Vasily Smyslov the 7th World Chess Champion died on Saturday of heart failure at the age of 89.
I was very lucky to met Smyslov at the Fox Trot tournament in London during 1996.
The tournament was held at the Hilton hotel.
In the tournament Smyslov,Spassky,Hort,Portisch and Taimanov,played against top women players.
Cramling,Ioseliani,Arakhamia,Xie and Sofia Polgar.
On the day i attended the tournament Portisch was to play Polgar,their was a lighting fault and play was suspended for an hour or 2.
Young miss polgar went shopping,moments later the lighting fault was fixed so play started.
Sofia Polgar was traced and play went on as normal.
I got Smyslov to autograph my Dover book of his games, he was very patient with the spectators who wanted photos and autographs.
With his passing chess has lost a true chess great and a gentleman on and off the board.
I give one of his in my opinion best games.
It is often use to show the importance of a knight outpost,but i find this delightfull little game great.
(show chess board)
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3 comments:
Great game! Death sucks!
Amazing how it followed theory for so long and then that happened. Be7 rather than Bd8, or B-anythingotherthan-d8 looks better.
Why were we going for crazy combos again? Simple win.
It looks so easy. He was a great player, the example of longevity in chess, reaching the Candidates final at 61!
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