Patzer's Corner #4

Submitted by Earlengray on Mon, 07/28/2008 at 12:35pm.

Hello everybody,

After some delays I bring you another game from Fight for the Chess Crown. It is year 1993. and we shall witness one of the most dramatic games between reigning world champion Garry Kasparov and his opponent, young British challenger Nigel Short, first western player after Fischer in opportunity to become a new champion.

First a word or two about Short's climb to the challenger status. He played and won candidates matches against Speelman ( 5.5 - 4.5 ), Gelfand ( 5 - 3 ), Karpov ( 6 - 4 ), and Timman ( 7.5 - 5.5 ).

These two players didn't like each other much. During FIDE candidates matches Kasparov said about his new challenger: " It will be Short and it will be short!" Short returned the favor to Kasparov by claiming that he was an KGB operative. They maybe were in verbal war, but both players worked together in protecting their interests and fighting for better conditions of the match. You can look on that also as attempt to fight for better conditions for all chess players, it is up to you to decide. One way or another, their conflict with FIDE (world chess organization) about corruption and lack of professionalism within FIDE, where FIDE's decision about taking good part of funds from sponsors for themselves clearly didn't help, was resulting in creation of PCA ( Professional Chess Association) by Kasparov and Short. As result of that FIDE stripped Kasparov of the FIDE World Championship title, and match between Karpov and Timman was held by their sponsorship for a new champion. Karpov won that match. So from this point on, we have two champions existing in the same time, FIDE champion (Karpov) and classical champion (Kasparov). In view of chess public, "the real" champion was Kasparov, he was seen as best player in the World and legitimate successor of world championship title, that can be tracked down to Steinitz, the first official world champion.

Ok, enough about politics, let's return to the match. The match was sponsored by The Times of London under supervision of newly created PCA organization and was played in London at the Savoy Theater. The match was meant to last 24 games, even if one of players wins the match earlier, what was kind of silly decision. Final score was 12.5 - 7.5 in favour of Kasparov. Both players agreed to play last 4 games as exhibition games. They played each day one 20 min rapid
game followed by game where opening was determined randomly. Last day they played together against organizers. Also they played blitz games against spectators.

If we make aftermath of the match, it can be said this: score was really one-sided in favor of Kasparov, but the games were hard fought and Short had good chances to achieve more. In first game Short lost on time in good position with Black, where some claim ( Kasparov among others) that Black was winning. In fourth game Short lost as White after he refused the draw by repetition. So don't be missled by final result, Short was able to produce problems for Kasparov in his pet Sicilian in almost every game as White, but was unable to convert his advantage to win up to game 16, his first and only victory in this match. Let's now look at some interesting parts of the match Kasparov - Short:

Let's start with Game 1. As I said Short lost this game on time in better position as Black, thing that doesn't happen so often in chess on such a high level. You can see final position of the game. My intention was to show you a way in which Short was able to win this game. I must admit that I failed in that completly, so shoot me I'm a patzer not GM. But, interesting thing is that chess software was also unable to find winning continuation for Black, finding only drawish continuations. So is this story about first game as missed win for Short just urban legend or reality I leave to you to decide. What would I like to see is that someone show me that winning continuation. You can find on Net that everybody are talking about it, but I didn't find any lines to support that story. it is true that Black is a pawn up and only line I found goes like this: 1. Qe6 fxe6 2. Rxc7 exd5 3. cxd5 Rf8 with idea of Rf3-Rc3 manouvre but after 4. Rc6 Rf3 5. Rxa6 Rc3 I don't see how is this winning for Black. In fact, my computer suggests that Rc3 is a losing move here. So if you can find solution to this puzzle, I'll be glad to hear what you have to say.

Let's now move to the Game 7. Here I present to you finish of one interesting game in a form of a chess puzzle. You are in role of Kasparov here and have White pieces. Most of games where Kasparov was White was played in anti-Marshall systems. Short was angry on his opponent, calling him a coward for not accepting the challenge and entering the Marshall variation of Ruy Lopez. kasparov never allowed that opening as White, so it is a little strange to me that Short prepared Marshall in first place as his main weapon against e4 openings.