Dutch Treat 
by Hans Ree

The Gardener and FIDE

If the members of the board of FIDE know their Dutch classics,
they will merrily recite the lines from the poem The Gardener and
Death by the Dutch poet P.N. van Eyck: "I was surprised when in
the morning I saw here quietly at work the man I was to fetch at
dusk in Ispahan.'' 

These words are spoken by Death. The poor gardener has seen
Death and tries to flee him by running off to the town of Ispahan,
but of course to no avail. He cannot escape his fate and the town to
which he flees is already noted in the Great Book as the town
where Death will find and get him. In the chess world the sad role
of the gardener is played by the organizers who had moved their
tournaments to August so that these would not coincide with the
FIDE World Championship. Dortmund for instance. Every year it's
one of the strongest tournaments on the calendar. Of course it is
impossible to have such a strong tournament in the period where
the best hundred players (except Kasparov) compete for the FIDE
championship. In Dortmund and elsewhere, the organizers fled to
August. They tried to escape Fate but of course FIDE caught them
anyway.

For the fourth time FIDE has changed the dates of its World
Championship. Now it will be from July 26 till August 28 at
Caesar's Palace Hotel in Las Vegas. Chess lover, make a note of
place and dates, but don't book your trip yet. Like a steamroller the
dates of the World Championship have been moving through the
year, crushing tournaments wherever it came. Now it is planned to
be held in one of the most busy periods of the year. We Dutch were
looking forward to the first Lost Boys tournament in Amsterdam.
Torpedoed by FIDE by one strike of the pen, but we should not
complain for being singled out for this harsh treatment, because all
over the world tournament organizers are in the same position.

Should they move their dates again? Nobody can be sure if August
will really be the month of the FIDE championship. Karpov, who
had agreed to play in Dortmund and in Polanica Zdroj, says that he
will take FIDE to court if it lets its championship coincide with
these tournaments. But then, nobody can be sure if Karpov and
FIDE are now really opposed to each other, or working
harmoniously together to move the championship again to dates
and place that maybe have been in the Great Book of FIDE all the
time: Elista, Kalmykia, in December.

Kasparov keeps aloof from all this, but his own World
Championship is not in best health either. He is far too strong, that
is his misfortune. Too strong for Shirov, so that no sponsors for
their championship match could be found. But at the end of last
year everybody thought that a match between Kasparov and Anand
would be exciting and closely-fought. Then Kasparov made his
re-entry to serious tournament chess. First he won the Wijk aan
Zee tournament in imposing style but only half a point ahead of
Anand. Then came Linares. Here he ended two and a half points
ahead of Anand and Kramnik. Young Peter Leko came fourth,
which was quite a success in this super-tournament, but he
remained four points behind Kasparov, who seems to have little to
fear from dashing youth in the near future.

At the end of the Linares tournament Kasparov in a way was
playing Karpov again. He tried to break a record. In Linares 1994
Karpov had made the fantastic score of 11 out of 13, maybe the
best tournament result of all times. This year the tournament was
stronger than in 1994 and if Kasparov had scored 11 out of 14 an
argument could be made that he would have bettered Karpov's
result. In this Kasparov failed, scoring 10« out of 14, which
nevertheless was an astounding feat.

White: Anand Black: Kasparov tenth round 1. e2-e4 c7-c5 2.
Ng1-f3 d7-d6 3. d2-d4 c5xd4 4. Nf3xd4 Ng8-f6 5. Nb1-c3 a7-a6
6. f2-f3 e7-e6 7. Bc1-e3 b7-b5 8. g2-g4 h7-h6 9. Qd1-d2 Nb8-d7
10. 0-0-0 Bc8-b7 11. h2-h4 b5-b4 12. Nc3-b1 d6-d5 13. Bf1-h3
g7-g5 14. h4xg5 h6xg5 15. e4xd5 Nf6xd5 16. Be3xg5 Qd8-b6 A
new move, prepared at home. 17. Bh3-g2 Rh8xh1 18. Bg2xh1
Ra8-c8 19. Rd1-e1 Qb6-a5 20. f3-f4 Qa5xa2 21. f4-f5 Nd7-c5
22. f5xe6

 Kasparov's faithful partner in home preparation, the computer, had
been extremely skeptical of black's set up until now, but having
been fed black's next move it changed opinion and started to like
black.

