Q: What do you think is the prospective of the open variety of the Spanish type in the view of your innovations in the fourteenth and especially in the eighteenth games?
A: Every World Championship game introduces something into the theory of opening and understanding different types of middlegame positions, as well as the endgame theory. In the course of this match a special focus was made upon the open variety of the Spanish type, the same type as the one played in Baguio. I should think that we managed to importantly adjust the theory. The most vital were the sixth game won by Korchnoi, along with the fourteenth and the sixteenth games that I managed to win. However, the theory changes, the analysts will do their work and – who knows – the nearest competitions might already bring in something new, or otherwise it takes a few years.
Q: It must be vital for a chess-player to learn to think of things other than chess during the intervals between the games. How do you make yourself relax in the course of important matches?
A: This is a very serious question, indeed, since the World Championship matches last longer than a day, a week or even a month, and you can’t go on thinking about chess all the time. There are a number of ways that chess-players solve the recreational problem. I try to divert by means of games, books, stamps (for I collect stamps), but you do not always succeed, and this is especially true during the most stressing moments of the game. You would come back to the chess desk over and over again.
Q: You have gained experience in both limited number of games system and fixed number of victories system. What do you think of them? Which is the fairer of the two?
A: It is not so easy to say which is the fairer, for both have disadvantages of their own. For one thing, from the administrative point of view fixed number of games matches are easier. From the playing point of view, the non-limit system offers a more ardent rivalry, since with fixed sets once you get a score advantage you can safely “crawl on” to the end at level scores. With the non-limit system, even if you win 5:2 you still have the sixth score to win. Therefore, you have to be ready for a most sharp and outrageous fight until the end, with no chance to relax for a single moment. The difficulty of the non-limit match is also in its being more difficult to distribute your forces, because you never know how the game will develop and how long you will need to set up your mind.
Q: What is your assessment of the rival?
A: The rival is very serious. He’s been taking part in tournaments and candidate games for twenty years. He is a player of great experience, dangerous in any position. But comparing Korchnoi of today with what he used to be in Baguio, I see that he has made serious mistakes in preparation and overestimated his command of innovations.
In 1974, he would claim to know debuts better than Karpov, Spassky and Petrosian all together. He seems to have preserved his opinion of his knowledge: he tried to appear playful and wanted to make a quick start (with the last championship finished late in August). For my own part, I had my last game four months before. As a result, I easily balanced the chances playing Black, arriving at 2:1 score. My rival had serious problems playing Black and failed to create problems for me with White. Unlike Baguio, in Merano I managed easy positions just as well. Baguio lesson served me right, and to my mind, I had advantages at all the stages of the fight.
Q: You are a playing World Champion. Are you not afraid to damage your image in case of possible losses?
A: Fisher’s refusal to defend his title in 1975 and my getting the title in no serious fight made part of foreign players and reporters sceptical, newspapers even called me “a paper champion”.
Though I won the candidates series convincingly, I still had to prove that I am a real champion. Therefore, I made up my mind to take part in tournaments as often as possible and try to win. In 1975, I won a very serious series in Yugoslavia and a grand match in Milan called the unofficial World Championship in tournament terms.
Then there was the issue of preparing for the 1978-year game. I studied chess history of the previous leaders and saw that all of them made mistakes at the preparation stage. Having become champions, they were afraid of losing important series, of not winning the first place, of newsmen who would report more willingly on a World Champion’s failure (sensation!) rather than a success. This is while only high-level games allow a World Champion to properly prepare for proving his title. This is why I made up my mind to keep playing.
Naturally, I cannot possibly win every series – but I fight for victory in any game, though I set up some creative tasks for myself as well.
Grandmaster ‘s Judgments:
Fridriek Olafson: “A convincing victory of a World Champion! I would like to congratulate him on a good game. The chess world will have a worthy champion and this fact is nice. We have three more years now to select a future rival for Karpov. At the moment it’s hard to say who is going to make his rival. Among the most probable candidates I would name Timman, Kasparov, Korchnoi, and Beliavsky, Balashov. One thing is doubtless: Karpov is the world strongest chess player for today.”
Svetozar Gligoric: “I kept a very close eye on every step of all the rounds. I am convinced that the quality of the games in this series was much higher – there were noticeably less mistakes than in many other similar competitions. Anatoly Karpov did a perfect game, and there is no one like him in chess, so it does not make sense to give such tough marks to his rival’s play. I even think that one period saw some fall in the game of the World Champion, and on the contrary a rise on the part of the rival. Then it all returned to its place. The game was important in terms of debut theory, and there is every reason to believe that one of the varieties of open Spanish game is to be closed at least for a time being.”
