Raymond Keene - Becoming a Grandmaster.pdf

Becoming

a

Grandmaster

To David and Margaret

THE CLUB PLAYER'S LIBRARY

Becoming

a

Grandmaster RA YMOND KEENE M.A. ( Trinity College, Cambridge) , International Chess Grandmaster

B. T. Batsford Limited London

First published 1977 © Raymond Keene 1977 ISBN 0 7 1 34 0829 4 cased ISBN 0 7134 0830 8 paperback Filmset by Willmer Brothers Limited, Birkenhead an d printed in Great Britain by

Billing & Sons Ltd , London, Guildford & Worcester for the publishers B. T. Batsford Limi ted 4 Fitzhardinge Street, London WIH OAH BATSFORD CHESS BOOKS Adviser: R. G. Wade EditOr: K. J. O'Connell

Contents

6 7

Acknowledgements Preface Abbreviations, Symbols, Explanations I

2

1l

My First International Tournament

11

The Practical Struggle

Body-Line Chess

3 4 5 6 7

8

A Tournament in the

USSR

34

How I Gained the Title

43

BRITISH CHESS

61 61 67 69 73 73 73 76 76

What Went Wrong in the 1 960s The Social Contract or The Value of Chess Sponsorship and Popularization of Chess Chess and Chess Books

The Influence of Good Books Writing and Playing Flank Openings The King's Indian Defence The Modern Defence and The Pirc Defence Nimzowitsch /Larsen Attack

10

19

27 29

The Young Grandmasters: Chess as Sport

BOOKS AND GAMES

9

9

INTERNATIONAL CHESS

96

107

122

Selection of Games

1 30

Appendix: Statistics and FIDE Title Regulations

145 155 157

Index of Players Index of Openings

Acknowledgements

I shou ld like to extend my thanks to Bob Wade and Peter K emmis Be tty , who so readily agreed tha t this book should find its way into the famous

series; tojacqueline Levy, who helped out with the typing of my n u script, and above all to my wife Ann ette , who not on ly had to live with me for two years between my first and second G.M. norms, but also did the bulk of the t yp in g , at the same time making va lu a ble criticisms Batsford

illegible

ma

and corrections. Of course, thanks also to all those who aided an d abetted me on

towards be comi ng

a

Grand master .

the path

Raymond Keene Evian, July 1977

Preface

1976 was a rem arkabl e year for British chess,

though perhaps, in this

devo lu t ionary age, I shou ld be more precise and say ' E ngli sh '. In former

many Grandmast ers , both home-grown, such St aun ton , Blackburne or Burn, and of the emigre va ri e ty . Let us not for ge t th at duri ng the nineteenth century, when London was the Mecca of chess, no lesser figures than Steinitz, Zukertort and Lask er chose, for

times England could boast

as

varying periods, to make our capital city their home. With the advent of

the twentieth century all of this changed. Atkins, our one pla yer of true Grandmaster potential, never sough t

to impress his

mark on the

international arena, contenting himself with fr eq ue nt annexation of the

British Champ ionship . His result at Hannover in 1902 is clear proof that he

would have been capable ofgreater things had the desire been there. Those of our p laye rs who were attracted

to

the post-First World

War

in terna tional circuit (Yates, Winter, Sir George Thomas) were obviously

s trong IMs, and not much more , though this was before the regularization of international titles by the World Chess Federation (FIDE) in 1950 and ti tl es

were t h en awarded by acclaim rather than by certificate. 26 years since the inauguration of the FIDE title system several English players became International Masters (Go lom bek , Alexander, Penrose) but our main hope for most of this perio d for an E n gli sh Grandmaster was frustrated when Penrose lost his form after 1969. Finally in 1976, two English I Ms (Tony Miles and myself) succeeded in gaining the h ighest title FIDE can bestow (apart from World Champion, that is) when we were confirmed as Grandmasters at the FIDE con gress at Haifa In the

in

November 1976. In this book I attempt to record the specific problems that attend the

route to chess Grandmastership. I have also commented on various aspects of our national chess scene which seem to me of crucial relevance to the development of collective and individual chess strength. In the

argument

I

have

coloured-in

the

current

the course of

international

chess

8 Preface environment, seeking to bring out some of the flavour of what it is like to compete in a top-level international event, and also commenting on the personality and play of the young generation oflnternational GMs such as Mecking, Ljubojevic, Hiibner, Andersson, Timman, Smejkal. This work makes no claim to being a standard textbook on how to gain the GM title, but I would not be surprised (and I would certainly be pleased) ifan account ofmy personal progress towards the GM tide did not exhibit typical 'rharacteristics which would be of great help to others involved in, or about to embark on, a similar quest. London February

197 7

Raymond Keene

Abbreviations, Symbols and. Explanations

Check

+

Good move

!! ? ??

Outstanding move Bad move Blunder

!?

I nteresting

?!

Dubious

;;!; C+)

Whi te (Black) slightly better

White (Black) much better ± (+) ±± (++) White (Black) wins oo

Unclear

BC M

British Chess Maga?.ine

Ch

Championship

GM

I nternational Grandmaster

IM

I nternational Master

NM

National Master

Zeitnot

German origin: Time-trouble. Used internationally.

N.B. International tournament games are played with chess clocks and

each player must complete 40 moves in 2! hours of his own time, otherwise he forfeits the game. Subsidiary sessions are played at the rate of in I hour. After the first sessions normally last

2

5

16 moves

hours the game is adjourned and subsequent

hours each, exceptionally 4. Each player must

record the moves of his game on a scoresheet, 'legibly' and in a recognized notation.

