Meeting Boris Spassky

by André Schulz
8/11/2022 – The French composer and pianist Jason Kouchak is an enthusiastic amateur chess player with considerable playing strength. He has taken part in various Opens, including the Open in Gibraltar in 2009, where he met a famous contemporary.

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Jason Kouchak was born in Lyon in 1969 and has Russian roots, even very famous ones. His great uncle was Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, a naval officer and commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet during the First World War. After the communist revolution, Kolchak fought against the Bolsheviks in Siberia as leader of the so-called "Kolchak Army". For a time he was president of non-communist Russia, whose government was based in Omsk. In 1920, Kolchak was executed in Irkutsk while on the run. His brother's family had gone to France after the Russian Revolution.

Kolchak's descendant Jason Kouchak attended Westminster School and then studied classical music at the Royal College of Music and at the University of Edinburgh. But he also liked to play chess. In the Mega Database you can find games he played in the Jersey Open 2003, the Gibraltar Challengers and Masters 2009 and later from the London Chess Classic Open.

With an Elo rating of almost 1800, the musician has a very respectable playing strength for an amateur player, as can be seen in the following game:

 
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1.e4 d5 2.d4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bf5 5.Nge2 Nbd7 6.Ng3 Bg6 7.Bc4 c6 8.Qd2 Qa5 9.0-0-0 e6 10.Ncxe4 Bb4 11.c3 Be7 12.Bxf6 Nxf6 13.Bd3 Qxa2 14.h4 Nxe4 15.Nxe4 Qa1+ 16.Kc2 Qa4+ 17.Kb1 0-0-0 18.Qe2 a5 19.h5 Bxe4 20.Qxe4 h6 21.Qe2 Bf6 22.Bc4 Kb8 23.Rd2 b5 24.b3 Qa3 25.Ra2 Qe7 26.Bd3 Qc7 27.Kc2 Kb7 28.Rha1 Ra8 29.Qe4 Qb6 30.f4 Rhd8 31.g4 b4 32.cxb4 Qxb4 33.Ra4 Qb6 34.Qf3 Rxd4 35.g5 Qc5+ 36.Bc4 Qf5+ 37.Bd3 Rxd3 38.Qxd3 Qxd3+ 39.Kxd3 Bxa1 40.Rxa1 hxg5 41.fxg5 Kb6 42.Rf1 Ra7 0–1
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Dimitrijevic,D2069Kouchak,J19600–12009D00Gibraltar Challengers12

 

When Kouchak took part in the Gibraltar Open 2009, tournament director Stuart Conquest introduced him to Boris Spassky, who was still in good health at the time. Kouchak wanted to take a photo of himself with Spassky, but the 10th World Champion set one condition: The musician was to play Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, Spassky's favourite, on the piano in the Caleta Hotel. Kouchak played a small excerpt, Spassky was happy, and the two made the photo.

For music lovers:

Spassky, Kouchak and Conquest then spent the evening together and had an interesting conversation. Through his second wife Marina Yurievna Shcherbachova, Spassky also has a connection to the Russian Civil War, which followed the Bolshevik takeover after the Russian Revolution.

Marina Shcherbachova is the granddaughter of the Russian general Dmitry Shcherbachev, who, like Alexander Kolchak, had fought for the "Whites" against the Bolsheviks. After disagreements with Baron Pyotr Wrangel, Shcherbachev left the White Army and went into exile in Nice. His granddaughter Marina worked as a secretary in the French Embassy in Moscow in the 1970s. Spassky met her there and moved with her to Paris, where he lived for many years.

With a composition Kouchak commemorates the 50th anniversary of the legendary World Championship match between Spassky and Fischer, in Reykjavik 1972:

Time Control:

It is about the 11th game of the match, Spassky's first "real" win, if you do not count Fischer's forfeit in game 2 and the first game, in which Fischer blundered in a absolutely equal position:

 
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1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Qb6!? This is the starting move of the Poisoned Pawn Variation. Black neglects his development in order to capture the pawn on b2 - a procedure that every beginner's book warns against. Today the variation has been analysed intensively and thoroughly - at that time it was considered theoretically disreputable. However, Fischer had achieved a number of successes with it and a clear refutation of the provocative black play had not been found. Yes, in the 7th game of the match against Spassky, Fischer had gained an advantage with 7...Qb6 and Spassky could only save a draw with a lot of luck. 8.Qd2 Qxb2 9.Nb3 Qa3 10.Bxf6 gxf6 11.Be2 h5 12.0-0 Nc6 13.Kh1 Bd7 14.Nb1! Spassky thought for 30 minutes before playing this move - which suggests that the surprising knight retreat was not in his preparation, but that Spassky found the move on the board - proof of his creativity and his ability to find unusual solutions. The knight retreat seems so paradoxical because White has a developmental advantage and one would actually think that White should seek his salvation in the attack. But 14.Nb1 pursues a different idea: with the retreat White gets the black queen into serious trouble. Qb4 15.Qe3 d5? Fischer is thrown off his game by the unexpected turn of events and quickly gets into a losing position. Subsequent analyses have established that after 15...Ne7 Black gets a playable position, e.g. 16.a3 Qa4 and the black queen can get to safety via c6. 16.exd5 Ne7 17.c4 Nf5 18.Qd3 h4? After this second inaccuracy, the black position quickly collapses. The possibility of sacrificing a knight on g3 proves to be harmless. The best chance was 18...exd5 e.g. 19.Nc3 dxc4 20.Qe4+ Ne7 21.Nd5 Qd6 22.Bxc4 White is better, but Black can still fight. 19.Bg4! With this move White parries possible threats on the h-file and deprives Black of any counterplay. Nd6 20.N1d2 This simple development move shows how bleak the black position is: he has given back the pawn he won on b2, the black queen is still highly endangered, the black king doesn't know how to get to safety and black lacks any counterplay. After 20 moves, Black is lost. f5 The engines give 20...Rc8 as the best move, but after e.g. 21.a3 Qa4 22.dxe6 fxe6 23.Qg6+ Ke7 24.Rae1 h3 25.Nd4 hxg2+ 26.Kxg2 Rh6 27.Qg8 they judge the position to be clearly won for White. 21.a3 Qb6 22.c5 Qb5 23.Qc3 fxg4 24.a4 Black loses the queen. Fischer could have resigned here with a clear conscience, but perhaps he was so shocked by the course of the game that he simply played on for a few more moves. h3 25.axb5 hxg2+ 26.Kxg2 Rh3 27.Qf6 Nf5 28.c6 Bc8 29.dxe6 fxe6 30.Rfe1 Be7 31.Rxe6 Fischer has rarely suffered such a tough defeat in his entire career. 1–0
  • Start an analysis engine:
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Spassky,B-Fischer,R27851–01972World-ch27 Fischer-Spassky +7-3=1111

 

Translation from German: Johannes Fischer

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André Schulz started working for ChessBase in 1991 and is an editor of ChessBase News.

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