Grandmaster Clash - Stephen Fry's documentary about the 1988 Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki

by Johannes Fischer
9/10/2024 – Today, Tuesday 10 September, at 18:00, the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest will begin with the Opening Ceremony. To get in the mood for this Olympiad, it might be worth looking back at another Olympiad - the one held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1988. The English comedian, writer, actor and chess enthusiast Stephen Fry made a documentary about it - witty, entertaining, full of irony and humour. As Fry said: "An event I wouldn't have missed for the world." | Image: Screenshot from the documentary - Stephen Fry (left), Jonathan Speelman (right)
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With numerous interviews and extracts, Fry gives an insight into the tournament and the atmosphere at the Olympiad. The Soviet Union, with Garry Kasparov (8.5/10), Anatoly Karpov (8.0/10), Artur Jussupov (6.0/10), Alexander Beliavsky (7.0/10), Jaan Ehlvest (4.5/7) and Vassily Ivanchuk (6.5/9) won gold, leaving all the other teams far behind. They scored a total of 40.5 board points, a full 6 board points ahead of England and the Netherlands, who both scored 34.5 board points.

England played with Nigel Short, Jonathan Speelman, John Nunn, Murray Chandler, Jonathan Mestel and William Watson, and this team is also the focus of the documentary. But Fry also lets celebrities like Garry Kasparov or Anatoly Karpov have their say, who can be admired here in all their youthful vigour.

One of the sensations of the Thessaloniki Olympics was the Hungarian women's team, nicknamed "Polgaria" because Zsuzsa, Judit and Sofia Polgar were the three Polgar sisters in the team. The fourth member of the team was Idliko Madl. The young sisters and Idliko Madl stood up to the pressure and relegated the favourites from the Soviet Union to second place. Hungary finished with 33 board points to the Soviet Union's half a point less and with 32.5 board points they had to settle for silver.

The most successful Hungarian player was Judit Polgar, who was only 12 years old at the time and scored an almost perfect 12.5 out of 13.

But in Fry's documentary the results are ultimately secondary. Fry, who is a passionate chess player and has written about chess in numerous articles and many of his books, is primarily concerned with capturing the atmosphere of the chess Olympiad and, with irony and mild mockery, painting a portrait of the many colourful and enigmatic characters who were there in Thessaloniki. And, of course, to explore the question of what makes chess so fascinating.

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Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".