It has been a tough day for everyone. Vladimir Putin’s appalling decision to invade Ukraine has shocked the world, and his actions have been condemned by most world leaders. At the Airthings Masters, three out of four semifinalists hail from Russia, with Ian Nepomniachtchi confessing after beating Andrey Esipenko, “I can’t think”. Nepo will face Magnus Carlsen in the finals of the online tournament, in a rematch of the recent contest for the World Championship title. | Photo: Niki Riga
World Cup: No punches pulled chessbase.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chessbase.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Of all the matches that were never played, Fischer - Karpov or Fischer - Kortschnoi might have been the most interesting. What would have happened if Bobby Fischer had not retired after his victory against Spassky in 1972? In this article I would like to deal with this question and its psychological background.
Bobby Fischer quits
Unfortunately, Bobby Fischer (1943 - 2008) did not play any match or tournament for 20 years after he had won the World Chess Championship Match against Boris Spassky in Reykjavik in 1972. It was not until 1992 that he played a rematch against Spassky and won 10-5 with 15 draws. However, no further tournaments or matches followed after that. In 2008, two months before his 65th birthday, Fischer died in his Icelandic exile. What impact did his retirement have on top chess?
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International German Championship 1981
In 1981, as is well known, the Iron Curtain was still up, and the ‘Wall’ still had a few years of life ahead of it. Moreover, the Cold War was ‘hotter’ than ever. But the Iron Curtain was not equally impermeable to every citizen of an Eastern bloc country.
While citizens of the German Democratic Republic were indeed hermetically sealed off from the West, Romanian or Bulgarian grandmasters could travel to tournaments in capitalist countries. Victor Ciocaltea (on the teaser picture, the Romanian grandmaster is the one getting up from his chair) finished sixth in Bochum, just two years before his death. His compatriot IM Mihail Ghinda (born 1949) also played, as he often did in Western territory.
Chess in film: Casablanca chessbase.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chessbase.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.