Belgium in Budapest – Chess Olympiads – Round 10

Lajos Portisch, who we presented in our yesterday’s report, got to play the first move at the Olympiads today and he received recognition for all his achievements. Yet he is certainly not the only living legend of Hungarian chess. In women’s chess too, Hungary grew into a top country and a great candidate for medals in the Olympiads. Until the Polgars came along: then being a candidate on medals became a certainty on medals. The Polgars’ educational experiment soon made its mark. In the early 1970s, the parents would encourage their daughter Zsuzsa (1969-), who already showed some aptitude for chess at age four, to give her plenty of encouragement in those skills. With success, at 12 she became a master. This immediately also determined the fate of her younger sisters, Zsofia (1974-) and Judit (1976-) who also played chess for an average of eight hours a day and were home-schooled by their parents for the rest. While the system considered the experiment insane and wanted to block it (e.g. the family did not always get the necessary passports), the girls’ incredible achievements took away more and more scepticism. 1988 became a tipping point year, as the teenagers became champions in the women’s Olympiads together with Ildiko Madl (1969-). They too broke the hegemony of the Soviet Union that way, and they repeated that feat two years later. The girls won all three medals at the Olympiads, Judit even two silver medals with the men, because after their second victory with the women, they refused to compete in separate competitions.

Judit Polgar’s thinking starts from the principle that men and women are intellectually equal. Something disputed by men, because – it is then cited – you only have to look at the number of women in the world’s top 100 to conclude that there is a difference. But according to Polgar, that is precisely the result of all those separate women’s tournaments: if the better women can already earn a lot of prize money thanks to separate women’s tournaments, they do not – as Polgar herself did – have to piss themselves off for eight hours a day, but a four-hour working day would suffice. 

Judit then goes on to ignore the fact that chess tournaments are not always a woman-friendly environment. Some men in our society have a hard time socialising and feel inhibited from contacting the opposite sex anyway. The fact that they play chess often doesn’t help them with that: after all, many non-chess players find chess boring and often transpose that characteristic to the player. Therefore, those chess players see women in the chess world as an ideal lifeline to escape from their lonely lives. Not only are they convinced that those ladies will appreciate their hobby, moreover, they also dare to address those women more easily (if they are better chess players, they will invariably offer their chess help (unsolicited)). This often leads to stalking. And that, in turn, is not so nice for the ladies who, although they love the game, do not like those men, who keep flying around them like annoying insects.

Anyway, we were talking about the Polgars. Zsusza lives in the United States today. She is the only Hungarian to ever become world champion (and even in the three disciplines: classical tempo, rapid and blitz). Zsofia (who achieved a TPR of 2735 in Rome 1989) married in Israel and Judit is the best known thanks to the many years when she was among the top 10 in the world. Today, she is committed to promoting school chess.

During their climb to the top, chess, like all sports, would undergo a new shift for political reasons. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, instead of mass employment in sports, it relied more and more on sponsorship. Basic development – as in the West – was left to parents and sympathisers. The state would only focus on the (already broken through) top talents. And after Polgar, those kept coming: first you had Peter Leko (1979-), who, although born in the Hungarian part of ex-Yugoslavia, was already better known in Austria and Germany than in Hungary at the age of nine. He therefore quickly found sponsors and broke Judit Polgar’s record as the youngest grandmaster: he was 14 years, 4 months and 22 days when he was allowed the title of grandmaster. At that age, he also played in the Hungarian Olympiad team and in 2004 he was even able to challenge Kramnik for the world title, but failed to become the first male Hungarian world champion. Although Peter Leko lived in Budapest only briefly, many stages in his life are linked to the Hungarian capital.

Following a similar path is Richard Rapport (1996-). Born in Szombathely, a town in the countryside, he then became the youngest grandmaster ever at 13 years, 11 months and 6 months. He has also won several medals at chess Olympiads, and team competitions at European and world level. He also qualified for the candidate tournament in 2022, and in 2023 he helped Ding Liren to gain the title of World Champion. Rapport’s contribution as a creative mind and innovator cannot be underestimated in this regard.

For creativity, we should not look at Daniel’s opponent in the 10th round. Although the grandmaster from the United Arab Emirates was an opponent of the calibre of Daniel, even that grandmaster who had white did not really want to test Daniel and took the safe bet: a draw, therefore.

Thibaut played the kind of positions he likes: dominant from the opening and then squeezing until material can be won.

With black, Sim could not avoid the systematic exchange of pieces. The rook endgame gave no winning chances. So, a draw.

Mher pressed from the start, but it was only in the endgame that he won a queen with a mere knight fork after a terrible blunder by his opponent.

This puts our ‘open’ team four places above our starting position. Unfortunately, against Croatia it will be difficult to finish in that starting position: on all boards, yes, even Daniel’s, the Croatians can boast a better Elo, but maybe our guys will be at their strongest then? In the end, our men lost only 2 matches. This is less than, say, the Dutch team.

In the ladies’ tournament, a camera was next to the board yesterday and home viewers could watch a more than four-hour live broadcast of the match against Sweden. Especially Tyani’s match was given all the attention by opponent Anna Cramling. Commentator GM Hammer had a hard time pronouncing Tyani’s name, but – like us – was mostly impressed by Tyani’s tournament. He also cited that the 8 out of 9 Tyani had achieved, was done by having six games with the black pieces.

So there came a 7th game with Black and there is nothing to be said for the draw. For that, the white player took too few risks. Will Tyani remain unbeaten in this tournament?

Much more interesting to me was the presence of Pia Cramling in the Swedish team. A big madam, who our big madam, Hanne, had already managed to hold to a draw in one of their previous two encounters. For a long time, Hanne seemed to have no problems either, but around the 15th move she started playing a little too emphatically on the queen’s side only to suddenly have to tolerate a rook on d8 after a horse sacrifice on c6. Immediately the whole kingside collapsed. This brought the Swedes to a second win, as Sarah had already lost by then.

The opening that was least prepared came on the board. Mentally, that is already not a good thing and if you don’t find the right moves right away, you quickly fall behind. Sarah tactically tried to keep the balance by giving up her bishop pair for rook and pawn (and some weaknesses in the black pawn structure). All logical, but in retrospect, the white king in particular would not be happy about this decision. Indeed, he became a target of the bishops and mate would eventually be his portion.

Fortunately, after another tough and bearish game, Daria was able to ensure a nice honours. Daria’s level of play is truly admirable as the number of weak moves she played in the tournament is disproportionate to the number of points she lost because of them (2.5/3). I am fan, when I see how she also manages to keep enough tension in the position to maintain chances of success in all games. Daria certainly did not reach her peak.

So, the team lost. A pity, but the honourable result puts Bangladesh on the programme. Achievable on paper, but still watch out. Bangladesh has few chances to participate in FIDE tournaments. So underrating is undoubtedly the cause of that team’s high ranking at the Olympiads. For Sarah, it will be something special: after playing a 15-year-old child against Sweden, today she gets to play the (presumed) old-age blanket of the tournament, 80-year-old Rani Hami, who with 6/7 can boast a TPR of 2162.