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Another look back: 1984 USSR vs. Rest of the World |
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Monday, 02 September 2002 00:00 |
 Since the Soviet Union defeated the team of the Rest of the World at Belgrade in 1970, the proposal for a rematch was still open. In mid- 1984 after his Candidates semi-final match victory vs. Korchnoi in London, a young Gary Kasparov announced that the Soviet Chess Federation agreed to the return match.
USSR vs. Rest Of The World (London 1984)
Since the Soviet Union defeated the team of the Rest of the World at Belgrade in 1970, the proposal for a rematch was still open. In mid-1984 after his Candidates&rsquo semi-final match victory vs. Korchnoi in London, a young Gary Kasparov announced that the Soviet Chess Federation agreed to the return match. After the discussion relating to financial aspects, FIDE finally decided that it would be held at the end of June in London, when all of the top players would be free from strong international tournaments using the venue of the Shell Building, London Docklands sponsored with the generous contributions of London Docklands Development Corporation, The British Chess Federation and Mr. Hasan of Indonesia helped to make this great chess event possible.
Team captains M. Hasan (left) and N. Krogius (right) submitting team lists to FIDE President Florencio Campomanes.
The captains of the team were: USSR team – IGM Nikolai Krogius with assistance of IGM Karpov and for the Rest of the World N.M.Hasan with assistance of the American- Czechoslovak IGM L. Kavalek.
The USSR had no problem to select the best team possible. It was obvious that Karpov would play on Board 1 and Kasparov on the Board 2. But surprisingly Petrosian was ill, and was replaced by Razuvaev.
In the rival team Spassky, living in France and Portisch were expected to play, but they declined, because Spassky found it too provocative to play in such an important event against the USSR as le had left the USSR recently, and Portisch, ranked at the time the fourth in the world, was offered to play only on Board 7. So at the last minute the Hungarian player was replaced by the English GM John Nunn. V.Hort busy to play in the Czech Championship which clashed with the match also refused the invitation. Finally the American W. Browne had a higher rating than Seirawan but the latter had the "glamorous public image".
The match started on Sunday 24th June 1984. In the first round the Philippine player E. Torre performed well defeating the new Soviet Champion A. Sokolov who was playing one of the first international event. There was no doubt that Karpov had a better position than Andersson and eventually won the game, and both Smyslov and Seirawan were in hopeless situations. For Hubner the best result was a draw as he had an outside passed pawn and bishops of the opposite color.
Finally the score of the first round was 3,5- 2,5 in favor of the World Team and expectations of 1,5 to 2 points to come when the adjourned games were played.
Round two began on Monday 22, June. Oleg Romanishin faced John Nunn and drew in 33 moves. At the same time Vladimir Tukmakov judiciously replaced Smyslov. There was not any change in the World Team.
Karpov- Andersson typically ended in an uneventful draw, while the Swede played White. The game Kasparov- Timman was well defended by Black in a Tartakower Queen&rsquos Gambit and finished in a draw. The game Ribli- Vaganian was colorless. Seirawan failed for the second time in his game versus Beliavsky in a Queen&rsquos Gambit accepted which he had used successfully before in games with Miles and Torre. The game Miles versus Yusupov ended with a draw. Miles chose an innocent opening, Yusupov was in a very good position but he was in time trouble and mixed up everything.
In the Razuvaev- Hubner game the latter managed to save and draw the game which didn’t begin as expected. In the game Tukmakov- Ljubojevic the initiative was in the hands of the Russian, which succeeded cash the material in the final stage.
At round three, World Team Captain Hasan decided to switch with some reserves. Torre was replaced by the British Chandler, and Seirawan by the veteran B. Larsen. The former World Champion Tal also came back and Sokolov was replaced by Romanishin, Tukmakov stayed to face Ljubojevic. The score of the day was 3-3 with four adjourned games. Timman showed that he was able to hold an unclear position against Kasparov, but he was suddenly caught by surprise and almost lost, but Kasparov missed the winning line. Tal defeated Nunn without too much of a problem. In the game Ljubojevic- Tukmakov the Yugoslav was in the better position but could not manage to concretize it and finally had to draw the game. The game Miles- Yusupov was unclear at first with both sides having good chances but later the position of Black was getting less promising and Miles with no winning chances repeatedly offered a draw which was accepted by Yusupov after 80 moves. At the end of the round 3 the USSR team was winning with a score of 5,5-4,5 and had an overall leading position of 16,5-13,5.
The last round began on June, 29. After a few hours it became clear that the Soviets were going to be the winners.
The game Andersson -Karpov followed the usual Queen&rsquos Indian Defence a line which often ends with a draw, Razuvaev - Hubner also agreed for a short draw but the lack of fighting spirit of the German was surprising. The score for that moment was 18-15 for the Soviets. A. Sokolov was performing well against Torre, and Miles had a good position. The situation was messy with Timman&rsquos game. Suddenly Ribli won in 26 moves in his game against Vaganian and the ROW’s score moved up to 18-16. The game Korchnoi- Tukmakov ended in a draw, and the score was 18,5-16,5 with five games left. Kasparov refused to repeat the position and went to beat Timman with a nice combination. The game Beliavsky- Larsen ended with an easy victory for Beliavsky and the Soviets secured the score to 20,5-16,5. Three remaining games were rather exciting but unfortunately for the ROW team the comeback was too late. In the Chandler- Tal, the game ended with a draw as the Brit could not succeed with an extra pawn; Torre with an exchange down defeated A. Sokolov and Miles won a nice endgame to Romanishin.
So the last match of the century finished with the score of 21-19.
USSR 5 6 5,5 4,5 =21 Rest of the World 19
Beliavsky,A (2565) - Seirawan,Y (2525) [D24]
URS-World London (2), 1984
1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 c5 5.d5 e6 6.e4 exd5 7.e5 Nfd7 8.Bg5 Be7 9.Bxe7 Qxe7 10.Nxd5 Qd8 11.Bxc4 0-0 12.Qc2 Re8 13.0-0-0 Nxe5 14.Rhe1 Nbc6 15.Nxe5 Nxe5 16.Bb5 Re6 17.Nf4 Qf6 18.Qd2 g6 19.Qd8+ Kg7 20.Nxe6+ Bxe6 21.Qxa8 Bxa2 22.Qd8 Qf5 23.Bd3 Qf4+ 24.Rd2 Nc6 25.Qe8 Be6 26.Re4 Qxh2 27.Rxe6 fxe6 28.Qxe6 Nd4 29.Qe7+ Kh6 30.Qf8+ 1-0 |
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