Former FIDE President Fridrik Olafsson turns 85
Photo: https://reykjavik.is/ The fourth FIDE President, Fridrik Olafsson, was born on this day in 1935. He served a single term —succeeding Max Euwe in 1978 and being followed by Florencio Campomanes in 1982— but he left an indelible mark in the history of this organization. His brief period leading FIDE was only the culmination of a brilliant career – and a life devoted to chess. It was Olafsson who put Iceland on the world chess map, long before the Fisher – Spassky match was even conceived. You have probably heard this fun fact before: Iceland is the country with more Grandmasters per capita in the world, with 13 GMs on the island of approximately 325,000. Fridrik Olafsson was the first one of them, being awarded the title in 1958. Photo: http://gahetna.nl And he was not an ordinary Grandmaster, but a world-class one, who can boast victories over Bobby Fischer, Tigran Petrosian, and Mikhail Tal. He defeated these legendary world champions, not once, but twice each! He added another illustrious scalp to his collection later on, when he defeated Anatoly Karpov under the most original circumstances. To begin with, Fridrik was already 45 years old, and his best days as a player were already behind him. Secondly, the year was 1980, and he was in the middle of his term as FIDE President. Nevertheless, he was invited to take part in the “Clarin Tournament” organized by the largest Argentinian newspaper in Buenos Aires, with the strongest possible field: the World Champion, as well as Larsen, Timman, Ljubojevic, Najdorf, and other stars. Olafsson picked up the gauntlet and accepted to play. He achieved a very decent overall result with 6 points out of 13 games, but the highlight of the event was probably his victory over Anatoly Karpov. For the first and only time in history, the reigning President of the International Chess Federation crossed swords against the reigning World Champion in an official game – and the functionary won! With this victory, Olafsson also joined what is called “the Mikhail Chigorin Club”: those players who can boast a victory over a reigning world champion, without having been world champions themselves. Photo: https://lifdununa.is/ Fridrik’s successful career had taken off in 1952 when he became Icelandic Champion at the age of 17. This would be the first of a total of six victories he would achieve in this competition. It was also a golden ticket to travel abroad and compete in international competitions, where very soon he had the chance to prove his value. In 1953 he became Scandinavian Champion, and he also achieved a bronze medal in the World Junior Championship. His first international success was the Hastings International tournament in England, played during New Year’s 1955-1956. He started on the wrong foot because, having arrived in Hastings late, no hotel room could be found for him. The improvised solution was offered by a police officer, who kindly invited him to spend the night in a cell at the Hastings police station. This unusual experience left no traumas on him and he would go on to win the tournament, sharing first with Viktor Kortchnoi. Olafsson took part in the World Championship cycle, finishing 5th/6th at the 1958 Interzonal tournament in Portoroz. This result gave him the Grandmaster title, as well as a spot in the 1959 Candidates Tournament played in Yugoslavia. These are the two events in which he scored his two victories over Bobby Fischer. Photo: http://skaksogufelagid.is But probably his most memorable victory in the Candidates was the one against Tigran Petrosian. His game had been adjourned, and when it was resumed, they played on a balcony overlooking Zagreb’s Republic Square. According to the historian Golombek, “A giant demonstration board had been erected, and a crowd of 5,000 assembled to watch. Olafsson won, to great acclaim. When he tried to go back to the hotel the crowd insisted on carrying him on their shoulders”. Despite these great results, for most of his life, Olafsson juggled his chess career with a regular job, having worked as a lawyer at the Icelandic Ministry of Justice until 1974. Shortly after he lost the 1982 FIDE elections, he was appointed as the highest-ranking employee at the Icelandic Parliament: Secretary-General. And yet, his contribution to the game has been extremely valuable, earning him a very special place in the history of chess. We rejoice with Fridrik Olafsson as he celebrates his 85 birthday today, and we wish him good health and happiness in life! David Llada(Chief Marketing and Communications Officer)
Tata Steel Masters 2020: Caruana pulls away
