John Henderson Reports on the British Championships in Scarborough

Round 5 Friday 3rd August 2001

HOW MANY MILES ON THE CLOCK?

HARD to imagine: but this year the one and only Tony Miles celebrates the 25^th anniversary of becoming Britain’s first grandmaster – Happy anniversary, Tone!

Since then, I think he’s been about the most active GM on the circuit with (if you pardon the pun) more miles on the clock than any other player. You name it, and our Tone’s played in it. His passport has got more stamps in it than a philatelist’s convention. I don’t think there’s any part of the globe he’s not been to in order to strut his funky stuff on the chessboard. He’s been there, seen it, done it...and got a different T-shirt on every day to prove it.

But the British? Ah, that’s always been a problem for him. Despite being the top player in the country by far from the middle 1970s through the 1980s, this is a tournament that, by his own standards, he’s failed to perform at his best, with only one victory to his credit at Torquay in 1982.

Miles’ success came at the fag end of the Keene-Hartston-Basman-Whiteley generation. The race was on to become Britain’s first GM thanks to the aid of the man who saved the Spassky-Fischer match in 1972: financer Jim Slater. In 1971 through the newly founded Slater Foundation, he offered a generous reward of £5000 to the first over-the-board GM in the UK. I say otb because Keith Richardson (not to be confused with the lead guitarist of The Rolling Stones), one of Tony’s former club mates at Birmingham Chess Club, actually became Britain’s first GM in 1975; but that was a correspondence title.

For a time, it looked as if Bill Hartston had it in the bag in the wake of Fischer-Spassky in Reykjavik. Needing just a half out of two in the 1972/73 Hastings tournament for his third and final norm, Hartston was subconsciously putting Slater’s cheque for £5000 in to his bank account, when tragedy struck. He foolishly turned down a draw against Wolfgang Uhlmann in the penultimate round as he went all out for glory and the title in the belief he had a mating attack.

Sadly, the mating attack turned out to be nothing more than a mirage and poor Bill had the daunting task of facing Bent Larsen in the last round – and needing a victory himself to win Hastings outright, the Great Dane wasn’t felling all that compassionate. The rest, as they say, is history.

Meanwhile, a new generation of English juniors were on the verge of a breakthrough: Miles, Stean, Speelman and Nunn.

In 1973, Miles and Stean had taken silver and bronze respectively behind “Big Al” Belyavsky at the World Junior Championship at Teeside. Miles vowed there and then that the next year he would win the title.

Sure enough, the following year at Manila, Miles dominated to take the World Junior crown 1.5-points clear of the field. This, and further successes in the year to follow, was enough to persuade him the to end his studies in maths at Sheffield University (they did, however, give him an honorary MA degree for what he’d achieved in chess) in 1975 to turn professional.

The race to become the first GM then turned into a two-horse affair between Miles and Keene who both had a brace of GM norms to their name; by now Hartston had more or less given up the ghost.

The turning point in the battle came one bleak February in 1976 when, at the last minute, Miles accepted a late invitation to a very tough tournament in the USSR. He only just got his visa in time and headed for a snowy Dubna, a scientific centre near Moscow, to score dream result with an amazing feat – a final GM norm in a Soviet tournament ahead of eight GM’s, to pip Keene at the post for the £5000 cheque (probably the one and only time that Raymundo lost out in the money stakes). Keene thus was second to Miles – but unfortunately for legal reasons we can’t go in to that story!

It was incredible. At the start of 1970, you would have been laughed at if you had suggested that British chess would have a player who would win the World Junior Championship, become a GM, and beat household names such as Geller, Bronstein, Larsen, Gligoric, Smyslov, Spassky and Karpov. But it was Miles who had the last laugh: he did all of these – and more!

By 1977 his GM status was cmore than confirmed with first prizes at the Amsterdam IBM and Biel tournaments, and second prize behind Karpov at Tilburg, the first of the new series of Super-grandmaster tournaments there.

