"Taylor Kingston" wrote in message
...
On Nov 25, 9:28 am, "Chess One" wrote:
When I am playing correspondence I like to adopt an idea from S.
Gerzadowicz - from Diary of a Chess Master - at various stages of the
game,
what is my assessment of each side's chances? Here is perhaps the most
laboriously played poisoned pawn in history - as if Bilek had never seen
it
before - I wonder if it is encountered very much these days by players in
this forum?

.

I mean - we 'know' it is not a good idea to take the pawn,

A difficult line to be sure, but it can't be all that bad. The list
of those who have essayed it as Black reads like a "Who's Who" of 20th
century chess: Fischer, Korchnoi, Bronstein, Geller, Gligoric, Euwe,
Portisch, Najdorf, Panno, Stein, Hort, Ribli, Mecking, Hübner, Timman,
Nunn, Tukmakov, Savon, Kasparov et al.

**Of course it is not bad if you have great skill and knowledge. But my
specific interest, as above, is if anyone here actually plays it [or has it
played against them regularly] and then how bad is it? What if you are a
1600-1700 player, eg, do you get away with it, or do you get into awful
trouble because of white's advanced development? As a Sicilian 'punch' I
would suspect it would have been more popular, but even after several
hundred correspondance games, no-one choses it, not 1400 nor 2800
opponenets. PI

and
yet Fischer took it, against the best players in the world. After move 8,
would you rather be white or black?

Here is both the fastest and slowest playing times for any GM game I can
find:
Molasses Slow: At the 1962 Stockholm Interzonal, Istvan Bilek lost on
time
against Bobby Fischer when his flag fell when making his 27th move.
Incredibly, while Bilek had used 2 and a half hours for his 27 moves,
Fischer had used only around 10 minutes for his moves in the game. Small
wonder that Bilek took so much time - Fischer played the notoriously
complicated poisoned pawn variation of the Sicilian defence. Fischer was
renowned as connoisseur of this system and was probably still following
his
home preparation when the game ended. Here is the game:

Bilek,I - Fischer,R [B97]
Stockholm Interzonal Stockholm (5), 03.02.1962

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Qb6 8.Qd2
Qxb2
9.Rb1 Qa3 10.e5 dxe5 11.fxe5 Nfd7 12.Bc4 Be7 13.Bxe6 0-0 14.0-0 Bxg5
15.Qxg5
h6 16.Qh4 Qxc3 17.Rxf7 Rxf7 18.Qd8+ Nf8 19.Bxf7+ Kxf7 20.Rf1+ Kg6 21.Rxf8
Bd7 22.Nf3 Qe3+ 23.Kh1 Qc1+ 24.Ng1 Qxc2 25.Rg8 Qf2 26.Rf8 Qxa2 27.Rf3 Kh7
0-1

Phil Innes