
Pitching a Perfect Chess Game
By GM Lubomir Kavalek
Asked to name his best game, the legendary Bobby Fischer pointed to his encounter
with Donald Byrne from the Rosenwald Trophy in New York in 1956, but admitted
it wasn't perfect. "There is no perfect game in chess," he said. After
all, we are human and we make mistakes. But according to the Hungarian writer
and International Master Tibor Karolyi, Anatoly Karpov came close to playing
a mistake-free game at the 1974 chess olympiad in Nice, France, and only a tiny
error deprived him of creating a perfect game. It was played when we met on
the top board of the USA-USSR match. It became one of Karpov's most analyzed
games.

Of the 17 games we played against each other in major competitions in the span
of 13 years (photo above is from Buenos Aires in 1980), Karpov won
four games, I won once and we drew 12 games. My victory came in our first
encounter in Caracas 1970 and we played our last game in Hannover, Germany,
in 1983.
In his prime, the former world chess champion Karpov played like the famed
FC Barcelona soccer team. Beautiful one-touch passes, allowing the Barca players
to keep possession of the ball most of the time, were similar to Karpov's little
chess moves that would deny his opponents the control of the game. He fought
for every inch and giving him space was deadly. You can feel it from Karolyi's
work, published by Quality Chess.
The 560-page first volume Karpov's Strategic Wins 1 – The Making of
a Champion covers years 1961-1985. The 576-page second volume Karpov's
Strategic Wins 2 – The Prime Years embraces years 1986-2010.
Karolyi dissects Karpov's wins thoroughly and the books examine Karpov's career
in detail. It was a colossal undertaking and Karloyi spent several years studying
his protagonist. He delivers a fascinating account of Karpov's skills.
When I met Karpov in Nice, he was number two rated player in the world behind
Fischer; I was number 10. It was the first time he played the top Soviet board
and I felt the pressure with each of his moves. Still, I was able to keep his
advantage to a minimum. The game was heavily analyzed, specially the concluding
stage. Experts such as Mark Dvoretsky, Mihai Marin, Alexander Motylev, Karpov
himself and others tried their hands in finding a logical conclusion. Karolyi
devotes some 16 pages to it, showing most of the analysis and his improvements.
He claims that Karpov made only one small inaccuracy. Was he pitching a perfect
game?
This is hard to say because at a critical point I missed one move that could
have saved me. True, I was pressed by time, but I should have found a pretty
rook pin at the end of a logical sequence. The trouble was I had to move my
rook backwards.
In the book "Invisible Chess Moves," Emmanuel Neiman and Yochanan
Afek talk about the problem. "Forward moves are easier to find than backward
moves, "they write. "Human beings usually walk forward, they seldom
walk backward and hardly ever horizontally." In chess "we learn to
move pawns (always forward) and to develop pieces toward the center and in the
direction of opponent's pieces. There is a general movement from the back to
the front, and some players are even reluctant to go backward on principle."
It is an outstanding book, originally published in French and recently brought
out in English by New In Chess.
Let's see what happened in Nice. For the first 29 moves Karpov and I fought
tooth and nail and we reached the following position, in which White is better,
but Black's game is solid and the bishops of opposite colors give it a drawing
flavor. The only loose pawn on a6 can be protected easily.
Note that in the replay windows below you can click on the notation to
follow the game.
Kings vs. Queens: A Battle of the Sexes
Karpov will join the Kings team that includes GM Hikaru Nakamura, GM Ben Finegold,
IM Jacek Stopa and IM Marc Arnold. The Queens team is led by GM Judit Polgar
with GM Kateryna Lahno, GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, IM Anna Zatonskih and IM Irina
Krush. "Kings vs. Queens: A Battle of the Sexes," a Fischer Random
and rapid team match, will be played Sept. 9-16 after the official opening of
the World Chess Hall of Fame at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint
Louis in Saint Louis, Missouri.
Original
column here – Copyright
Huffington Post

The Huffington Post is an American news website and aggregated blog founded
by Arianna Huffington and others, featuring various news sources and columnists.
The site was launched on May 9, 2005, as a commentary outlet and liberal/progressive
alternative to conservative news websites. It offers coverage of politics, media,
business, entertainment, living, style, the green movement, world news, and
comedy. It is a top destination for news, blogs, and original content. The Huffington
Post has an active community, with over one million comments made on the site
each month. According to Nielsen NetRatings, the site has around 13 million
unique visitors per month (number for March 2010); according to Google Analytics
the number is 22 million uniques per month.