Miles had made the breakthrough and he was to become the catalyst for what was described as “The Great British Chess Explosion” when the likes of Nunn, Mestel, Speelman and Short etc made England a force to be reckoned with by the start of the 1980s as the game in this country went through a renaissance.

In his “peak years”, Miles was a renowned expert in the Sicilian Dragon, but lost interest in it after some high-profile duals with elite players where he was on the wrong end of the result. With the advent of more and more opening theory, he decided it was time for a change and started venturing towards some obscure systems at the turn of the 1980s.

The weird and the wonderful soon became part of Miles’ opening arsenal: the English Defence, the Berlin Defence, the Nimzovitch Defence with 1 ..Nc6, the Alekhine Defence – and he got away with it. Who else but Miles could have had the chutzpah to outplay Karpov in the 1980 European Team Championships when he played 1 ..a6 in reply to 1 e4?

Rowson,J (2514) - Miles,T (2565) [C67]

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nf6 4 0–0 Nxe4 The system that Kramnik used to such great effect against Kasparov: The Berlin Defence. Miles isn't playing it as some sort of fad since Kramnik's title win. It's more likely to have been Miles that has influenced Kramnik! Miles added the Berlin to his repertoire more than a decade ago when he surprised Karpov with it at Biel in 1990 - and he's got a good record with it: won 13, drawn 17 and lost 6. 5 d4 Nd6 6 Bxc6 dxc6 7 dxe5 Nf5 8 Qxd8+ Kxd8 9 Nc3 Bd7 10 Rd1

The whole key to this system is black's "vulnerable" king in the centre of the board. Indeed, the relative strength/weakness of the Black king is in some ways a microcosm of this line as a whole. As long as White has the initiative the king is vulnerable, but as soon as the initiative is soaked up, the Black king can be very well placed in the centre for the endgame. 10 ..Kc8 11 Ng5 Peter Leko came up with this for his Rapidplay match in early January against Mr. Berlin himself, Vladimir Kramnik. 11 ..Be8 12 b3 12 Nge4 b6 13 h3 Kb7 14 g4 Ne7 15 Bf4 h5 16 f3 c5 17 Kf2 Nc6 18 Nd5 Nd4 19 c3 Ne6 20 Bg3 Bc6 21 Rd2 hxg4 22 hxg4 c4 23 Kg2 Rd8 24 Rad1 Ba4 25 Re1 Bc6 26 Red1 Ba4 27 Re1 Bc6 1/2–1/2 Kasparov,G-Kramnik,V/Zurich SUI 2001/The Week in Chess 338. 12 ..b6 13 Bb2 Kb7 14 Rd3 Be7 15 Nge4 Rd8 16 Rad1 Kc8!?N

In the afore mentioned Leko-Kramnik match, Vladi got into trouble when he exchanged rooks first: 16 ..Rxd3 17 Rxd3 h5 18 Bc1 f6 19 exf6 gxf6 20 Ne2 c5 21 Bb2 Rf8 22 Nf4 Bc6 23 f3 Nh4 24 Nd5 f5 25 Nef6 Bd6 26 g3 Ng6 27 Nxh5 Re8 28 Kf2 Ne5 29 Bxe5 Bxe5 30 Nhf4 Bd4+ 31 Kf1 a5 32 c3 Bg7 33 c4 Bd4 34 a4 Rh8 35 h4 Rg8 36 Kg2 Re8 37 Kf1 Rg8 38 Ne2 Bxd5 39 cxd5 Be5 40 f4 Bd6 41 Kf2 Kc8 42 Kf3 Kd7 43 Nc3 Be7 44 Nd1 Rf8 45 Ne3 Rf6 46 Nc4 Bd6 47 Re3 Rh6 48 Ne5+ Kc8 49 Nf7 Rf6 50 Ng5 Kd7 51 Re6 Rf8 52 h5 b5 53 axb5 c4 54 bxc4 a4 55 Re2 Bb4 56 Rb2 Bc3 57 Rc2 Bh8 58 Ra2 Ra8 59 Nf7 Bc3 60 h6 Ke7 61 Ne5 a3 62 h7 Bb2 1–0 Leko,P-Kramnik,V/Budapest HUN 2001/The Week in Chess 322. 17 h3 h5 18 Bc1 Rxd3 19 Rxd3 h4 20 Bg5 Rh5 A manouvere that was regularly seen in the K-K MkII matches. 21 Rf3 Nd4 22 Bxe7 Nxf3+ 23 gxf3 Rxe5