Black finally had their first “winning day” in Round 11 of Tata Steel Masters, but Fabiano Caruana’s win that almost guaranteed him a tournament victory is a fact of much greater importance. Alireza Firouzja suffered his third defeat in a row after Vishwanathan Anand demonstrated an impeccable endgame technique and created a positional masterpiece. Caruana had Black against tournament outsider Vladislav Kovalev and was planning to take an opportunity to play for a win if he had a chance. An opportunity presented itself quite soon as Kovalev, who has two major problems in this event – opening preparation and permanent time trouble – mixed up the lines once again in a sharp variation of Ruy Lopez. He played 15.f4 almost instantly while 15.Kh1 is proved to be the best option; in the game, he retreated with his king to h1 two moves later and soon realized that something went wrong. Kovalev started to hesitate and after he didn’t return his knight to b5 on move 21 his center just collapsed. In-form Caruana easily finished White’s king off, comfortably attacking with an extra pawn. Magnus Carlsen could not keep up with Caruana and was quite disappointed after drawing his game with Jan-Krzystof Duda. The World Champion thought that Duda’s early attack on the kingside was premature, although engines actually approve it and give White advantage after possible 21.h4. Duda played 21.g4 instead and Carlsen was doing fine until he missed an exchanging combination. White was slightly better once again, but then according to Magnus himself, something weird happened – Polish GM continued to look for drawing opportunities instead of playing optimally. It was definitely not the perfect way to handle the situation, and in the final position Magnus was even a pawn up, but White’s strong pair of bishops made it impossible for Black to play for a win anyway. Game of the day was played by Anand; it’s only his second win in the tournament, but both of them are worth analyzing. The former World Champion admitted that he was a bit nervous before the game despite Firouzja’s losing streak as he knew that Alireza would play very aggressively. Anand was expecting the line with 4.f3 in Nimzo-Indian and opted for a rare line with 7…c5 (he played only 7…e5 before). Firouzja’s reply was probably a novelty and the game immediately transposed into a complex endgame with a highly unorthodox pawn structure. Anand just understood the essence of the endgame much better and gradually outplayed his young opponent. It’s difficult to point out when exactly things went astray for Firouzja – it looks like 21.Nd6+ was premature and 25.Kd2 allowing Black to fix white’s weak pawn on f3 was definitely a mistake. After that Vishwanathan was at his best skillfully outplaying his opponent in a position that still looked unclear for an untrained eye. Three games in a row against the game greatest was a real test for 16-year-old talent who is now living in France. One can say that he didn’t pass the test as he lost all three games. On the other hand, he can only blame himself for the game versus Carlsen; in two other encounters his opponents were simply at their best and this level is just out of reach at the age of 16. Jorden van Foreest – another hero of the early stages of the event – also bit the dust today. His early aggression on the kingside was met with a counterpunch in the center by Vladislav Artemiev and White forced into a better endgame. Soon Artemiev won a pawn and eventually the game. It is a third win for the Russian with White, but he had too many problems with Black to call this tournament a success. In the three other games, Anish Giri was unable to break through Yu Yangyi‘s favorite Petroff’s fortifications, Nikita Vitiugov went for a drawing opening line against Daniil Dubov, and Wesley So just forced a draw on move 11 versus Jeffery Xiong which is somewhat strange as he still had chances to win the whole thing. Talking to a tournament press officer after the game Carlsen quipped that the tournament win was out of sight for him after today’s round, but he would still try his best in the last two rounds. Caruana understandably is not willing to discuss these issues at the moment. In Round 11 he is playing Duda with White while Carlsen will probably test Artemiev’s Caro-Cann which definitely does not look unbreakable in this event. In the Challengers event David Anton Guijarro who was a clear favorite before the event, especially after his amazing score in the Grand Swiss, finally took the sole lead after Round 10 when he won a crucial game against Pavel Eljanov. In Round 11 he moved further ahead beating Anton Smirnov. 15-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who held Carlsen for a draw in World Blitz Championship on December 29, won three games in a row and now is sharing the second place with Erwin L’Ami. Official site: https://www.tatasteelchess.com/Photo: Alina l’Ami Tata Steel Masters 2020 Standings after Round 11: 1. Caruana – 8;2. Carlsen – 7;3. So – 6½;4-5. Van Foreest, Duda – 6;6-10. Firouzja, Dubov, Giri, Artemiev, Anand – 5½;11. Xiong – 5;12-13. Vitiugov, Yu Yangyi – 4;14. Kovalev – 3.