Roger de Coverly wrote:James Pratt wrote:Penrose's victory was all the more amazing since he played 1.d4, something he so rarely did. The line became known after them.
In an interview a few years ago in "Chess", he attributed Barden's help with this game in showing him a game where a relatively unknown player defeated Keres. Barden was of course a human ChessBase when a database was a card index in the Moscow central chess club.
What actually happened was not quite so rationally planned.
The postman arrived just as I was leaving the house on the departure day for Leipzig, delivering inter alia the latest issue of the Deutsche Schachzeiting. I hastily jammed the mail into the rest of my luggage, which included my opening indexes, then around 40 thick looseleaf files, effectively a handwritten ChessBase. There was a significant excess luggage charge at the airport.
On the morning of the final round when we were paired with the USSR who had already won the Olympiad, Jonathan Penrose asked me for suggestions on what to play against Tal. I presented him with half-a-dozen bulging files, provoking a glazed look, and then as an afterthought added the Deutsche Schachzeitung which led on its first two pages with the game Ojanen-Keres from a friendly Finland v Estonia match.
Jonathan was immediately hooked and quickly decided this was his weapon for that afternoon. It succeded rather easily, and afterwards JP described his feeling during the game as being like an Essex v Middlesex county match. Tal failed to suss out Ojanen's key white plan of e5 dxe5 f5 with Ne4 and a mighty attack down the f file, erred early with Re8, fell into awful time pressure, and was crushed.
Tal had left Riga for a pre-Olympiad engagement causing him to arrive two days late in Leipzig (where on the morning he arrived I witnessed him in the Olympiad barber shop having a haircut while whizzing through the bulletins of the previous rounds) so hadn't received his DScz. Keres didn't mention his own disaster against Ojanen before Tal took on Penrose. Tal was apparenly quite annoyed at that.
What isn't generally known is that we had a fleeting chance that afternoon to draw with or even defeat the mighty Soviets at their peak. No thanks to me, as when Korchnoi as Black transposed my g3 Scheveningen Sicilian into a kind of f4 French, I was bemused and fell into a tactic where my Kh1/Ph2/Bg1 formation backed a d4 knight faced Black's Ba8 Rc8 and Qd7. I played Bd3-b5, Viktor took a brief swig at his cigarette, and played Qxb5 Nxb5 d4+ (check from the a8 bishop) forcing Qg2 Bxg2+ Rxc2+ and the rook ate my pawns. I felt a real idiot for that.
However during the time pressure Keres, who had been better against Peter Clarke for most of the game, made an error and Clarke had a brief chance for advantage, which he missed. Meanwhile Bob Wade was defending tenaciously against Petrosian and had good chances for a draw.
These two games were adjourned and I remember looking up at the scoreboard which said England 1 Sowjet Union 1, cursed again my stupidity and vowed that if I ever got a chance to get even with the Russians I would take it. I did remember that moment when working with juniors in the 1970s.
When Jonathan came into the dining hall, he was accorded a standing ovation. I think it was the only game the USSR lost at that Olympiad.
We spent ages on the adjourned games but by then Clarke was under the cosh again. If I recall right, Bob's game could still be salvaged but their adjournment analysis was better.
The opening did become known as the Penrose-Tal system, which upset Ojanen who had worked out the entire plan before his game with Keres and deserved the credit. Jonathan has recounted how Ojanen came up to him at the next Olympiad in Varna saying something like 'Penrose-Tal, MY variation'.
