New Riddle: Karpov-Hort 1979

by Karsten Müller
8/28/2024 – Four world-class grandmasters met in a Dutch town for a double round-robin tournament. It was dominated by World Champion Anatoly Karpov, who went into the final round with a 1½-point lead and faced the second-placed GM Vlastimil Hort. Karpov won the game – but could Hort have prevented this happening? That's an interesting riddle we want to solve. Can you help us?

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Deep rook endgame riddle

In June 1979, two months after the super event in Montreal, a small double round-robin  tournament for four players was held in the small Dutch town of Waddinxveen near Gouda. The world-class players Vlastimil Hort, Lubomir Kavalek and Gennadi Sosonko were, as expected, dominated by Anatoly Karpov. Going into the final round, the World Champion had already secured victory with a score of 4/5, 1.5 points ahead of second-placed Hort.

In the Karpov-Hort game from the last round, White gained dynamic advantages out of the opening. Eventually he was able to transfer to a major piece ending with the far better pawn structure. In those years, Karpov was famous for his brilliant endgame technique, with which he achieved many technical victories even from positions with only slight advantages. Especially after the exchange of queens, Hort's position therefore seemed practically extremely difficult.

You probably know that you can click on the notation below to get a replay board, and start an engine there to help with your analysis.

So Karpov did indeed win the game and thus the tournament by a margin of 2 points over Kavalek, who managed to beat Sosonko. The positional rook ending after 27.Rxe3 has been analysed and commented on several times. Especially extensively by Jan Timman in "The Art of Chess Analysis" (Everyman Chess, 1997 org. 1993) and Tibor Karolyi in "Endgame Virtuoso Anatoly Karpov" (New In Chess, 2007).

Their conclusion is that Black should give up a pawn right at the start of the endgame (instead of 27...Re8) to save his position. After this missed chance White is on the verge of victory, the annotators find no errors or significant improvements on either side.

However, analysis with a modern engine shows that a surprisingly high number of mistakes were actually made by both players after 27.Rxe3.

Can you find some of the critical moves, or perhaps even all of them?

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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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malfa malfa 8/31/2024 03:53
Well, albitex, "rook first" is sort of a rule of thumb when acitivating pieces in the endgame, which together with the other one, "rooks behind passed pawns", would have apparently made 27...Ra8 intuitive... But not at the cost of one pawn against Karpov! Though by playing 27...Ra8 it is almost immediately clear that it will be the white rook the one to become passive, to a human it is by no means obvious that the pawn would have been compensated even in the long run. Thus Hort may have reasoned that, when defending via Re8-e7, his rook would have preserved some more flexibility than after 27...Kf7 28.Ra1 Ra8 29.Ra6. Anyway after both kinds of passive defence he would have retained the option of sacrificing the a-pawn for activity at some clearer stage. More or less this the way carbon engines still work even nowadays ;-)
Karsten Müller Karsten Müller 8/31/2024 02:01
albitex: Probably Hort was afraid of 27...Kf7 28.Ra3 Ra8 29.Ra6. But Black indeed can defend here by activating the rook later.
albitex albitex 8/31/2024 01:27
But, the question is: why didn't Hort play 27... Kf7 move? All beginners learn first that the Rook must be placed behind the passed pawn to support its advance. A top GM doesn't put the Rook on a8, why? What was Hort afraid of?
Karsten Müller Karsten Müller 8/29/2024 08:38
oxygenes: Black can indeed play 27...Kf7 but then more critical is 28.Ra3 Ra8 29.Ra6. Black draws then with 29...Kf6 in "your spirit".
oxygenes oxygenes 8/28/2024 07:37
It looks more fun, if black plays 27. - Kf7 (with idea f7-f6-e5-d4-c3-b2 or lure white to exchange rooks) 28.Rf3+ Ke7 29.Ra3 Ra8 30.Ra6 h5 31.h4 Kf6 32.Kf3 Ke5 33. Ra5+ Kd4 34.Rxh5 a5.
Karsten Müller Karsten Müller 8/28/2024 03:19
tip4success:
1) Yes here indeed the rook belongs behind the passed a-pawn.
2) You mean 30...h6?, which indeed is a losing mistake.
3) OK (you mean 38...gxf4) but Black is lost anyway.
4) 40...Rb4 loses as well
Karsten Müller Karsten Müller 8/28/2024 03:06
arzi: Very good point! Indeed 27...a5!? 28.Rxe6 Ra8 draws relativly easily. And 27...Ra8 draws as well.
tip4success tip4success 8/28/2024 12:27
A few notes:
27...Ra8 seems to provide some counterplay (enough?) to force the white rook to stay on the a file;
34...h6?! is played too early before white has positioned his pawns;
37...gxf4? is just helping white set up a better pawn formation;
40...Rb4 to trade a7 for f4, if not harass the white king with forever checks;
arzi arzi 8/28/2024 12:25
One possible line: 27...a5 28.Rxe6 Ra8 29. Re3 Kf7 30. Kf3 Kf6 31. Ra3 a4 32. e4 g5 33. Kg4 Kg6 34.f4 h5+ 35.Kf3 g4+ 36. Ke3 Kf6 37.Kd3 Rd8+ 38. Kc4 Rc8+ 39.Kb4 Rc2 40.e5+ Kf5
arzi arzi 8/28/2024 12:10
The first impression was a black pawn sacrifice in e6, either by moving the black pawn immediately to a5 or first the black rook a8 to support the pawn advance? Still the same final position. However, this is a difficult defense for Black, perhaps too difficult?
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