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Encounter with a World Champion

Back in the early 80s, the Jacksonville Chess Club was an active organization, under the genial hand of Edwin Butler, a retired real estate wheeler-dealer who turned to chess as an outlet for his seemingly inexhaustible energy.

Spassky in action Among the events organized by the club was a visit by former World Champion Boris Spassky to play a 30-board simultaneous exhibition on September 27, 1984. This was his second stop across the United States during a two-week tour that year. The picture to the right was taken by Florida Times-Union staff photographer Scott Robinson and appeared in the October 1 edition of the paper. In the photograph, I am about as far away from the camera as you can get!

Along with 29 other players ranging in age from 17 to 73, I forked over $50 for the right to sit down and play against Grandmaster Spassky, and the following game was the result. Of the souls who participated in the event, only I and one other escaped with draws; Spassky swept the rest of the boards, finishing the exhibition at about one in the morning.

If your browser supports Java, you'll be able to play over the moves using an applet made available by the Internet Chess Club. If your browser doesn't support Java, you'll simply see the game score with annotations (in PGN format).

[Event "Simultaneous Exhibition"]
[Site "Jacksonville, Florida"]
[Date "1984.09.27"]
[White "Spassky, Boris"]
[Black "Lane, Alex"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[Opening "King's Gambit Declined/Falkbeer Counter Gambit"]
[Variation "Tartakower variation"]
[ECO "C31"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5
  {Playing a counter gambit against an ex-World Champion
   can be attributed to any of a number of character traits,
   such as supreme confidence, flaming arrogance, or
   outright stupidity,... but I digress. At the time, as I
   recall, I was better booked up in the Falkbeer Counter
   Gambit than in the King's Gambit (and, as we'll shortly
   see, that isn't saying much), and I'd much rather
   play an opening I understand than one I do not. Anyway,
   the Falkbeer has a good reputation, so it's not a
   completely off-the-wall choice of opening.}
3. Nf3 Nc6
  {A move suggested by Bardeleben, although I did not know
   that at the time (nor, I suspect, would that knowledge
   have been helpful). I was ready (more or less) for
   3...exd5, but had never seen 3...Nf3. I am out of the book
   and on my own resources.}
4. exd5 Qxd5 5. Nc3 Qe6 6. fxe5 Nxe5 7. Nxe5 Qxe5+ 8. Qe2
  {Surprisingly, the game to this point follows analysis
   published in Estrin and Glazkov's book on the King's Gambit.
   I have gotten to this position by myself, blissfully
   ignorant of their analysis, which states that White has a
   lead in development.}
8...Bd6 9. d4 Qxe2+ 10. Bxe2 Bf5 11. Bb5+ c6 12. Ba4 Ne7
13. O-O O-O-O 14. Bb3 Rhf8
  {Playing very carefully, feeling some pressure, and
   desperately trying not to lose. (Is that so bad?)}
15. Bf4 Bg6 16. Ne2 Nf5 17. c3 Rde8 18. Bxd6 Nxd6 19. Nf4 Be4
20. Rae1 f5 21. Ne6 Rf6 22. Ng5 h6 23. Nxe4 Nxe4
  {It is probably better to recapture with 23...fxe4, creating
   a passed pawn, but also one that is isolated. Perhaps under
   tournament conditions, I would have risked the pawn
   recapture, but here, I am simply trying to hold on. When,
   at this point Spassky offered a draw, I wasted no time in
   accepting his offer. The final position:
   
2k1r3/pp4p1/2p2r1p/5p2/3Pn3/2P5/PPB3PP/4RRK1 w - - 0 1
   }
1/2-1/2


(If the above date is a hundred years or so off, your browser's Java interpreter isn't current.)

© 1998-2000 by Alex Lane. Send mail to: alex@galexi.com.

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