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Chess 02 Jul 1960, Sat The Montreal Star (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) Newspapers.com
Let's Play Chess
Former U.S. Champion Takes Early Lead at Buenos Aires
By William Oaker
Former United States Champion Larry Evans has taken an early lead in the star-studded international tournament now being held in Buenos Aires.
The amiable young man from California, who will be best remembered by Montrealers when he won the Canadian Open Championship in this city in 1956, showed early that he means business.
In round one he defeated fellow American Sammy Reshevsky. This was followed by two long draws, one against Grandmaster Fridrik Olafsson of Iceland. In round four he defeated Hector Rossetto, of Argentina. His score stands at 3-1.
Five Close Behind
Close behind is famed Bobby Fischer with 2½-1½, who is bracketed with five others; Foguelman, of Argentina; Gligoric, of Yugoslavia; Pachman, of Czechoslovakia; Szabo, of Hungary; and Unzicker, of Germany. All have 2½-1½.
Bracketed with scores of 2-2 are: Benko, of the United States; Guimard, of Argentina; Ivkov, of Yugoslavia; Olafsson, of Iceland; Uhlmann, of Germany; and Wexler, of Argentina.
With scores of 1½-1½, and adjourned game, are Korchnoi, of the Soviet Union; Bazan, of Argentina; and Taimanov, of the Soviet Union. The results of their adjourned games could put these players among the leaders.
Next is Reshevsky, of the United States, with 1-1. This means the Grandmaster, once rated the strongest player outside the Soviet Union, has two unfinished games, and will probably stand much higher when they are completed. He is followed by Eliskases, of Argentina, with 1-3; Wade, of New Zealand, with ½-3½; and Rossetto, of Argentina, with 0-4.
It is impossible to foresee how this event may end up. There is not a single player taking part who is not capable of upsetting any other player.
How Good Are You?
FEN 1R6/2pk4/1P6/8/2r5/K7/P7/8 w - - 0 1
White to Play and Win
This position is instructive in that a person who jumps to conclusions will invariably get it wrong. At first, it looks difficult. Then it looks easy. Then, if one looks a little harder, it looks hard again. Finally, all the pieces fall into place and the win can be seen.
Set up the position and bear with the following analysis, and you will see what I mean.
I received the following solution from a reader. I read as follows:
1. R-Q8ch! KxR
2. P-N7!
“The pawn cannot be stopped from queening,” he said, “and white should win easily.”
Now, all this looks quite clever and neat, and if you look at it for a moment, you will see that he is quite right. But, is he?
A friend of mine looked this over and refuted the solution as follows:
2. … R-QN5!
This stops the pawn from queening, and if 3. KxR, then 3. … P-B4ch! 4. KxP, K-B2, and a little thought will prove to you that the position is indeed a draw.
If you think about this for a while, you will see that my friend is, indeed, right. He then set about looking for an entirely new way of finding a win for white from the given position. Eventually, he decided that the problem was wrong, and that white could not win at all. He did not, however, look far enough.
The solution is as follows:
1. R-Q8ch! KxR
2. P-N7! R-N5!
3. KxR P-B4ch!
4. K-N5!! K-B2
5. K-R6
And now we can see that white will either queen far ahead of black and or win as follows:
5. … K-N1
6. K-N6 P-B5
7. P-R4 P-B6
8. P-R5 P-B7
9. P-R6 P-B8(Q)
10. P-R7 checkmate.
