saturdays.

Always go for the simple. Karpov probably didn't even consider Qe2. He had missed the long rook swings, showing that the patzer (which we all were once) does not lurk far beneath the surface, even for world champions.

I was thinking Qxd5 with Nd4 to follow.

I could not make the spectacular work, so I angled for the prosaic.

Probably it's very simple. Winter was happy with a draw against a better player and did not have the endgame technique to play for a win without risk.

I know nothing about Winter's politics but all in all, accepting a draw seems fair enough to me. He could easily have lost that, had Botvinnik drummed up play on the kingside.

Kudos to the Patriarch for all that. His immense stature probably meant he could make a stand without being sent to Vladivostok.

I never met him, sadly, having missed out on the simuls he gave. I did play simuls against Smyslov, Petrosian, Karpov and Korchnoi.

I also note that my book has an addendum from the minor tournament, in which games appear from our old friends Abrahams and Ritson Morry.

This got me running for my book, dusty after about 50 years. Alekhine describes the draw offer as 'premature to say the least'. Looking at the position, it does not look trivial to me. I would be happy to draw with Botvinnik from that position. If the rumour were true, it would be quite disgraceful;...

I seem to recall Tylor as part of the weak local contingent. Reshevsky also rings a bell, as well as Tartakower.

I have the Alekhine book, not leafed for many a long year. Think it might have been v Tartakower that the annotator acidly observed that Capablanca's game did not deserve a diagram.

That is a trio of giants that Leonard missed out on.

Luke has a regular income from the Spectator. Not going to turn him into Elon Musk, for sure, but still guaranteed money from chess.

Understandable though; easy to miss the ...Ra8 retreat which only has point once the 'h' file is opened. Instructive combination.

Hartston described 37. b6?? as Karpov's worst blunder since becoming world champion.

Karpov v Taimanov, Leningrad 1977, must be online.