Pearly Kings

Distant Soviet times

[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]

Looking through the ChessBase website, I see that Merijn Van Delft used the game Esipenko v Kobalia this week (as I write) for his Game of the Week. I had also noticed the game at the Russian Team Championship and used it for my weekly column on the English newspaper The Observer, so I was pleased to see that he’d chosen such an excellent game though a tad disappointed not to have the pleasure of demonstrating it here myself.

The team championship was in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi where I played nearly four decades ago in the 16th Mikhail Chigorin Memorial. In those distant Soviet times, the seven foreigners were put up in the Zhemchuzhina (Pearl) Hotel where the tournament was also held while the nine Soviets (and I can’t remember, but this may even have applied to the winner Misha Tal himself) were dispersed among other lesser establishments.

Despite the superior accommodation, the foreigners suffered at the hands of the Soviets, with Predrag Nikolic [pictured] coming second and myself sixth equal, while the rest finished in an ungainly heap at the bottom.

In any case, I thought today that I’d look at some games played in the Zhemchuzhina, starting with a somewhat preposterous one from the recent team championship and then moving back in time to 1982.

Select an entry from the list to switch between games

Master Class Vol.2: Mihail Tal

On this DVD Dorian Rogozenco, Mihail Marin, Oliver Reeh and Karsten Müller present the 8. World Chess Champion in video lessons: his openings, his understanding of chess strategy, his artful endgame play, and finally his immortal combinations.

Links

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• All Speelman’s Agony columns