After the phase in which games were played at normal time controls, they then played a succession at progressively faster rapid games, culminating in G/15 (I think). Small wonder one of the players hung their queen in a rapid game-I'd like to see anyone play up to their normal strength with all that nervous tension and so much in the balance. At least when Smyslov qualified from one of his Candidates matches in the 1983 cycle, it was a simple spin of a roulette wheel!

<HeMateMe: Isn't there a Sokolov who was a Russian physicist and also a strong chess player, IM level? Could this be the same guy?>

Here's a bit of the wiki entry:

" Natan Sharansky was born in Stalino, Soviet Union on January 20, 1948 to a Jewish family. He graduated with a degree in applied mathematics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. As a child,< he was a chess prodigy.> He performed in simultaneous and blindfold displays, usually against adults. At the age of 15, he won the championship in his native Donetsk.[1] When incarcerated in solitary confinement, he claims to have played chess against himself in his mind. Sharansky <beat the world chess champion Garry Kasparov> in a simultaneous exhibition in Israel in 1996.[1]"

Perhaps he would have been a physicist, had it not been for his human rights work, which killed any chance of having a normal life in the USSR.

1988-89 Candidates Matches:
Kevin Spraggett upset his Soviet opponent Andrei Sokolov who relied on the old technology, the celebrated card files of Moscow's Central Chess Club. The trouble was there were virtually no Spraggett games on file!

http://a.sokolov.free.fr/

I really dig his profile picture there!

This tidbit, translated, should go in the bio above:

<Le 88e Championnat de France Nancy, du 11 au 23 août 2013>

Here's some of his favorite games:

http://a.sokolov.free.fr/parties/an...

* * * * *

This addresses <Peinalkes6>'s post a little:

<What happened to Andrei Sokolov? Miscellaneous
Andrei Sokolov was a prominent player in the mid-80s, managing to reach the Candidates Final in 1987, where he lost to Karpov. En route, he shared first in the Candidates Tournament in Montpellier then crushed Vaganian and beat Yusupov in his Candidates matches. He first reached the top 10 in July 1986 and was ranked as high as 3rd in 1987.

But his career swiftly declined. In 1988, less than a year after his Candidates final, his ranking had plummeted all the way to #24 and he would never return to the top 20. That year, he was eliminated in the first round of the next Candidates cycle by Kevin Spraggett. By 1993, he was out of the top 100.

It seems somewhat astonishing that someone who got to such heights would become irrelevant so quickly. He was the same age as Kasparov, he was only 24 when he reached the Candidates final. And as far as I know, he had no major illnesses or forced inactivity affecting his game, it just seemed as if an elite player stopped being elite at record speed. Maybe you could argue that he was never really top 5 standard and benefitted from a purple patch, but to fall out of the top 20, top 50 and top 100 so soon?

Now, he's hardly even remembered. I would guess that if the surname Sokolov was brought up, people are more likely to think of Ivan Sokolov.

Wonder what happened, I can't really think of an analogous situation in chess history.>