International Chess

1

My First International Tournament

Hastings

196fi..;.l967-A TraUDlatic Experience

One's first tournament can scar for life. Of course, I had played in many tournaments before Has tings 1 966---6 7 , bu t they had mostl y been j u nior or Swiss events , where the oppos i tion h ad not been too strong, or at best mixed , w i th an occasional sprink ling of national and intern a tional masters. I had encountered one GM before this-Alberic O'Kelly at Bognor in 1 965-and I had been soundly thrashed. Another important poi nt: apart from occasional s etbacks, such as th at agai ns t O'Kelly, I had hitherto been accustomed to almost universal success in my important even ts , and was not psychologically prepared for fail u re . I n ju nior chess I had won l st prize in the London and British Under 1 8 Championsh ips in 1 964; scored 4-i /5 in the Glorney Cup, also in 1964, made 5 / 7 on board 2 in the West E u rop a team event at The Hague 1 965, and came 2nd to Suttles in the B-group of the 1 965 World Junior. At senior level I had shared 1 s t plac e in the 1 965-66 Has tings Cha l lengers with Yuri Balashov of the USSR, a nd r epresented England on bottom board in the 1 966 C l are Bened ict and Havana Olympiad, both team events. In th e course of those ei ght forays I had lost only five gam es , whic h shows simply that I had not faced sufficiently tough opposition . In fact, my exp eri enc e of ch ess on the t h reshhol d of 1 9 and about to go up to Trinity Cambridge , contrasted very poorly with that obtained by , for exa mple , Tony Miles, in the more favourable climate of the early 1 970s. Although Hastings 1 966---67 was very definitely my first senior i ndividual, international tournament run on the a l l -p la y- a l l sys tem, my first tournament of the same type outside England did not come for a fu r the r five years until I was invited to Berlin 1 9 7 1 ! As to the s truc tu re and orga nization of the H astings tournament i tself many featu res , which I now regard as com monplace, were nov el to me t hen. I fClt menac ed by the presence of spectators, who scrutinized one's ga m es the more close ly since there were at most five at an y given moment, and I disliked the notion of

12 My First International Tournament being on exhibit-one's mistakes no longer seemed a private matter between oneself and the op pon ent. I could almost hear mass derision whenever I made an error ( this was almost c e r t ainly imaginary), but I was justifiably embarrassed when a pplau se broke out (gei:m ine, if misguided ) after my rott e n win against Bot vi n nik. Historicall y the game wa s i m po rt ant, as one of the very few wins this century by an Englishman agai n s t an Ex-World Ch am pi on , but as chess it was nonsense and deserved to be hissed ra the r than clapped. During th e course of the tourn am e n t I had three very boring draws (v. Hartston, Penrose a nd K urajic a ) and once again I sensed hos tility welling up. My intuition t uni ed out to be very accura te this time, as press re ports of the games proved , but this kind of criticism of the players is much more p rev alen t i n E ngland than an)'where else in the wor l d , as I ha ve since d iscovered, though Reykj avik comes close. I have to confess that the main reason for cowardice against Penrose and H artston was the fear of failure against a co-national, and I s usp ec t this fear was mutu.a l. I hat ed the idea of losing to another Englishman, and so avoided the whole prob l e m . Agains t Basman I tried very hard to win, but did it so in ac cu ra t e l y that I made myselflook like a buffoon-and in pub l ic ! A fe ature which distinguished this from all my su bseq u en t invitationals was that the 'home pl ayers ' received no expe ns es at all! Of course, this has now changed for the better.

I 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9

ID

Hastings International Tournament, December 1966-January 1967 I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 X M. Botvinnik (USSR) I I 0 I ! 1 ! I W. Uhlmann (E. Germany) ! X 0 I ! ! t I ! M. B asman (Englantf) I ! ! I 0 ! t 0 X B. Kuraj ic a ( Yugoslavia) 0 I 0 X ! ! I ! I ! Y. Balashov (USSR) 0 0 I ! X I 0 I t I J. Penrose ( Englantf) 0 .l.2 t ! 0 X t I t H. Mecki ng (Bra(.il) 0 X 0 t 0 0 I t R. Keene (Englantf) I t 21 t 0 t 0 X 0 t M. Czerni ak (Israel) 0 0 i 0 t 0 0 I X I W. Hartston (Englantf) ! t 0 t 0 t t t 0 X

6! 5! 5 5 5

4! 4

3!

3

3

At a glance one can see th a t this was an interestingly co mposed an d powerful tournament, particu l ar ly arduous as a first i n tern ation al test. Along with Botvinnik and Uhl mann, Grandmasters of the highes t class, I had to survive against two experie nc ed International Masters (Penrose and Czerniak) plusKurajica (Worl�JuniorChampion I965-67) and four

My First International Tournament

13

other excellent young players. Indicative of the strength of the event was the fact that the "tough veteran Czemiak could do no better than tie for last place, while the relative evenness of play is visible from the absence of any scores below the 'Master's Third' (In international tournaments a third score is generally regarded as acceptable for a national master result) . After a gap of ten years it is revealing to consider the change in status undergone by all players apart from Botvinnik (who was to retire from chess after another four years, and could hardly improve on Ex-World Champion in any case) and Czerniak, who was already 56 and thus hardly likely to graduate to Grandmaster.

Points Scored (5!J 15) (5) (5)

Playn Uhlmann Ba.t;mau Kuraj ica

Agr in Jan. 1967 FIDE Status Jan. /967 31 Grandmaster (1959) 20 Non.-

FIDE Status Jan. 1977 GM (Candidate 1971) Non.-

19

International Ma�t