Could Taimanov have beaten Fischer?

by Karsten Müller
5/24/2024 – In the 1971 Candidate Matches Bobby Fischer faced Mark Taimanov In Vancouver, Canada. The American defeated his opponent from the Soviet Union with a "dry" 6-0 score. But matters could have started differently. In the first game it was Taimanov who put on the pressure, and even had winning chances. He played 27.h3, which nobody considered a bad move – until Kasparov pointed out its defect in 2004. Today's riddle deals with the position before White's 27th move. Computers find it devilishly difficult to find the best continuation. Can you?

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Here is the critical first game of the Candidates, Vancouver 1971:

Nobody – not Byrne, and not Taimanov – thought that 27.h3 was a bad move, until in 2004 Kasparov suggested 27.Bb5. And then Lakdawala in 2015 suggested 27.Ba6!  Aagaard improved Lakdawala's variation and then Karolyi and Timman thought White was winning.

But is this really correct? What do the readers think?

Karsten Müller is considered to be one of the greatest endgame experts in the world. His books on the endgame - among them "Fundamentals of Chess Endings", co-authored with Frank Lamprecht, that helped to improve Magnus Carlsen's endgame knowledge - and his endgame columns for the ChessCafe website and the ChessBase Magazine helped to establish and to confirm this reputation. Karsten's Fritztrainer DVDs on the endgame are bestsellers. The mathematician with a PhD lives in Hamburg, and for more than 25 years he has been scoring points for the Hamburger Schachklub (HSK) in the Bundesliga.

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