24 Ba3 It looks strange not taking on h4, but I think Rowson may have been a bit worried by something like this: 24 Bxh4 f5 25 Bg3! Re7 26 Ng5 Re1+ 27 Kg2 Rc1 28 Ne6 g6 29 Be5 Rxc2 30 h4 Bf7 31 Ng5 Bd5 and black looks to have a better position than in the game. 24 ..f5 25 Ng5 Re1+ 26 Kg2 c5 27 f4 b5 28 Bxc5 Moving the rook from the eighth caused more problems than it solved: 28 Nf3 Re6 (28 ..Bc6? 29 Nxb5!) 29 Ng5 Rd6 (29 ..Re1 30 Nf3=) 30 Bxc5 Bc6+ 31 Kf1 Rd2 32 Bb4 Rxc2 33 Ne6 g6 34 Nd4 Rc1+ 35 Ke2 Bg2 36 Kd2 Rh1 and black's advanced h-pawn is going to cause all sorts of problems. 28 ..Bc6+! 29 f3 Rc1 30 Bb4 30 Bxa7?? Rxc2+ wins the knight - the reason for Bc6+ first rather than taking the pawn. 30 ..Rxc2+ 31 Kg1 Bd7! Threatening c5 winning a piece. 32 Nd5 Rxa2 33 Bf8 a5 34 Bxg7 Rd2 34 ..Ra3!? 35 b4 axb4 36 Nxb4 c5 37 Nd5 b4 38 Nb6+ (38 Be5 Kb7!) 38 ..Kc7 39 Nc4 Ra2 40 Be5+ 35 Ne7+ Kb7 36 Ng6

Very aesthetic - but does it hold? 36 ..c5 37 Kf1 a4? Keeping the pawns together was black's best hope for a win: 37 ..Rd1+! 38 Ke2 Rb1 39 Nxh4 Rxb3 40 Nf7 a4 41 Nd6+ Kc6 42 Nhxf5 a3 43 h4 a2 44 h5 Rb1 45 h6 Rh1 and black wins. 38 bxa4 bxa4 39 Ke1 Rh2 40 Bf8 c4 41 Kd1 Bb5 42 Bb4! Rb2 Winning the piece doesn't gain the point: 42 ..a3 43 Bxa3 c3 44 Ne5 Rd2+ 45 Kc1 Ba4 46 Kb1 c2+ 47 Ka1 Rd1+ 48 Ka2 c1Q 49 Bxc1 Rxc1 50 Ng6 Rc4 51 Nxh4 Rxf4 52 Ng6 Rc4 53 h4 Be8 54 Kb3 Rc1 55 Ne7 Bd7 (55 ..Rc5 56 f4) 56 Ng6 and white holds on. 43 Bc3 Rb3 44 Kc2

The pendulum has well and truly swung in the opposite direction. If anything, White now has all the chances. Indeed, when I asked Rowson about this position the following day, he said "I was better - I could have played on and tried to win. However, I didn't want to chance my arm after coming back from the position I was in." 44 ..Ra3 45 Kb2 Rb3+ 46 Kc2 Ra3 47 Kb2 ½–½

You can contact John Henderson at: jbhthescots@cableinet.co.uk

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of TWIC, Chess & Bridge Ltd or the London Chess Center.