Bent Larsen: “You want to know my opinion of the match end result? But I have already predicted the 6:2 score speaking on Danish radio! I only made a mistake in the number of games, saying that they will have 22 of them.
When Karpov’ rival was just singling out I expected a more tense contest, but afterwards examining comparative sports achievements, and mainly basing on the game quality of both players I came to my daring, and very real, too, forecast.
I was very much impressed by Karpov play in the fourth round, where he showed a fine psychological style. He won the fourteenth round easily and nicely, and had a very effective and convincing victory in the final eighteenth round. I would say that within all the post-war period there has been no World Championship game, in which the champion was so much stronger than the candidate.
Meanwhile the tenseness of the contest was rather high. It might explain the mistakes made in the World Championship final games, but this series did not have them more than usual. It is a pity that I have not had any chance to experience this high level, and very pleasant, too, pressure so far.
The next candidate for the world crown will be either Jan Timman, or Alexander Beliavsky, or… Bent Larsen. I am asked about Garry Kasparov. He has a habit of making sacrifice quite sure that this wins, – he is too much of an optimist!”
Migel Najdorf: “I must make my apologies to Karpov. I used to think of him as an exact chess worker. In Merano his genius showed up. The things he does can be compared to Kapablanka’s game in the top glory of this talant. I rang Karpov among the best players in the history.”
Lothar Schmid: “Karpov is an outstanding phenomenon. You cannot make Karpov out of any other personality. Apart of his outstanding gift, that showed up so early, you need favourable conditions that allowed it to develop. The current World Champion is a player who feels equally comfortable in any conditions: combination games, position games, and simple endgame. He is top universal player.”
Mikhail Tal: “Merano victory was brilliant. If someone has reason to complain of the result it is Anatoly Karpov. Anatoly could have saved 2 games at a time with one step of one figure (the horse). If he had done it, the score would be dry.
I was confident in Karpov’s victory. I would say I even did not care much about the score with which Karpov will win. I only hoped that he was not going to repeat Baguio mistakes. And he did not. True, there were some matches in the intermediate score, but no more analogies with Baguio.
When he made three level scores having 5:2, I felt confident again, for Karpov did not have a single round loss danger. And by the eighteenth score all the objective data, including my inner voice, spoke for the end of the game.”
Lev Polugaevsky: “I felt that the goal of the champion was not just to win the game, but make a convincing victory of it. And it is not only the matter of the three victories out of the 4 start games. It is the matter of the approach to contest. The World Champion approached the competition professionally in the best sense of the word; while the candidate was absorbed by other things…”
Yury Balashov: “Karpov played against Korchnoi seventy four rounds only on top level (in total they had eighty six rounds), he achieved certain advantage before, and now he had evident superiority. We expected the game to go more favourably than the previous ones, but avoided loud statements. And even the first rounds when nobody could guess Karpov’s steps – and this is always a sign of the player’s strength, – proved that everything was going to be OK.”
Igor Zaitsev: “No, you cannot compare Merano with Baguio. The former saw whole series of troubles, while the latter offered prompt solutions to occasional problems. Anatoly appeared much stronger, physically sounder, and in terms of chess his possibilities were still wider. The most comfortable thing is that our World Champion being quite young in chess terms is constantly developing and growing up.”
Ray Keene: “Contrary to my pre-match prediction, the championship at Merano ran considerably more smoothly than the strife-ridden contest at Baguio, three years ago. Doubtless this was to the great relief of Dr Siegfried Unterberger, the chief organiser of Merano, who was concerned to promote a harmonious image for his beautiful town, rather than have it remembered as a savage battle-ground. The reasons for this relative serenity are not entirely clear, for there was no lack of potentially contentious issues, such as the enforced absence of the Challenger’s family, Korchnoi’s insults on stage and disappearances off stage, and the conspicuous presence of the Ananda Manga gurus, vibing for Korchnoi’s victory. The key is probably to be found in Roshal’s remarks quoted in my introduction to game 18. This time, in spite of all provocation, Karpov simply wanted to ignore distractions and prove himself a better chessplayer than Korchnoi, and this he has done handsomely. Indeed, the score of 11-7 in Karpov’s favour is. by world championship standards, a massacre, and Korchnoi has suffered the additional humiliation of being the first challenger since Bogoljubow to have been beaten twice in his quest for the world title. Korchnoi’s personal shock-assault was quietly absorbed by Karpov himself, while Korchnoi’s team was also routed in the domain of openings analysis. Theirs was clearly inferior to that of the Russians, and if Korchnoi could boast an initial success with the Open Lopez in game 6, the whole variation looked perilously close to being refuted after the sudden and intense battering it received in games 14, 16 and 18. With White, a certain poverty of ideas became apparent in his repeated use of harmless versions of the Queen’s Gambit. Korchnoi does have one consolation, the jewel of game 13, probably the finest of the match, and one of the best ever played in a world championship.
