A Chess Film, Palma 1989

[Wayne Komer]

A Chess Film, Palma 1989

April 1, 2016

The GMA Baleares Open took place in Palma de Mallorca in December of 1989. It was a nine-round Swiss with a star-studded cast. Some of the participants were Boris Gelfand, Anthony Miles, Gata Kamsky, Vishy Anand, Yuri Balashov, Oleg Romanishin, Joel Lautier, Kevin Spraggett, Vassily Smyslov, Vladimir Tukmakov, Ivan Sokolov, Michael Adams, Walter Browne, Edmar Mednis, Lev Polugaevsky, Robert Byrne, Efim Geller, Yuri Averbakh and Samuel Reshevsky.

It was won by Boris Gelfand (7.5) ahead of Tony Miles (7.0) and Gata Kamsky (7.0)

You can see the list of players and results at:

http://www.365chess.com/tournaments/..._op_1989/21678

I count 185 players, including William Lombardy, who had no score. Did he really play?

As far as I am aware, the written record is just the bulletins:

GMA Baleares Open world cup tournament, Palma de Mallorca, 6-15 diciembre 89
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So, another brilliant tournament lost in the sands of time, so to speak?

Well no, not exactly. The famous Russian writer, poet, film maker and chess lover, Arkady Arkanov filmed a documentary at Palma.

{Arkady Mikhailovich Arkanov (Аркадий Михайлович Арканов; 7 June 1933 – 22 March 2015)}

The film (in Russian), entitled “A Game of Chess” (Партия в шахматы), is on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDuSWJ0uZCY

You see several of the players mentioned above and, what is equally fascinating, the 'Kasparov Chess Academy' held a session there during the Open, and on this video you get to see many future stars such as Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Svidler as boys.

Reshevsky (78) wears a cloth cap. Peter Svidler (13) is unmistakable and Vladimir Kramnik (14) does not have his glasses.

I have been able to identify 7 players/students – Kasparov, Reshevsky, Svidler, Kramnik, Smyslov, Kamsky and Polugaevsky. Can any ChessTalker get ten or more? Running time is only about 15 minutes.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: A Chess Film, Palma 1989

My database (allegedly) has all 800+ games from the event (there could be 2 or 3 missing, and I have one game with zero moves). It shows 184 players. Lombardy lost his first three games and withdrew. Reshevsky scored two draws out of five games before withdrawing.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: A Chess Film, Palma 1989

A Chess Film, Palma 1989

April 1, 2016

Having identified Kramnik and Svidler, I have been trying to figure out who the other boys are in the Kasparov chess class in the movie.

David Llada tweeted: The main child followed (in the film) is Vladimir Baklan, who became a very decent player (peak rating: 2655) but didn't quite become a star.

Vladimir Akopian said this about the chess school:

The 17th August was the centenary of Botvinnik’s birth. Could you tell us what he was like to spend time with and how he worked with young chess players?

There were 12 of us in the Botvinnik-Kasparov school, and the sessions took place twice a year. The school began to operate, if I remember correctly, in 1986, after Kasparov became World Champion. There were three girls: Sofieva, Velikhanly (my fellow countrywoman – I was living in Baku back then) and Janjgava, then later Galliamova.

The boys were Kramnik, Shirov, Serper, Alterman, Landa, Rublevsky, Sakaev, Oratovsky, myself and later Ulybin. In general, the kids who were the strongest in the Soviet Union back then. Each would demonstrate 4 games: two wins, one draw and one loss. We studied for 3 hours in the morning and 2.5 in the evening, and when it was getting close to bedtime we’d simply talk. All in all, the whole day was devoted to chess. We analysed, Kasparov held clock simuls – two shifts of 6 people. And we also played two training games, after selecting roughly evenly-matched players. At the sessions I played against Landa, Alterman, Serper and Ulybin; afterwards we’d analyse all the games we’d played.

At the end of the session, when it was already clear who needed to work on what, homework would be allocated. I was asked, for instance, to look at the Korchnoi – Geller match. Back then I often played the King’s Indian. Others were given the task of looking at the games of particular chess players who were positional or, on the contrary, more dynamic. In total I attended four sessions and got a great deal from them.

The patriarch considered his own games to be classics, which everyone should know, and at sessions he might say: “I played like that. But do you know who came up with it? Flohr”. He always had such things in mind, and it was desirable to remember those games.

http://whychess.com/node/1517

http://chesspro.ru/_events/2011/barskii4_enc.html
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(Wikipedia) - Svidler spent time at the Botvinnik-Kasparov School, transferring to the Dvoretsky-Yusupov School upon the former's closure.