Pastimes: Chess

William Hartston
Friday 12 July 1996 18:02 EDT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Anatoly Karpov has retained his Fide world championship by beating Gata Kamsky 101/2-71/2 in their match in Kalmykia. For Karpov, the result is a great triumph and sets a curious new record.

Karpov first succeeded to the Fide championship in 1975, when Bobby Fischer would not come out to play. His first victory in a world championship match came when he beat Korchnoi in 1978. That was 18 years ago.

Even Emanuel Lasker, who reigned for 27 years, could not boast such a long gap between two victories.

Here are the final moves of the 18th game of the Karpov-Kamsky match. (The moves up to the adjournment were given in Friday's paper.) Kamsky, White in the diagram position needed to win to keep the match alive. His hopes were clearly slim, but, as always, he never gave up until all possibilities were exhausted: 57...f6 58.Ne3 Re5+ 59.Kf4 Ra5 60.Kg4 Re5 61.Kf3 Ra5 62.Rh2 Ke8 63.Ke4 Re5+ 64.Kd4 Ra5 65.Ke4 Re5+ 66.Kf4 Ra5 67.Kg4 Ke7 68.Rd2 Re5 69.Rd3 Kf7 70.Kf4 Ra5 71.Rd6 Ke7 72.Re6+ Kf7 73.Re4 Rxa2 74.Rxb4 Ra5 75.Kf3 Re5 76.Rd4 Rb5 77.Rd3 Nc8 78.Nd5 Ne7 79.Nxe7 Kxe7 80.Kg4 a5 agreed draw.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in