Karpov has emerged from this month and a half duel with his reputation enormously enhanced. He has played some extraordinarily accurate chess, and has secured his tenure of the title for at least nine years. If readers refer to my statistics on page 12, it will be observed that Karpov has moved up to 55% in his title tights, well in advance of Smyslov, Petrosian, Botvinnik and Capablanca. He enjoys every prospect of becoming one of the great world champions of chess.”
Foreign Media reports on the match (according to TASS)
West Germany. DPA agency: “The Soviet chess World Champion Anatoly Karpov considers the fuss about Merano game “funny”. In the interview to “Norddeutcher rundfunk” radio station Karpov spoke for the first time about Korchnoi’s criticism of himself. “I try to react as calmly as possible to it. I don’t give way to irritation. But for sure I cannot accept such behaviour. Some think that Korchnoi is like Bobby Fisher, since the American used the entire time to search for trouble and provoke, but fail to see that Fisher had problems with organizers of chess games and never attacked the rival outside the chess desk by dirty means”. Answering the question of his comment on the roots of Korchnoi’s behaviour the champion said: “Well, it’s just like him… Not only now. He has always had it… And judging by past evidence he damages in the first place his own self”.
Italy. The papers unanimously wrote that unlike Korchnoi, looking very nervous, Karpov behaves both during the game and outside the contest hall very quietly, reservedly and confidently. “Upon a closer look, – reports today “Paeze sera”, – he is just the young man we used to see several years ago, for instance, when in 1975 Anatoly came to participate in the tournament of the twelve top players of the world”.
“Journale” thinks that for the organisers of the game in Merano the fear that the game will end too soon is more noticeable than the fear that the game between the World Champion and the candidate will last too long. The paper notes, that though in Merano many were satisfied with the draught in the third round even then “Karpov displayed an excellent preparation quality”.
Rome. According to “Stampa” journal Karpov’s superiority over the runner up is evident. After the first victory and two more games played by the runner up to a draw Korchnoi’s team regained confidence and even had some euphoria. Then all of a sudden there came Karpov’s fourth victory, bringing him two steps away from confirming his title. Korchnoi asked for a timeout to regain confidence in himself and his force. No doubt, the 9th game was devastating…”
According to “Journale” “The sad atmosphere strongly felt among Korchnoi’s team. The stretched faces of his assistants are not only due to the defeat forth time running, but to his style as well.”
“These days you can see Korchnoi in Merano with a fresh publication of autobiographical “Anti-chess” telling his version of the game with Karpov three year’s ago,” comments “Republica”. They tend to think of it as a way of psychological preparation of the runner up for continuing contest.
In fact, we do not see in Merano the Korchnoi capable of an equal play against Champion, and doubtfully will, judging by a strong score gap between the competitors”.
Belgrade. By way of commenting the fifth match game the Yugoslavian reporters note that playing it to the end was a senseless effort in the view of the clearly draw position. “Politika” writes that we can only guess why Korchnoi insisted on finishing the game – since it turned a no-play finish. Could he really believe that Champion will make mistakes in a simplest completion? This has more to do with psychology than with chess. Most often his decisions to play to the end are explained basically by stubbornness and anger.
A draw was just what had been expected of the game, but nobody thought that the playoff will take twenty three moves, “Borba” remarks.
D.Yanoshevich in the Yugoslavian “Sport” journal calls Karpov’s victory in the ninth game “utter crash of the entire runner up’s illusions. According to Yanoshevich “Korchnoi evidently has no strength for a decent contest to say nothing of the ability to make wonder. Korchnoi does not have any game scheme, showing unreasonable illusion, and all of his threats – to win – done before the Match start, now have quite different meaning. It was made clear that Victor the Terrible is a paper tiger danger-free for Champion Anatoly Karpov with a genius impeccable technique of the latter”.
According to TANUG reporter B. Kazic “Karpov’s superiority is doubtless. Korchnoi’s assistant Michael Stin noted that Korchnoi in the eighth game defended himself like a lion”. But lions never defend themselves, they attack
Cuba. Agency reporter Prensa Latina: “Gloomy, thoughtful, without saying a word Korchnoi left the room, after a third loss in the match.
What were his expectations of the playoff? The chess player is to admit his loss when the superiority of his rival is evident. This is a matter of simple game courtesy, and Korchnoi ignored this knightly rule. “Does he wait that he will have a death? It is unheard of!” – M. Najdorf commented.
Now there is hardly anyone to doubt Karpov’s ultimate triumph”.