Word: karpov
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Then Karpov did the unexpected: he advanced a pawn, unbalancing the position and not a few grand masters. Instantly all the heretofore examined lines, entire symphonies of hypothetical variation, vanished into the ether. "Unheard melodies," murmured the yellow-tied patzer sitting near me. His tone was wry and regretful...
...What the benighted don't understand is that modern chess is played not just against an opponent but against a clock. It thus produces a heart- stopping equivalent of football's two-minute drill. At Move 32 of Game 8, for example, challenger Karpov, losing, was forced to make nine moves in less than three minutes. He executed them in a dazzling flurry that didn't just leave him winning; it left the crowd stunned and silent. Except, that is, for one patron who, unnerved by Karpov's preposterous escape, let out a loud, shocking laugh...
During Game 8, I found myself in a room with the U.S. chess champion (Lev Alburt), four grand masters and one legend, former World Champion Mikhail Tal. It was like watching the World Series with five Hall of Famers parsing every pitch and Cy Young correcting them. On Karpov's 23rd move the parsing got slightly crazy: If Kasparov does A then Karpov must do B. If Kasparov then tries C and Karpov answers with D, look out: E, F and G follow. But if Kasparov does Z, then...
...what might follow next. This greatly disturbed the dapper young Yugoslav grand master Ljubomir Ljubojevic. Shaking his head in disapproval, Ljubo strode up to the board, took down all the moves now being assayed and brought the position back not to Move 23 but to Move 22. If Karpov had pushed the pawn in Move 22 instead of first delivering that ridiculous check, the now animated Ljubo insisted, it would have been a triumph. He then gave a long demonstration of the truth of his analysis...
...course by then it was irrelevant. Karpov had played the check first. Enough of history, said the others, impatient to get on with analyzing the world as it now existed. Ljubo insisted on analyzing the world as it should exist. As the groans grew louder, Ljubo's retort was indignant: "Let's find some truth here...