IN 1945 AND 1946, the USSR played radio matches against the US and England with moves transmitted between Moscow, New York and London. At the time, the Soviets were mostly unknowns. Botvinnik and Keres (who became a Soviet citizen when Estonia was annexed) were proven gladiators.
But Smyslov, Bronstein, Kotov, Boleslavsky, etcetera, had never played against foreigners. The USSR won those matches by humiliatingly large margins. Even world class players like Rueben Fine and Samuel Reshevsky were swept aside. That was the start of the domination that continues despite the end of the Soviet Union itself. Russia, Ukraine and Armenia have all won gold medals at Olympiads.
Even though 20 million of its citizens died in World War II, the Soviets encouraged citizens to continue playing chess including literally, in the frontlines. Chess offered cheaper, safer recreation than vodka. The Soviet training systems were inflicted on every child.
The domination is now being challenged by the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese also teach chess to every school child; along with Chinese chess, xiangqi. It has been dominant in the women’s Olympiad and produced several woman world champions. The Chinese men’s team fields three 2,700-plus GMs including the rock-solid 20-year-old Wang Yue.
In the past few years, the Chinese have challenged the Russians to an annual team match and the results have been very close. This mammoth effort has five men and five women on each side playing head-to-head matches of ten games each! The latest edition sees the Chinese narrowly leading 26:24 at the halfway stage. Of course, the top two Russians, Kramnik and Morozevich are not playing. Moro tends to avoid team events and Kramnik is now ensconced in the final pre-title-match huddle as is Anand.
The title match that starts on October 13 is the next big event to look forward to. You could win a ticket to Bonn by doing well in the free quizzes at the official website, “http://www.uep-chess.com/”. According to the poll on the site, Anand is the favourite. I doubt that this would depress Kramnik’s spirits however!
More From This Section
The diagram (Carlsen Vs Topalov, Bilbao 2008) white to move shows what happens when even a world class player starts complications without applying the Soviet principle of “See to the End”.
Carlsen shot off the novelty 15.b4 cxb4 16.Bc7 Qe8 17.Qe2 b5 18.Ba5 Rc8 19.Qb2 Nf6 20.Rxc8 Qxc8 — and now 21. Re1 keeps an even position while the natural 21. Rc1 Qa8 22 d5!? is messy but may be playable. Carlsen tried another natural move 21.Nd2? Qc3 22.Qxc3 bxc3 23.Bxc3 Rc8. This reached a position he had thought equal and stopped analysing despite the fact that Bc3 was attacked. But after the forced 24.Ba5 Bd8! 25.Bxd8 Rxd8 white is just a pawn down! (0-1, 56 moves).
