11 June 2014

Zone 7 Details, 1969 & 1975

Thanks to a couple of Bill Hook articles in Chess Life, I added clippings for zone 7 to my detail pages on the World Chess Championship Zonals:-

The 1975 writeup included a note on a tentative Fischer match.

A surprise visitor was Florencio Campomanes of the Philippines, FIDE Deputy President, fresh from negotiations in Caracas for a possible Fischer - Mecking match.

I don't recall seeing mention of this before.

04 June 2014

'The Termination' by Kasparov

In my previous post, KK1, KK2, and KK3, I mentioned three accounts by Kasparov on the series of Kasparov - Karpov matches:-
  • Child of Change (Hutchinson 1987, with Donald Trelford),
  • Unlimited Challenge (Fontana 1990), and
  • Kasparov on Modern Chess part 2; Kasparov vs Karpov, 1975-1985 (Everyman 2008)

I closed the post with:-

Although the later discussions of the KK1 termination largely repeat Kasparov's 1987 account, and all three contain a fourth Kasparov account written in March 1985, they still deserve to be reviewed.

Not having studied the three accounts, I was taking a bit of a stab that the two later accounts 'largely repeat' the first. The diagram on the left shows the similar structure of the three accounts -- CHCH (1987), UNCH (1990), and KMC2 (2008) -- along with the page numbers where corresponding sections start. For example, the events leading up to Campomanes' termination of the match on 15 February 1985 ('<15 Feb'), start on p.127 in 'Child of Change', on p.116 in 'Unlimited Challenge', and on p.246 in 'Kasparov on Modern Chess'.

The events of the termination itself ('@15 Feb') are mainly a transcript of the press conference. This is nearly identical in the three sources.

Kasparov's account written in March 1985 ('Cui bono?') is introduced in 'Kasparov on Modern Chess' (KMC2) with

The starting point of my analysis was that, in trying to assess that decision to end the match, one should be guided by Cicero's immortal question: 'Cui bono?' - 'To whose benefit?' (p.264)

Although building on the previous account, each new account provides more detail. For example, the second account (UNCH 1990) incorporates the full text of letters missing from the first. The third account (KMC2 2008) quotes sources not available for the second. Two examples from the events leading up to the press conference are

Averbakh: 'Incidentally, in his letter, when he states "it will be recalled", Sevastyanov cites the agreement about the unlimited Fischer-Karpov match (1976). But this agreement was confidential, the negotiations took place in strict secrecy, and I, for example, as head of the Federation, had no idea about them.' (p.251)

and

Nikitin: 'Campomanes spoke with us somewhat sluggishly and did not enter into arguments. We realised that he did not agree with much of what was said and therefore did not want to defend it. It was a purely formal visit, since everything had already been decided. Apparently Campo was not exactly enthusiastic about the mission assigned to him of executioner of the match, and he simply wanted to warn us about his next steps.' (p.252)

Here is a third example from well after the press conference.

Five years later Karpov wrote this in his book Sestra moya Kaissa: 'Those days left a heavy residue in my heart. And not only because victory was taken away from me without a fight. The main thing was that I was denied the opportunity to immediately explain the truth to my people... (p.262)

The Karpov book was published in English as 'Karpov on Karpov' (Macmillan 1991). How does it compare with Kasparov's accounts?