22...Bf8-g7 23. e6xf7+ Ke8xf7 At home Kasparov had also seen
that white can draw here with 24. Qf2+ Kg8 25. Qf5! Bxd4 26.
Qg6+. Anand had used a lot of time for his previous moves, which
were very difficult, and now comes up with an ingenious idea that
proves insufficient by only a hair's breadth. 24. Bh1xd5+ Qa2xd5
25. Re1-e7+ Kf7-g8 26. Re7xg7+ Kg8xg7 (See Diagram)

27. Nb1-c3 The first move that Kasparov had not considered at
home. The immediate 27. Nf5+ would fail after 27...Qxf5 28. gxf5
Nb3+ 27...b4xc3 28. Nd4-f5+ Kg7-f7 29. Qd2xd5+ Bb7xd5 30.
Nf5-d6+ Kf7-g6 31. Nd6xc8 Kg6xg5 32. Nc8-b6 Bd5-e6 33.
b2xc3 Kg5xg4 34. Kc1-b2 Kg4-f4 35. Kb2-a3 a6-a5 36. Nb6-a4
Anand has reached an ending where he is close to a draw, but
according to Kasparov's comments on his Internet site, black could
win by force now with 36...Nd7. 36...Nc5-e4 37. Na4-b2 Ne4xc3
38. Nb2-d3+ Kf4-e3 39. Nd3-c5 Be6-f5 40. Ka3-b2 Nc3-d5 41.
Nc5-b7 a5-a4 42. c2-c4 Nd5-b6 43. Nb7-d6 Bf5-d3 44. c4-c5
Nb6-d5 45. Kb2-a3 Bd3-c2 46. Nd6-b5 Nd5-e7 47. Nb5-a7 Close
to his goal Anand makes a mistake. 47. Nc3 would have saved the
draw. On first sight Anand's choice looks alright too, but watch
what happens. 47...Ke3-d4 48. c5-c6 Ne7-d5 49. Na7-b5+ Kd4-c5
50. c6-c7 Bc2-f5 A nice finish. White resigned because of 51.
Kxa4 Nb6+ 52. Ka5 Nc4+ 53. Ka4 (of 53. Ka6 Bc8+) 53...Bc2
mate.

During the Linares tournament Anatoly Karpov played a match in
Monaco against Dutch grandmaster Jeroen Piket. The result was
4-4. "With a drawn match, Karpov keeps his title," Kasparov
sneered. Though all games were drawn, the match had not been
dull at all. Karpov was in terrible time trouble in almost every
game, which evidences itself dramatically in the next one.

White: Piket Black: Karpov seventh game 1. d2-d4 Ng8-f6 2.
c2-c4 e7-e6 3. Ng1-f3 b7-b6 4. a2-a3 Bc8-b7 5. Nb1-c3 d7-d5 6.
c4xd5 Nf6xd5 7. Bc1-d2 Nb8-d7 8. Qd1-c2 Bf8-e7 9. e2-e4
Nd5xc3 10. Bd2xc3 0-0 11. 0-0-0 Qd8-c8 12. h2-h4 Rf8-d8 13.
Rh1-h3 Nd7-f8 14. h4-h5 c7-c5 15. Rh3-g3 c5xd4 16. Nf3xd4
Be7-f6 17. Nd4-b5 Rd8xd1+ 18. Qc2xd1 Qc8-c5 19. Qd1-g4
Bf6xc3 20. Nb5xc3 Qc5-d4 21. Qg4-f4 Ra8-c8 22. Bf1-d3
Nf8-d7 23. h5-h6 g7-g6 24. Bd3-c2 Qd4-e5 25. Qf4-d2 Nd7-f6
26. Rg3-d3 Kg8-f8 27. f2-f3 g6-g5 28. Kc1-b1 Kf8-e7 29. Bc2-a4
Bb7-c6 30. Ba4xc6 Rc8xc6 31. Rd3-d8 a7-a6 32. Rd8-a8 Rc6-d6
33. Qd2-e2 b6-b5 34. Qe2-e3 Nf6-d7 35. Ra8-a7 Ke7-f6 36.
g2-g3 Kf6-g6 36...Qxg3 37. e5+ Qxe5 was quite acceptable, but
white's attack had cost Karpov a lot of time and without time, no
adventures. 37. f3-f4 Qe5-d4 38. Qe3-e1? Again he pays too much
attention to Karpov's clock and too little to the situation on the
board. Now Karpov could have picked up a full rook with
38...Qxa7. (See Diagram)

38...Qd4-d3+? Later Karpov explained that he had been looking
for a short move, fearing that a long one would make him overstep.
39. Kb1-a1 Qd3-d4 40. Ra7-c7 Now he sees it. 40...Qd4-d3 41.
e4-e5 Rd6-d4 42. f4xg5 The position is still sharp and
complicated. The Swiss weekly Schachwoche gives 42. Rc8 Qf3
43. Rg8+ Kxh6 44. Rxg5 Nf8 45. Qc1 as a win for white.
42...b5-b4 43. a3xb4 Rd4xb4 44. Qe1-f2 Kg6xg5 45. Qf2xf7
Rb4-a4+ 46. Nc3xa4 Qd3-d1+ 47. Ka1-a2 Qd1xa4+ 48. Ka2-b1
Qa4-e4+ 49. Rc7-c2 Qe4-e1+ Draw And in the final game it
happened again. It was drawn by a repetition of moves which was
in fact a series of blunders in which Karpov missed the chance to
win a piece twice.

This column first appeared in the Dutch newspaper
"NRC-Handelsblad" March 13, 1999. Copyright 1999 Hans Ree,
All Rights Reserved.