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| Apr-26-04 | | Benjamin Lau: Typical Karpov game. 17. a4! (17...bxa4? 18. Nxa4 Nxa4 19. Qxa4 and white has strong pressure on the queenside files) and 21. e4! refuted 14...b5?! with style. Although 14...b5?! stopped Karpov's minority attack, it yielded the a5 and c5 squares to white and froze black counterplay in the queenside, permitting a strong break in the center. The weaknesses on a5 and c5 justified Karpov's trademark backrank reorganization with 15. Ne1!, whereby the white knight now reaches c5. Spassky's knight on c4 seems like it should have had as much respect at Karpov's on c5, but it is only illusory because Spassky's knight was essentially out of play because Karpov shifted all his forces to the kingside with 25. Qf3 whereas Karpov's posted knight prevented ...Bd7, allowing for Karpov to 27. Qxc6 and 28. Nd5 and black is paralyzed. |
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| Apr-26-04 | | Jim Bartle: This site shows Karpov leading Spassky 21-2, almost all the games after Spassky's loss to Fischer. I do wonder whether Spassky put up his best resistance in all those games, or maybe authorities "suggested" he lose a few. Spassky was the defeated champion, Karpov had been anointed the new great Soviet hope... I just think 2 wins and 21 losses looks fishy. |
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| Apr-26-04 | | acirce: <I do wonder whether Spassky put up his best resistance in all those games, or maybe authorities "suggested" he lose a few.> That is plain silly. Too many people seem apt to believe any bizarre conspiracy theory as soon as they spot something irregular (and, one may add, as soon as the evil Russians are involved in any way). |
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| Apr-26-04 | | ughaibu: To test the validity of this theory I looked at some non-Soviets against Fischer and Karpov. Ignoring draws: Gheorghiu-Fischer 1-1, Gheorghiu-Karpov 0-3, Ivkov-Fischer 2-4, Ivkov-Karpov 1-1, Hort-Fischer 0-1, Hort-Karpov 1-10, Huebner-Fischer 1draw, Huebner-Karpov 1-8. Conclusion's pretty obvious really. |
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| Apr-26-04 | | Stavrogin: Karpov is one of the 5 greatest (and STRONGEST, together with Aljechin, Fischer, Kasparov) players of all time. He certainly didn´t need any conspiracy-help in beatin Spasskij like he did.
the 8-1 score vs Huebner is very impressive.
The 10-1 score against Hort is EXTREMLY impressing. |
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| Apr-26-04 | | Jim Bartle: All good points. Maybe Karpov really was a steamroller in those years, and maybe Spassky lost his edge after losing to Fischer. Plus in today's world we've got a top player like Shirov who can't win a single game against Kasparov. |
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| Apr-26-04 | | Stavrogin: Yes. Styles makes fights, just as in boxing. The shirov-kasparov stats is a good example of today´s chess.
And yes, I think Spasskij did lose a lot of his edge after the Fischer match. He was never the same after (maybe not even DURING) that match. Before that match he was the emperor of Sudden Surprise Attacks. Afterwards he displayed a more hesitating style that didn´t fit him. |
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| Jul-24-04 | | Helloween: <Although 14...b5?! stopped Karpov's minority attack, it yielded the a5 and c5 squares to white and froze black counterplay in the queenside, permitting a strong break in the center...> 14...b5 is a standard way of treating this position, the idea being to block the c-file with Nb6 and Nc4. White actually erred with 15.Ne1?(not 15.Ne1!), since Black could then play 15...c6 16.Nd3 a5! with excellent counter-chances, instead of Spaaky's weak 16...Nb6?. Therefore, White would have been more accurate in playing 15.Nd2!, since then 15...c6 16.Nb3 prevents the a6-a5 break. From b3 the Knight could also have gone to either a5 or c5 with a choice of dominance. |
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| Sep-23-04 | | acirce: True that there were mistakes played before, Botvinnik however called 17..Bd8 <The primary cause of Black's defeat. It turns out that Spassky is unfamiliar with the basic subtleties of such positions. Black's main problem is to prevent e3-e4. Therefore, as long as his bishop is attacking the d4-pawn, he can feel secure. Now, however, Karpov makes a breakthrough in the centre and begins a decisive offensive.> Instead, <after 17..Nc4! 18.Nc5 Rab8 Black could have put up a successful defence.> Polugayevsky & Damsky in their <The Art of Defence in Chess> uses this in the introductionary chapter as an example of where it is wrong to neglect defence in favour of illusory "activity" and "counter-offensive" (the Bf6-d8-c7 plan) when the position doesn't allow it. |
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| Nov-23-05 | | Kriegspiel: Seirawan, in Winning Chess Strategies, is more consistent with the analysis of <Helloween> than that of <Benjamin Lau> above. Additionally, according to Seirawan, Karpov was not playing a minority attack, but practicing prophylaxis to prevent ...c5 (which would activate Spassky's dark-squared bishop at f6 after breaking open the center, and also activate Black's queenside pawns. (Seirawan calls this a "well-known line of the Tartakower Variation" of the QGD.) He writes that 13.a3 is the first step because then after 13...c5? 14.dxc5 bxc5 15.Ne4! is followed by 16.Nxc5. Note that Spassky's 13...Nd7 was to counter this by covering c5, but that 14.b4 nailed the coffin shut on ...c5 (as well as gaining queenside space). So, no minority attack from Karpov here. Kriegspiel
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| Nov-23-05 | | Kriegspiel: In going over this game, what I noticed on my own (and really liked) was the way that Karpov used Spassky's own (blockaded) pawn to hem in Spassky's bishop after the latter fianchettoed to b7. 8...Bb7
9.Bxf6 (here I think Karpov wants to eliminate the subsequent possibility of ...Ne4, which would be an intolerable intrusion if permitted, but would undo the blockade with a complicating pawn recapture, ...dxe4, if captured). 9...Bxf6 10.cxd5 exd5 and now Black's bishop at b7 has its diagonal blocked by its own pawn at d5. This, of course, made ...c5 all the more desirable. So, we have Karpov's prophylaxis in preventing counterplay by the fianchettoed b7 bishop, leading to Karpov's prophylaxis in preventing the doubly freeing ...c5. Kriegspiel
