Schacksnack

Lucas Anderson and FM Warren Harper rate Zurich 1953 one of the best chess tournaments ever played. In this lecture, given January 19, 2017, at Center64 (www.center64.com) they make their case why you should view it that way too. Harper will cover illustrative games from the tournament, talking about the contributions to theory essayed at this tournament which are still topical today. Anderson will tell you about the political intrigue behind the tournament, notably by the KGB. In addition he will paint brief biographical portraits of some participants, such as the eventual winner: Vassily Smyslov.

Table of Contents:

00:00 – Introduction
00:00 – Intro
00:50 – History of FIDE
16:43 – Harper’s Overview
18:12 – Taimanov vs. Najdorf (Round 4)
26:14 – Stahlberg vs. Petrosian (Round 11)
31:06 – Kotov vs. Gligoric (Round 25)
57:47 – Opening Ceremony/Venue
1:02:56 – Soviet Player Bios
1:15:36 – Najdorf vs. Petrosian (Round 6)
1:19:01 – Najdorf vs. Geller (Round 28)
1:21:23 – Western Player Bios
1:30:14 – Crosstable/Results
1:33:36 – Tragedy! Szabo vs. Reshevsky
1:38:02 – Brilliancy! Averbakh vs. Kotov
1:48:38 – Geller vs. Smyslov (Round 7)
1:55:54 – Reshevsky vs. Petrosian (Round 2)
2:00:25 – Smyslov vs. Stahlberg (Round 4)
2:03:43 – Political Intrigue/KGB
2:13:22 – Works Cited