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Latest Interview: 45 Years Had Passed
On the last Sunday, in May, indoors Norm Theatre, in UBC, they held a competition dedicated to the chess-play match which happened exactly 45 years ago in the very venue.
In 1971, Vancouver hosted a quarter final candidate match of World Chess Championship. The match involved participation of Bobby Fischer, the 11-th World champion, and Mark Taimanov, one of the mightiest Soviet grandmasters. The American chess-player was considered a front-runner but nobody could dope it would be 6 to 0. Fischer won six chess games in a row, and he beat drawlessly.
The 2016 exhibition match was special by its nature. Vancouver chess players who wanted to commemorate the event formed Team Fischer & Team Taimanov.
In February, Mark Taimanov reached the age of 90. Having left his active tournament practices, the grandmaster devoted himself to his family and developing of children's chess plays in Sankt Petersburg.
Shortly before the match I talked to Mark on the phone, and asked him to share his recollections about that match and Bobby Fischer.
- Good evening Mark.
– Good evening.
– The legendary match happened 45 years ago when you were 45. Now that you reached your 90 in your jubilee. Your life may be said to get split in two, equally. I mean before and after the match with Robert Fischer. As you put it in your book entitled 'How I Became Fischer’s Victim', this match was not only a sheer come down but also it became one of the most notable events in your life.
– Yes, that is the way I did. It was a big sport failure. Big emotional stresses followed, they were associated with a harsh criticism I had been subject to by leaders who perceived it had been my evil will: An effort for discrediting of our mighty country. Nevertheless, I recall that match to be one of the most dramatic events in my chesser life because I played that match with the great chess-player. Despite such a dramatic result, we had loads of chess games and high lights.
It was Mr. Fischer that reckoned in terms of sporting, that match outcome was not correspondent to its chess content since we struggled very hard, in a riveting way. We played highly creatively. When game 6 finished, Mr. Fischer considered the score should have been 3.5 as maximum: 2.5 for him. The games of that match were recorded as ones of the largest chess events.
– Speaking about Robert Fischer I would like you to share your opinion. What are the qualities of the prominent chess-player which chess-players can make use of now that computers are used globally and during all the phases of preparations and reviews of chess games?
– At his time Mr. Fischer found a big deal of such elements which have turned out to be quite pertinent. For instance, chess-clocks which feature adding of time, such clocks made results of games considerably 'fair' under time pressure. Provided that at earlier times you could lose a game by delaying at one move before you provide your checkmate, now when they use the clocks which add some seconds after any move, no piece of unfairness is possible. That was point one.
Also, Mr. Fischer foretold forthcoming computer capabilities to analyze chess openings. Now that it became a detrimental feature. A computer significantly removed chess-players' needs for taking creative analysis of openings on their own. Now you can obtain results of any surveys conducted during two centuries by pressing a single button, no creativity is needed.
– Do you believe that 'Fischer's chess' methods are prospective to expand to much more space than they house in the modern chess world?
– Certainly, computer applications are under a drastic development. There will be the day when all those 960 starting positions are analyzed in details but currently it is still a specific workflow during a chess game.
– It is known that Mr. Fischer had read Soviet chess books and journals. Which language did you use during that match, English or Russian?
– No, I am not a fluent English speaker. Surprisingly, we talked using a Serbian-Russian lingua franca. Both of us visited Yugoslavia for long times and we could speak the language comfortably enough to comprehend each other. Serbian was the most convenient language for our communications.
– As for Vancouver, the 1971 match of you was the most quicksilver page in record logs of the city chess plays. Do you remember anything which is specifically related to our city?
– I'd say I always recall Vancouver heart-warmingly despite loads of feelings I had to recover upon that match. I remember the city is nice, and interesting, and warmly welcoming.
– Some words about your career as a chess-player: you faced with Bobby Fischer at that match when you had won in virtually all big competitions: Champion of the USSR, multiple champion of Leningrad, winner of Chess Olympics and several European championships as part of all-USSR team leaving alone your wins in a number of high-profile international tournaments. Frequently, you have occasions to play with all the strongest grandmasters of the 1950-70ies. Who was the most uneasy player for you? Or who demanded the least efforts you were playing against?
