MARK RUBERY CHESS

The charismatic Russian grandmaster, Eduard Gufeld (1936-2002) is remembered as an entertaining author and lecturer who had an inordinately busy travel schedule-one week he would be in China, the next in Finland. After the fall of the Soviet Union he emigrated to America where he continued to turnout chess books at a prodigious rate-his more than one hundred publications have made 3,5 million sales worldwide. He used to say to those who laughed at his English: “I think that my English is better than your Russian!”

Gufeld was part of the armada of Soviet GMs that dominated world chess, and while not quite in the same class as his contemporaries: Tal, Spassky, and Stein, he qualified six times for the Soviet championship between 1959 and 1966- a most formidable feat.

Gufeld considered the following to be his ‘Immortal Game’ of which he wrote:

“If there is a chess genius in me, it awoke on the very evening I was playing Vladimir Bagirov. To my regret I turned out to be a genius for just one evening; I was never again to play a game in such a grand manner. I am not a Fischer or a Kasparov, whose genius never sleeps, but for just one single evening, I thank fate!

Bagirov,V - Gufeld,E [E84] It Kirovabad RUS, 1973

1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.e4 Nf6 5.f3 0-0

6.Be3 Nc6 (The Panno Variation of the Samisch is one of the more double-edged lines in the Kings Indian) 7.Nge2 Rb8 8.Qd2 a6 9.Bh6 b5 10.h4 e5 11.Bxg7 Kxg7 12.h5 Kh8 13.Nd5 bxc4 14.hxg6 fxg6 15.Qh6 Nh5! (While flying to the Interzonal later that year, and cruising 35000 feet over the Atlantic, Smyslov, Keres, Bronstein and Geller were given the opportunity to attack Black’s position. And yet, in the course of flying across a quarter of the earth’s longitude, I managed to vindicate my assessment that the chances are equal-Gufeld) 16.g4 Rxb2! 17.gxh5 g5 18.Rg1 g4 19.0-0-0! Rxa2 20.Nef4 exf4 21.Nxf4 Rxf4 22.Qxf4 c3 23.Bc4 Ra3 24.fxg4 Nb4 25.Kb1 Be6!! (As I examined the variations which follow, I began to think of the pieces on the board as scintillating shapes in a kaleidoscope. However strange it may seem, this metaphor-vividly expressing the law of interaction of the forces of chess-assisted me in the further course of the game-Gufeld. After the prosaic 25…c2+ 26 Kb2 cxd1=Q 27 Rxd1 the position remains unclear) 26.Bxe6 Nd3 27.Qf7 Qb8+ 28.Bb3 Rxb3+ 29.Kc2 Nb4+! (The only decisive move) 30.Kxb3 Nd5+! 31.Kc2 Qb2+ 32.Kd3 Qb5+! 0-1( If 33 Kc2 Qe2+ 34 Kb3 Qb2+ 35 Kc4 Qb5#)

Gufeld sums up: ”Every artist dreams of creating his Mona Lisa, and every chessplayer of playing his Immortal Game. No game has given me as much satisfaction as this one. To this day I feel happiness when remembering it. In such moments all my failures at the board are forgotten, leaving only the joys of a dream come true.”