Efim Geller

[Hans Jung]

https://en.chessbase.com/post/born-i...sa-efim-geller At the end of the article are four immortal games by Geller. As my favourite I couldnt decide between the game with Smyslov where he hung his queen for 5 consecutive moves or the game with Petrosian where he sets up checkmate.. Which is your favourite?

[Emil Smilovici]

Which is your favourite?

These two:
Fischer - Geller, Monte Carlo 1967
Fischer - Geller, Skopje 1967
The second is included in Fischer's book "My 60 Memorable Games".
Both can be found in the best collection of his games (in English): "The Nemesis: Geller's Greatest Games" (2020)

[Hans Jung]

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044020

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044264

Yes, these made Geller a legend in the greater chess world. Eyepopping!

[Hans Jung]

One of my magic moments was Reykjavik 1986. In one of my games I was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Geller on my right side and Tal on my left. I spent more time watching their games than my own.

[Frank Dixon]

Of the four offered, my favorite is the win over GM Smyslov, Candidates match 1965; described in one book (by IM Horowitz) as the best game ever played in the Candidates. GM Geller had never beaten GM Smyslov until that game, in over 15 years of trying, and after it, he had a big edge head-to-head.

I also love his win over World Champion GM Karpov from the 1976 USSR Championship, also a queen sac game. That is noteworthy also for the situation: GM Geller had been acting as GM Karpov's coach, and GM Karpov played the French in this game, a very rare choice for him, to try to avoid mutual knowledge. It didn't work!

Another really impressive game is GM Geller's win over GM Bobby Fischer from Havana 1965, where GM Fischer played by telephone from New York, due to embargo on American travel to Cuba, giving the game a longer time span, which helped GM Geller, who was often in time pressure. It is a positional masterpiece from the White side of the King's Indian.

I also concur with Emil, from his post, for his preference of the two wins over GM Fischer from the Black side of Sicilians.

GM Spraggett a few years ago did a fairly deep analysis of GM Geller's style for the magazine, and concluded GM Geller liked the two bishops too much; this held him back from further advances towards the world title. In fairness, the depth of top-flight Soviet chess in that era was extraordinary. It could be reasonably claimed that well over half of the world's top players were Soviets in the mid-1950s.

GM Geller, in his own collected games book from the 1980s, pointed out that he had an advantage over GM Boris Spassky in tournament games, but had lost two Candidates matches to him, in 1965 and 1968, by wide margins, and wondered about that. I think that GM Spassky's advantages in flexibility of style, universal approach, and specific preparation carried him forward. In the matches, he avoided Open Sicilians, favoring the Closed Variation, to sidestep GM Geller's vast theoretical knowledge. Then he defended well with the Tarrasch Defense, considered at that point to be slightly sketchy; he opened some new vistas, and GM Geller could not exploit the slightly better positions he often obtained. Interestingly, a few years later, GM Geller became coach for GM Spassky, until the 1974 Spassky vs Karpov Candidates match, when GM Geller went to GM Karpov's side, devastating GM Spassky.

[Emil Smilovici]

Geller saved Botvinnik in his rook ending against Fischer at the Olympiad – Varna 1962.

A decade later he could have changed history – at least temporarily, if Spassky would have followed his advice in the 6th game (the Applause Game) of the Match of the century.
Geller showed Spassky the move 14 … Qb7 with advantage for Black (as in Timman-Geller 1973) but Boris chose to ignore it or forgot about it.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044366
More analysis is provided in “Old Wine in New Bottles” by GM Mihail Marin.

[Hans Jung]

Thanks for your guidance and knowledge Emil. There is a great richness to the chess life and legend of Efim Geller. Roman Pelts loved to tell stories about Geller. and felt privileged to spent so much time with him at team matches in his early years.

[Emil Smilovici]

My pleasure Hans.
It just happens that these days I was reading an electronic copy of Marin’s book (with a reference to Geller) and then borrowed “The Nemesis” (published actually in 2019) from the Ottawa library. It has 131 fully annotated games (by Geller) and 4 more partial games (just the endings) plus editorial notes by IM Maxim Notkin which are based on “computer proofing”.
Geller annotations are exactly the same as in “Application of Chess Theory” (1984) that has 100 games.
I enjoyed the foreword of the “Nemesis”: “Dogged determination” by Jacob Aagaard.