| Mar-26-04 | | glass318: I got lost after move 42. Can anyone walk me thru this one? It seems white probably played poorly yet I can't understand the reasoning behind Karpov's moves either. Help... |
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Mar-26-04
 | | tpstar: There's a typo in the gamescore. Correct is 42 ... Re4 (not 42 ... Rd4?!), pressuring the Ne2, so after 43. Rc1 Bb4 the Bd2 is pinned, inducing 44. Rxc2 bxc2 exchanging down. With all due respect to both players, I wouldn't study this particular endgame too deeply. Seeing how White shuffles his pieces around without accomplishing anything, I get the strange sense he was under orders to lose. |
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| Mar-26-04 | | Bitzovich: That is quite possible, actually, since Karpov was the darling of Kremlin, and there even rumours that Korchnoi was FORCED to lose the match to him. |
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| Mar-27-04 | | waddayaplay: Has anyone read the book "anti chess"? |
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| Apr-18-04 | | skakmiv: Can we be sure, that it was Karpov, who played black? I don't think Karpov has played the Najdorf variation ever. |
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Apr-18-04
 | | Chessical: This is Karpov, and the game score is wrong as noted by <tpstar>. Karpov stated that Ghizdavu's 41st move should have been 41.Ra7, and that then he (Karpov) missed a quick win by 41...Re4 He also gave 50.Nd4 as an improvment for Ghizdavu. |
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| Apr-18-04 | | acirce: <Karpov was the darling of Kremlin, and there even rumours that Korchnoi was FORCED to lose the match to him.> There are all kinds of paranoid rumours about the Soviet Union... |
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| Apr-18-04 | | Benzol: <chessgames.com> <Chessical and tpstar> are correct according to "The Games of Anatoly Karpov" by O'Connell and Adams. |
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| Apr-18-04 | | Lawrence: <Benzol>, just a point, under the "Leave a comment!" box where we write our posts there's a "Spot an error? Please suggest your correction..." line. It's surely quicker and easier for chessgames.com to pick up our corrections if we write direct rather than post the corrections among all the kibitzing. |
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| Apr-18-04 | | Benzol: <Lawrence> Believe it or not I have done that with the following games Spassky vs Van der Wiel, 1955 and Purdy vs Spassky, 1955 as well as saying something in the leave a comment box and haven't got any feedback on it. |
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| Apr-19-04 | | Lawrence: <Benzol>, I see they both now show the correct opponent. |
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| Apr-20-04 | | Benzol: <chessgames.com and Lawrence> Many thanks for the corrections. |
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Mar-12-05
 | | keypusher: <tpstar> you have got to be kidding. Ghizdavu is Romanian, not Soviet. Since Romania under Ceacescu (sp?) gloried in its independence from the Soviet bloc, I doubt its chessplayers were ever ordered to lose to Soviet chess' foremost representative. This is another classic example of a weaker player trying to hold a stronger one to a draw from the first move, and failing. Karpov won hundreds of games like this, against Soviets, Eastern Europeans, Western Europeans, and Americans. |
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Mar-12-05
| | tpstar: <keypusher> Thank you very much for the correction and the clarification. For an endgame with equal material, I thought 30. Ra6, 31. Ra7+, 32. Ra8, 33. Ra4 and 36. Ra1 was an unusual maneuver which didn't benefit White's position at all, but he may well have been drifting or idling instead of tanking. |
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Mar-12-05
| | keypusher: <tpstar> Of course chessplayers (like everyone else) were dirt poor under Ceaucescu, so bribery is always a possibility. :-) |
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Mar-12-05
 | | tamar: <keypusher> <tpstar> I remember Karpov was not highly respected at first because he seemed to win a lot of his games like this. Ghizdavu gets to near equality, then makes "safe" moves not to ruin it, which of course ruins it! The game to me is eerily like the one in Linares where Vallejo-Pons froze like a deer in the headlights after Topalov just kept probing in a drawish situation.
Vallejo-Pons vs Topalov, 2005 |
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Mar-12-05
| | keypusher: <tamar> <tpstar> Having looked a little more carefully I think I am slandering Ghizdavu by saying he played for a draw from the beginning. Unlike Sokolsky in Sokolsky vs Botvinnik, 1939, he actually played a fairly sharp opening and tried to launch a kingside attack. When it didn't work out, though, he was left with a horrible bishop in the ending, which Karpov exploited with his usual precision. |
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Mar-12-05
| | tamar: Ghizdavu really had a chance to draw with:
50 Nd4 Na2 51 Nxc2 Bxg3 52 Kxg3 Nxc1 53 c5 Nb3 54 c6 Ke7 55 h5! and the White King can penetrate. I thought even so this might be a deep trap by Karpov, but against 50 Nd4 Ne4 51 c5 Bd2 Shredder found another way to get the h5 break in: 52.c6 Ke8 53.Ba3 c1Q 54.Bxc1 Bxc1 55.h5! (55 Nxe6 h5 56 Nf8 would lose for White because 56...Nd2+ gets the knight back in time to stop the c pawn and the White Knight gets trapped if it takes on g6) Nd2+ 56.Ke2 gxh5 57.Nxe6 Ne4 58.Kf3 Nd2+ 59.Ke2 Ne4 60.Kf3 Nd2+ 61.Ke2 Ne4 Improvements? |
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| Mar-27-12 | | screwdriver: To me this looks more like a dragon than a Najdorf. Still, a nice typical squeeze by Karpov to get the win. |
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| Jun-09-15 | | A.T PhoneHome: I wonder if that tournament name "Bath 16/443" is actually a code to describe how many (cold) baths Karpov gave to his opponents; such was the strength of his play. |
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Kibitzing
