"William Hyde" wrote in message
...
On Nov 20, 11:38 am, "Chess One" wrote:
"William Hyde" wrote in message

. Why let Keres
beat Tal 3-1 in the 1959 event, if Keres is to be kept from the
championship at all costs?

Well ... this is all good stuff, and we have rehersed the conversation
before, and exercising it always admits new factors. Should I chose to be
very cycical at this point; the Estonian is allowed to win over the
Latvian,
since he was seen to be the lesser threat to Botvinnik,

I wonder about the assessment though. As we all know Tal won
convincingly, but that wasn't so clear before the match. Could the
great Botvinnik be defeated by this "bag of tricks" in a 24 game
match?
Many doubted it.

On the other hand Keres' score against Botvinnik in recent years had
improved markedly from the years up to and including 1947. He might
well have won.

Sure. And my speculations are very windy ones, since while I feel it would
be impossible to call the coercive political context absent - though some
do - how much weight to attribute to it is the bone of contention? I think
responses to that element of things also varied player to player, eg, later
with Bronstein, not at all.

Botvinnik, as favored son, may not have been actively complicit with it, but
impossible not to have know which way the wind blew.

The least speculatory thing to do would have been to put Botvinnik, Evans,
Keres, Reshevsky, Tal and .. Fine and Euwe [?] plus another young Russian
[Taimanov?] into open competition, an old-fashioned St. Petersburg sort of
competition. Even so, the Western group were still amateur players, while
the Russians were already semi-pro, even immediately after the war.
Botvinnik's engineering degree & consequent employment cannot be seen as
other than a formal gloss over his real status.

But since I am wantonly speculating; the group above would have provided a
fascinating contest of chess. I think we agreed [circa 1950?] Keres would
have been favorite, though our time period here seems to be most of the 50s;
but as to seconds and thirds? Certainly Reschevsky must be a candidate - but
a too-lazy candidate? Evans had good scores against all, even plus scores
against most. Botvinnik strongest mid 50s to 1960, and as you say, Tal not
yet matured to the degree of the late 60s when [who said it? Fischer? he was
'unbeatable'?]. I think Euwe gave Fine a great shock with that infamous
'unfixed' draw 'offer' based on opening preparation. I think Fine hardly
recovered from it [how ironic he should wind up with MCO!]

Arnold Denker was actually good on all these subjects - and IMO, such a
shame he did not get to produce one more book, co-authoring with another
writer in these newsgroups.

Something which is not so arrant a speculation is what all these players did
for the game, post-war. My sense is that the type of chess they played
formed a cusp between the early pioneers of modern classical chess,
including the hypermodern school, and the depth of creative play they
produced had not been seen before - not even the least player in the group
above would be in much doubt to defeat Capablanca, Lasker or Alekhine.

There is a contention for you!

And more so, they themselves prepared the ground for yet another leap, and
class of chess play, with the fantastic crowd who entertained us throught
the 70s.

While the Russian scene is often clouded, far more obvious to me is what
happened during this entire period, 1950 to 1970 in England. Clarke probably
overhauled Alekander by 1955. [I just found a wonderful photo of him playing
Ikvov in Czechoslovakia, from a Serbian corresp.]

To properly assess that movement I asked Mickey Adams two questions about it
in our interview. As you know, we both shared Peter as team captain, so I
asked him about the particularity of his own mentorship in chess - was it
such as PH C [maybe Wade?] both big observers of Soviet chess, or was it the
young tigers like Miles, Keene, et co? who led the charge in producing some
20 English GMs, mid 60s onward?


I wonder if the 'fix' was simply to rotate champions, or at least parade
a
whole group of them in the West, since too much singularity defeats the
idea
of group superiority according to a system - that was the political point
of
all.

I think the more parsimonious hypothesis is that they let the chips
fall where they may, at least when Reshevsky was no longer a threat.
The danger of a non-Soviet winning the 1956,59, or 62 candidates
tournaments was surely zero (Keres and Bronstein ceded a
place in the 1956 event to Reshevsky - and the fact that they were
allowed to do that by itself is telling - but he didn't play).

Yes. Given another 20 questions with Taimanov, it would have been
interesting to date his comment; 'who did the Russians fear?' and to regress
to 1950-65. Of the latter period, it was stunning to me when he said 'not
even Larsen, but Fischer, certainly.'

One wonders indeed what he and Alekhine were doing in Munich in 1942 at
all,
instead of 'doing' something in New York?

Alekhine had too much confidence in the French defense.

As I understand it, Keres was not willing to leave his family behind.
I've also been told that he simply wanted to live in Estonia, almost
regardless of the regime.

That seems [inter alia, Mike Murray, other replies] the general concensus
here.

whereas going the other way was no risk at all, and he could
be, -I agree with you-, Champion of the West, maybe the World, but
certainly
get paid real dollars for it.

I'm not so sure of the money. He could doubtless support his family
by a combination of chess and journalism - his Chess Life and Review
articles were excellent - but prizes were rather feeble in the west in
the 40s and 50s. And world championship money was negligible.

Though you could buy stuff with money in the West! Though its true, I don't
know what priviledges he had behind the curtain.

Still, if he settled in Western Europe he would have had access to
better doctors, and might have lived many years longer.

I'd like to see that parallel world. How would Fischer have motivated
himself if the World Champion was an Estonian living in the
Netherlands?

Where is Larry Evans to answer?

My 2 cents would be 'no difference'. I think single-parented Brooklyn boy
was always going to solo-climb Everest. And may he, one day, come all the
way down ;(

Cordially, Phil Innes

[see, Larry, its me grin]


William Hyde


Cordially, Phil Innes

William Hyde