Thursday, December 13, 2012

Amsterdam 1980

I'm going through some of the big tournaments throughout history and analyzing the decisive games of the winners. I have just reached the year 1980, which had the following major events: Amsterdam, Baden, Bad Kissingen, Buenos Aires, Bugojno, Dortmund, Hastings, Las Palmas, London, Soviet Championship, Tilburg, Vrbas, and Wijk aan Zee. I look at them in alphabetical order, so let's take a look at Amsterdam 1980.

Here is the Cross Table:

Amsterdam, 1980
Average Rating: 2582 (Category 14)
Player Rtng Score Ka Ti So Ho Ri Do Va La Perf Chg
1: Karpov, Anatoly 2725 10.0 / 14 XX == == =1 10 =1 11 11 2720 -1
2: Timman, Jan H 2600 9.0 / 14 == XX == =1 == =1 =1 1= 2682 +15
3: Sosonko, Gennadi 2545 8.0 / 14 == == XX == == == 1= =1 2637 +18
4: Hort, Vlastimil 2595 7.5 / 14 =0 =0 == XX =1 == 1= 1= 2609 +1
5: Ribli, Zoltan 2610 7.0 / 14 01 == == =0 XX 1= 01 10 2578 -7
6: Dolmatov, Sergey 2535 7.0 / 14 =0 =0 == == 0= XX 1= 11 2589 +11
7: Van der Wiel, John TH 2465 4.0 / 14 00 =0 0= 0= 10 0= XX 10 2441 -3
8: Larsen, Bent 2585 3.5 / 14 00 0= =0 0= 01 00 01 XX 2389 -36

56 games: +20 =29 -7

I can't really tell you about the history of this tournament, or anything like that. I wasn't even born yet. All I know is that these tournaments in Amsterdam were sponsored by or in some way affiliated with IBM. So, the winner was Karpov and he had 7 wins for me to look at. I'd like to share with you Karpov's win with the black pieces over Bent Larsen. Here is the decisive moment:

Question: White is to move - what is Black's threat?


Answer: 1...Rxe3 2.fxe3 Qxe3+ forking the king and rook.


White just played Nd4 attacking the queen.
Question: What is wrong with that move?

Answer: After 1...Bxd4 2.Bxd4 Qd2 Black has a triple attack.
Question: What are Black's three threats in that position?


Answer: 
1) The Black queen attacks the rook on c1
2) The Black queen attacks the bishop on d4
3) The Black rook threatens 1...Re1+ 2.Rxe1 Qxe1+ 3.Bf1 Ba6

So, if you saw from the diagrammed position: 1...Bxd4 2.Bxd4 Qd2 3.Qf4 Re1+ 4.Rxe1 Qxe1+ 5.Bf1 Ba6, good job because Bent Larsen missed it when he played Nd4.

Here is the complete game:

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