ANew York Times, New York, New York, Thursday, November 11, 1971 - Page 44
Chess: Soviet Team Tournament Casts Its Shadow Before by Al Horowitz
The annual Soviet team championship tournament, held this year at Rostov-on-Don, is of special interest to chess fans. The winner was a team of students, which triumphed on tie-breaking points over a team representing the Army. Actually, however, the categories by which the teams were designated were sufficiently vague so that all of the top players available took part one way or another, and nearly every team had a grandmaster on the first board.
Thus, the event is of interest because the play among the top boards of the various teams constituted a strong tournament in itself.
The winner this year was the former world champion Mikhail Tal, who scored 4½ points out of 6. The current world champion, Boris Spassky taking time out from preparation for his forthcoming match for the title against Bobby Fischer, won three games, two of which are presented below.
The position after White's 13th move of Spassky's game against Leonid Stein is well known from the game between the Danish grandmaster, Bent Larsen, and Fischer, played in a tournament at Santa Monica, Calif., in 1966. There Fischer, who was Black, played 13. … N-Q2, and, after 14. N-B4 Q-K2; 15. N-K3 N-B3; 16. Q-B2 R-K1, and the game was equal.
Stein's move … P-QR3 is also playable, but 14. … R-K1 is a waste of time that allows White to get much the better game. After 17. N-B5, White has achieved all he could reasonably hope for, but the way in which he exploits his advantage is very entertaining.
In the later middle game, both sides surrender material with apparent abandon, but close analysis inevitably reveals the soundness of their judgments. Thus, if instead of 27. … RxKP, Black were to try 27. … R-K2, there would follow 28. RxN B-N2; 29. P-K5 PxP; 30. P-Q6 followed by 31. P-Q7, winning easily.
This game, noteworthy for its own sake, may also shed some light on Spassky's plans for his match against Fischer; one could hardly be surprised to see the same opening variation occur here.
The Tarrasch Variations of the Queen's Gambit Declined, after decades of neglect, has become very popular again because of Spassky's many fine victories with it. His game against Grandmaster Mark Taimanov is, however, no argument in its favor: Taimanov, as in many of his games in his catastrophic candidates' match against Fisher, gets a fine position only to go wrong in the crucial stages. In this game he ought to have played, instead of 31. B-Q3, 31. B-R7ch, K-R1; 32. B-Q3; if then 32. … RxB, 33. QxR Q-B3, he has 34. R/7xP.
Mark Taimanov vs Boris Spassky USSR (1971) Tarrasch Defense: Classical Variation (D34) 0-1 https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1128877
Boris Spassky vs Leonid Stein URS (1971) Benoni Defense: Hromadka System (A57) 1-0 https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1128870
