The world champion Magnus Carlsen is making chess popular around the globe and his title defense against Vishy Anand begins on November 8 in Sochi, Russia. Millions of chess fans are looking forward to the coverage of the World Chess Championship match on the Internet and in the newspapers. Alas, The New York Times chess column will not be one of them. Last month, it was abruptly terminated with a single sentence: "This is the final chess column to run in The New York Times."
At least the Washington Post was more generous. After they decided to stop my chess column in January 2010, I was able to write the last article as a farewell note, expressing what the column tried to accomplish. But make no mistake about it: every time a newspaper cuts a chess column, chess loses.
In 1972 America went chess crazy. Bobby Fischer played the Match of the Century against Boris Spassky and chess was everywhere. The New York Times hired grandmaster Robert Byrne to run the chess column.
On October 10, they devoted almost a full page to chess with three items. The first began with...
BYRNE IS APPOINTED AS CHESS COLUMNIST
Robert Byrne, a United States chess co-champion, has been appointed chess columnist for The New York Times. He replaces Al Horwitz, who has been on a leave of absence.
A 44-year-old grandmaster, Mr. Byrne has won the United States Open Chess Championship three times - in 1960, 1963 and 1966. He shares the title of current co-champion with Samuel Reshevsky and Lubomir Kavalek.
It was not a mistake. We were the co-champions. The 1972 U.S. Championship was also a Zonal qualifier and only two places were available. Robert Byrne won the play-off in February 1973.
A news item followed:
U.S. CHESS PLAYERS BOW TO SOVIET TEAM
SKOPJE, Yugoslavia, Oct. 9 - The United States team lost today to the Soviet Union in the 12th round of the chess Olympics here. On the top two boards, Lubomir Kavalek drew with Tigran Petrosian and Robert Byrne drew with Vasily Smyslov. But Pal Benko lost to Mikhail Tal and Arthur Bisguier lost to Anatoly Karpov.
Karpov was actually the first reserve on the Soviet team.
The U.S. team could have been much stronger. The Coca-Cola company was willing to pay $100,000 on a condition that Fischer plays. He would get $50,000 and each of us $10,000. Bobby wanted to go to Skopje. He told me that before my departure from Reykjavik, where I was performing a double duty: reporting on the match for the Voice of America and working with Bobby on his adjournments from the Game 13 till the end of the match. But it was Fischer's adrenaline talking: he was, understandably, too tired after the match with Spassky. Larry Evans and William Lombardy also stayed home.
The third item was Byrne's first column. He wrote about my game against Florin Gheorghiu. At the 1966 Havana Olympiad, the Rumanian grandmaster defeated Bobby Fischer. Byrne based the comments on our mutual analysis before and after the game. The game was also annotated by Hans Kmoch in the Chess Life and Review and I have revisited the comments and added more recent views.
Chess: Flash of Insight, Not Analysis, Gives Kavalek Brilliant Victory
By ROBERT BYRNE
Special to The New York Times
SKOPJE, Yugoslavia, Oct. 9 -The rich stock of opening ideas Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky came up with in their recent world championship match is the spur for dozens of encounters here in the Chess Olympics.
At the age of 45, Byrne went on to qualify for the Candidates matches, finishing third behind Viktor Korchnoi and Karpov at the 1973 Leningrad Interzonal. Three years later at the 1976 Biel Interzonal, he missed the Candidates by a half point.
Last month, FIDE threw the 45-year-old Boris Gelfand into the lion's den, organizing two 12-player Grand Prix events close to each other. Gelfand shared first in Baku, Azerbaijan, but finished last in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The first two GP finishers qualify for the Candidates tournament. After two tournaments the leaders are Fabiano Caruana with 230 points and Hikaru Nakamura with 207 points, both in their twenties.
In 2012, Gelfand challenged Vishy Anand for the world title. It was the oldest pair in the history of the world championships and it ended with Anand's victory in a rapid chess tiebreak. Last year Anand lost the title to Carlsen, but bounced back and against all odds won this year's Candidate tournament to meet the Norwegian again. Last time they met, Anand grew tired in the middle of the 12-game world championship match.
At 44, Anand knows he is an underdog, but this time he will be better prepared mentally and physically. He sent a clear warning to Carlsen by winning the Bilbao Masters in September. At 23, Carlsen is bursting with energy and can keep the pressure on by playing long games and cutting down on his own mistakes.
It could become an uphill struggle for Anand. It doesn't take much – two, three blunders perhaps – and the match is gone, and the ageless warrior we so much admire becomes simply too old.
Image by Burt Hochberg
Original column here – Copyright Huffington Post
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