Belgium in Budapest – Chess Olympiads – Round 9

A country where chess was so popular would naturally put itself on the chess map. Laszlo Szabo took over from Gena Maroczy as best player. Gedeon Barcza (1911-1986) would mainly dedicate himself to patriotic chess as a writer and trainer. Together, from 1951, they would inspire an awful lot of Hungarians through the chess magazine Magyar Sakkélet.

Popularity would also ensure that the candidate tournament of 1950 was organised in Budapest: ten of the 14 best players came to the Danube to decide who would get to challenge world champion Botwinnik. At the end, that became Bronstein who won ahead of Boleslavski. For a while, the schwung in Hungarian chess seemed to be interrupted by political events. In autumn 1956, Soviet armoured vehicles invaded Hungary to bloodily stifle the Magyars’ drive for freedom in three weeks. Or were the Soviets bad losers, since barely a month before in Moscow Hungary had won bronze at the Chess Olympiads by beating the hosts?

Anyway, after the invasion, Hungary would be ruled for three decades by Janos Kadar (1912-1989). Not immediately a great political leader, but an avid chess player (like Castro, Tito and Ceausescu). As a young man, he was active in the numerous labour chess clubs; he had even briefly been president of the MSSZ in 1955. He was also a schoolmate of Andor Lilienthal and chess partner of Sandor Szerényi, the president of the chess federation from 1960 to 1989. After the revolution, when the Hungarian sports world was restructured, chess was unsurprisingly given a sweet spot.

In 1961, Szabo and Barcza passed the torch to a great musical talent, baritone singer Lajos Portisch, who, unlike Ferenc Erkel a century before, would prioritise chess. He is considered the most successful Hungarian chess player of all time and in 2004 he was crowned ‘sportsman of the nation’. Although he is from western Hungary, he came to live in Budapest after leaving school. He helped his club MTK to the title 21 times and he himself won the individual championship nine times. He also qualified for the candidate tournament eight times and reached the semi-finals in both 1977 and 1981. For twenty-five years, he was among the top 10 players in the world and twice represented the world team which then fought a prestige duel against the Soviet Union. In 260 games, he defended the Hungarian colours during the 20 chess Olympiads he participated in (only Eugenio Torre does better with 270 games). The highlight of his chess Olympiad career was in 1978, when Hungary was able to break the quarter-century Soviet hegemony and return home with the gold medal itself. Besides gold, Portisch also won three silver and two bronze medals at the Olympiads.

Portisch, Ribli, Sax, Adorjan & Csom – Gold medal Olympiads 1978

How fortunate that he did not fully develop his musical talent (he played the violin as a child and occasionally gives some solo performances as a baritone). Of course, his achievements would inspire many other Hungarians, because you don’t win an Olympiad alone.Zoltan Ribli (1951-), Gyula Sax (1951-2014) and Andras Adorjan (1950-2023) are also names that no doubt sound familiar to the ‘Informator’ generation.And even Joseph Pinter, Istvan Csom and Laszlo Navarovsky might ring a bell.

Lajos Portisch in concert

Our standard-bearer is, of course, Daniel Dardha. After the win in round 8, our team had once again reached a ranking where it belonged – given its starting position (Belgium started 49th and was 51st at the start of round 9), but Thibaut’s resurgence (2 out of 2 in rounds 7 and 8) let it be hoped that Daniel no longer needed to be the team’s only points picker.  Completing the squad against Kyrgystan were Sim and Lennert.

Lennert again played solidly to a draw. Sim was winning, but unfortunately had chosen this round to produce – what he called – his worst blunder in his chess career: he left a rook hanging, so it evolved from a quality win (+1.6) to a lost bishop endgame (-4.5).

Thibaut also struggled, but he fought his way to an equal position despite being a quality for some pawns behind. Unfortunately, Thibaut is no (internet) blitzer and in time trouble he might therefore be a bit more vulnerable than another player. At least that is the conclusion we could draw from the game, as the equal position became a mess after a few quickly played moves. That Daniel then won his game did not help our team gain match points. As a result, we dropped back to place 66, but it is not too late to reach our starting position (place 49). That climb up starts today against the United Arab Emirates.

Our ladies faced four Panamanian girls. Hanne got a London system; the others decide to play a game of chess.

With Daria, the opponent was looking a little too emphatically for exchanges and on the 11th move she clearly had not counted as deeply as Daria with the result that her position was lost by then. It would take some more time, but by then it was clear that Daria would walk away with the win.

Our other player with the white pieces, Sarah, also created pressure immediately, which was increased when the Panamanian tried to defend a little too actively. The pressure became untenable, and when she didn’t take the only chance Sarah gave her it was out. And although this was only the first point, this already assured the team win: Hanne could not lose against the London system anyway, and Daria would win as well. And what would Tyani do?

I feared that falling asleep was a possibility. Not only because I need an afternoon nap myself, but also because, like Daria, Tyani had played all the games and, moreover, had heard her roommate’s alarm clock go off at 3.30 that night. That that alarm clock had gone off, by the way, had everything to do with Diana’s early return to Belgium. After the opening, Tyani had come under some pressure, but her position was never alarming. In fact, that position remained the same from start to finish. That she was eventually allowed to put the point after her name was thanks to the Panamanian who was kind enough (and slightly less tired) to point out that she herself had lost on time.

Hanne proposed a draw a little later in an equal position and the Panamanian did not bother with the proposal: in the end, that is the result a London player wants to achieve, isn’t? This allowed Hanne to stay in the playing hall long enough to see Daria also take the full point. A nice 3.5-0.5 victory.

With 42nd place and starting position 48, our country is doing nicely. Hopefully, the girls can recharge twice more. Today, that recharging need not be a problem: with Sweden, Hanne should (normally) play against icon Pia Cramling and the younger chess players (hopefully not the players of our men’s team) will undoubtedly have more eyes on the Swedish third board: YouTubester Anna Cramling Bellon.  Assuming they play in that order, of course. Our team composition is, of course, already known.