– I have never had such dramatic results among other grandmasters as I had in that match with Mr. Fischer. I believe, while I was participating in tournaments and matches been held in the Soviet Union, I felt right at home and played in the tier which was referring to the elite of Soviet chess-players.
– You met with various Chess Champions of the World from Mr. Botvinnik to Mr. Kasparov, you have scored winnings of six strongest chess-players of your time. What winning do you memorize the best?
– The 1977 tournament winning, in Leningrad, was the most memorable out of those games when I beat Anatoly Karpov, the defending Champion of the World.
– You are yet known to be both a columnist and a writer: since the 1950-ies you have you been an author in chess specific publications and a reporter in books regarding theory of chess opening, a writer of features and reminiscences?
– Yes, I have. At some point of time my basic two skills started including the third one. Perhaps, I have not achieved such an apex as a columnist but being a columnist is always an interesting and absorptive job. I hope this job enabled readers to come intermingled with chess arts. While coming back to the above-mentioned book 'Recalling the Best of…', I narrate about my creative life: both musical and chess life, about my meetings with biggest chess-players, and politicians, and prominent people of the 20-th century.
I was lucky that I had my tender-hearted attitude towards and for some time being a friend of Che Guevara who was admiring chess best. He did lots of things for developing of chess in Cuba: local tournaments were held, they became a decoration of the international chess calendar for many years to come. Said high-profile tournaments are still being held. My meetings, for sure, referred to my most favourite jobs considerably: chess and music. Thanks to them, I travelled all over the world when performing, I visited 80 countries.
– Recently, I have talked to one of the strongest chess-players of Vancouver. He highly esteemed your book 'Taimanov’s Selected Games', which was issued in English, in 1996. Well, on my personal note, I would add your books are ideally combining both reviews of the scenes in your chequerboards and outlines of the entire environment happening around. Do you use your computer to analyze the games that you played in the 50ies-90ies, I mean during a 'pre-PC' era?
– I can say I disagree with such a 'rethinking'. For years Garry Kasparov and I have been friends. But we have our different views in terms of a necessity to analyze the games which were previously played using computers. Mr. Kasparov was an author of a series of books called ‘My Great Predecessors', where he put he had used a computer-aided analysis which often changed a notion of legacy assessment in separate games of great chess-players. Some games that we considered to be a chef-d'oeuvre were shot down in flames by a computer. The computer found some scenarios which cast down such great games.
I consider that it makes about as much sense as if a computer intermeddled Sinfonia 5 and told that Beethoven used consecutives there, which are inadmissible in Classical Music Composition Theory. Thus, it would interfere with its analysis to destruct our vivid feelings and impressions from outstanding master-pieces of musical art. It seems to me it is at least offensive if you overturn great pieces of chess art.
– I've got quite an interesting metaphor. I have one more question: Which photograph of the 1971 match do you recommend for use when our interview is published? Perhaps, have you archived photographs which had not been released previously?
– I figure out the photograph which depicts both of us sitting at the chequerboard while taking our heads in our hands during the last game six is the most well-known photograph of that match. This photograph demonstrates the stress we had during that game best.
– It is the photograph that since last year has been decorating one of walls in the cinema which accommodated that game.
– Yes, I like it. There is a gazette in my archive. The gazette bears the photograph. The same photograph is among the photographs which decorate a chess school in Sankt Petersburg.
– Mark, several years ago a chess school was opened up under your supervision. Please tell us some words about it. Are you personally engaged with juvenile chess-players?
– I do not believe I am cut out for teaching children to play chess. The people who are good at their educational experience shall do that job. The very me started in a study group like that when I was a six year old kid. The spot was a small basement allocated for a number of children. One eager beaver tutor attended the spot. There is a plenty of space in the school that we have now to accommodate a bunch of groups. We conduct lectures, and games of multiboard chess, and tournaments for chess-players who have various qualifications. We invited the best children trainers, I will emphasize it is the word that says 'children.'
In a children’s' school, it is not necessarily that you must train big grandmasters. It is vital you shall teach children to love chess. A professor of music of mine used to say: ‘Once you love music, the music will respond to your love.’ The same thing can refer to chess.
– Thank you for your talking. Hope this exhibition match becomes a tradition.
– Take care!
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