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| Nov-23-05 | | KingG: Really impressive game by Karpov. I'm looking forward to My Great Predecessors Part V, when Kasparov will analyse all these games, should be interesting. |
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| Dec-17-05 | | Neurotic Patzer: Spassky himself said that Karpov was the toughest opponent he ever faced. He has said that when he faced Karpov in their match in 74 he was in his peak shape, unlike in the Fischer match. Kasparov also says that Spassky's quality of play was substantially higher in this match than in the Fischer-Spassky match. |
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| Dec-18-05 | | s4life: <Neurotic Patzer: Spassky himself said that Karpov was the toughest opponent he ever faced. He has said that when he faced Karpov in their match in 74 he was in his peak shape, unlike in the Fischer match. Kasparov also says that Spassky's quality of play was substantially higher in this match than in the Fischer-Spassky match.> This makes sense. Didn't Spassky win categorically, one of the toughest USSR chess championship of all times, a year after losing the world title? All these people that think Spassky really lost his edge after the Fischer match should look again at his actual games between 72-74. It was after the match with Karpov that Spassky began to dwindle. |
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| Dec-18-05 | | Neurotic Patzer: True, I think that after this match he may have realized he couldn't return to his throne and lost his ambition. |
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Dec-18-05
 | | offramp: When Spassky won the 1973 USSR championship - the one where all the strongest Soviet players were required to take part - well, that was the worst possible result for the USSR chess authorities... Spassky had already shown that he couldn't beat Fischer and here he was showing that he was better than his colleagues. Karpov, however, finished 2nd= with Kortschnoi, a point behind Spassky. Both these players were still improving. When the time came for the Candidates' Matches the two Ks were the 2 best players in the world still playing. Karpov lost the first game of this match as white but went on to beat Spassky +4 -1 =6. This is actually a better result, against a better player, than Fischer's result in 1972. Fischer scored +7 -2 =11, and if you double Karpov's score v Spassky you get +8 -2 =12. |
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| Dec-18-05 | | sneaky pete: <offramp> Doubling the score of the second match and forgetting the game 2 forfeit in the first match is silly, with that kind of reasoning you can prove anything. The 1972 match was set to 24 games, the 1974 match to 4 wins. If you ignore the game 2 forfeit, Fischer scored +4 -1 =2 from the first 7 games. How does that compare to Karpov's +4 -1 =6? |
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Dec-18-05
| | offramp: The Karpov-Spassky match was 11 games; if you take the 1st eleven games of the Spassky-Fischer match the result - with the forfeit - was +5 -3 =3 to Fischer. The score over the last 11 games was +2 -1 =8. |
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| May-17-06 | | madlydeeply: This game was over at white's 28th move on accounta the awesome power of Reshevsky's double octopus: two central knights side by side in an open position. No surpise that a powerful knight spring from the octopus forced the resignation. |
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| May-17-06 | | madlydeeply: you could just hear the clop clop of hooves and the squish squish of gills and the pop pop of suction cups as the multitentacled octopus duo slowly strangled with boa constricter constrictiveness the reticient whinney of the crumbling walls of the rooky rooks and the high pitched squeall of the queeny queen as she breathed her last spasskian breath suffocated by the Reshevskian force. That is exactly the image and audio that comes to mind as Karpov triumphantly slammed his 28th move. Curtains! |
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| Sep-08-06 | | Runemaster: <madlydeeply: This game was over at white's 28th move on accounta the awesome power of Reshevsky's double octopus:> Reshevsky must have been on a visit to the aquarium - this game was played by Karpov. |
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| Dec-31-06 | | euripides: <acirce> Very instructive comments from Botvinnik. He had some old experience with this structure to draw on: Reshevsky vs Botvinnik, 1938 |
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| Jan-13-09 | | M.D. Wilson: <Neurotic Patzer: Spassky himself said that Karpov was the toughest opponent he ever faced. He has said that when he faced Karpov in their match in 74 he was in his peak shape, unlike in the Fischer match. Kasparov also says that Spassky's quality of play was substantially higher in this match than in the Fischer-Spassky match.>
<This makes sense. Didn't Spassky win categorically, one of the toughest USSR chess championship of all times, a year after losing the world title? All these people that think Spassky really lost his edge after the Fischer match should look again at his actual games between 72-74. It was after the match with Karpov that Spassky began to dwindle.> I agree with that. Spassky played very good chess after his loss to Fischer. In fact, the Soviet authorities were somewhat embarrassed when Spassky won the 1973 USSR Championship; they reasoned that if Spassky could beat his compatriots, then who could possibly beat Fischer? Enter Karpov, and then, following right behind, Korchnoi. It was Karpov that destroyed Spassky's chances of coming back. |
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| Jan-13-09 | | maelith: What a mountain of a player - GM Bareev
Bareev regarding Karpov
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| Jan-16-09 | | M.D. Wilson: Yes, Spassky's toughest opponent (by his own estimation), even though Karpov was only in his early 20s. Scary considering the fact that Spassky faced everyone from Bronstein, Botvinnik, Fischer and always difficult Petrosian. Karpov was the first chessplayer in history to defend the Title, without drawing it, on two separate occassions. Karpov was the most active Champion until that time. In Olympiad play, Karpov only lost two out of 68 games. |
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