Yuri Averbakh 1922-2022
Peter Wells reflects on the extraordinary life and work of the chess world’s first centenarian grandmaster - Part One
On 7 May, the chess world lost its oldest grandmaster when Yuri Averbakh sadly died just three months after we had celebrated his turning 100. Many words have already been devoted to him this year – several moving obituaries and tributes over the last few days, to add to some well researched and fascinating accounts of his life as he turned centenarian. Two in particular I would commend for impressive detail and insights - Yosha Iglesias writing for Chess 24 Yuri Averbakh celebrates his 100th birthday | Chess24.com and Douglas Griffin who frequently makes superb contributions to chess history both via Twitter and his blog and wrote this typically fine piece back in February - Yuri Averbakh | Soviet Chess History (Wordpress.com)
However, I feel it is worth adding something here for several reasons. Firstly, the scale of Averbakh’s chess output in so many diverse roles is truly remarkable. It is common enough to hail the achievements of venerable figures as they reach the landmarks of old age. It is much less expected to look back over their lives and genuinely wonder how they managed to pack quite so much into such a short period. For many Western chess professionals, it becomes a matter of financial necessity to perform many different roles within the game, even though the variety can also prove very satisfying. Speaking for myself, for example, I have added coaching/seconding, writing, national team captaincy and some classroom teaching to my basic playing activities. Yet Averbakh can claim to have done several of these at a very high level, but also boasted: an astonishing 27 years as editor of two of the Soviet Union’s most prestigious chess journals (Shakhmaty v SSSR and Shakhmatnyi Byulleten); long stints as either President or Deputy President of the Soviet Chess Federation; years of diligent and hugely productive research into the endgame; and notable success presenting a popular long-running TV programme. This show played a considerable role in ensuring that the regime’s determined quest for chess success genuinely engaged the interest of a sizeable chunk of the Soviet population. As Artur Kogan said on Twitter, based upon the experience of hearing Averbakh lecture in the late 1990s, he had a gift of “making easy what seemed so complex” which, together with his very engaging personality would have constituted the ideal qualities for this mass audience.
Furthermore, it feels to me that Averbakh’s passing provides an appropriate moment for reflection. For one thing - as I have indicated before - the chess world is changing very rapidly (for better and for worse) and it seems to me more important than ever that the game keeps a strong sense of its rich history. Amongst the most significant periods of that history is that defined by the domination of the game by the Soviet Union. This ascendancy ran pretty much all the way from 1945 until 1991 - with one significant interruption courtesy of Bobby Fischer and arguably another (albeit less traumatic one) at the hands of the 1978 Hungarian Olympiad team – and Averbakh was a towering figure throughout that period. I have to admit, I am also intrigued by someone who wielded significant power, especially during the turbulent 1970s, but appears to have made so few enemies. In this period tough decisions were made, as Fischer’s rapid ascent caused something of a crisis of confidence in Soviet chess hegemony with first Taimanov and then Spassky being strongly admonished for their poor match performances, and just a few years later the embarrassment of Korchnoi’s defection and the renewed challenge which he represented. Nonetheless, not just at the moment of his passing, but also in previous descriptions of Averbakh’s life, it is rare to find anyone with a bad word to say about him.
It is difficult to know where to start when trying to describe Averbakh’s numerous activities in brief. One way might be to separate the image that I had of him growing up, from the rather more rounded reality. For me and many of my generation, Averbakh was first of all celebrated for his astonishing endgame work – years of dedicated research that produced several volumes which were the go-to works for any serious endgame study. I also knew that he was a powerful political figure and was aware of something of his play, not least from his participation in the celebrated Zurich 1953 Candidates Tournament.
If I am honest though, I think I was also a bit surprised to realise quite what an accomplished player Averbakh was. In fact he only described himself as a ‘professional player’ for twelve years – from 1950 to 1962 – but he accomplished an incredible amount in this period. Already in 1952 at the Saltsjobaden Interzonal, he simultaneously obtained the GM title and qualified for the Candidates. In 1954 he won the 21st Soviet Championship a full point and a half ahead of Taimanov and Korchnoi. Anyone familiar with the post-war Soviet Championships will know the scale of this achievement; gruelling events (this one over a full twenty rounds) are a huge measure of a player and not least of their stamina too. This feat was almost repeated in 1956 when he tied for first with Spassky and Taimanov, although the latter prevailed in the tiebreaks that followed. These results are very strong evidence that, at least for this decade or so, Averbakh was one of the top ten players in the world.
Most accounts of Averbakh’s play emphasise that he was an extremely solid player, very good at removing an opponent’s attacking qualities, supremely accomplished in the endgame (his decision to research extensively in this field did not come out of the blue!) but somewhat cautious tactically. Intriguingly – and rich in implicit guidance for beginners – he believed that he had learned chess ‘the wrong way round’, being exposed first to heavily strategic works and only later really discovering tactics and combinations.
There is plenty of evidence for this characterisation, not least his awesome record of 8.5-0.5 against the attacking maestro Nezhmetdinov, who appeared to struggle ever to obtain against Averbakh the sort of attacking positions upon which he thrived. As the King’s Indian Defence was doing so much for the dynamism of young Soviet players such as Geller and Bronstein in the 1950s, Averbakh’s greatest contribution to opening theory was an antidote designed to hinder Black’s chances of developing serious king-side counterplay. The line which bears his name – 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 Be2 0-0 6 Bg5
is motivated primarily by trying to hinder the …e5 break and its greatest successes were usually to be found in endgames with Black being squeezed for space.
There is no doubt a lot of truth in all this, but I was also struck by the rich variety of his games. There seemed to be plenty in which he displayed a healthy feel for the initiative, a willingness to sacrifice material and – in a nod to the engines of a later era – a striking enthusiasm for generating play by pushing his h-pawn! It is certainly not my intention to try to re-write the description of Averbakh’s style, but a modification to admire its breadth might be in order. I enjoyed the following demolition on the dark squares en route to another 1950s tournament victory
Wolfgang Uhlmann – Yuri Averbakh
Dresden Round 10, 1956
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 0–0 5.Nge2 d5 6.a3 Be7 7.cxd5 exd5 8.Ng3 c5 9.dxc5 Bxc5 10.Bd3 Nc6 11.0–0 Be6 12.Nce2 Bd6 13.Nd4?!
The logic of White’s play really needs to be that he can play against the isolated pawn and this feels like an admission that things have not gone quite to plan. With the structure returning to symmetry in this way, everything is down to the placing of the pieces and Black’s already feel slightly more harmonious. Averbakh mentions 13 Bd2 Ne4, but White should surely try still to make 13 b4 work.
13…Nxd4 14.exd4 Re8
Stronger than the sharp 14…Ng4?! 15 h3 Nxf2 16 Rxf2 Bxg3 which allows the counter-strike 17 Bxh7+ Kxh7 18 Qd3+ and Qxg3 which Averbakh rightly gives as helpful only to White.
15.Nf5?!
Perhaps not yet at the height of the powers which he reached in the 1960s and then as Candidate in 1971, Uhlmann was nonetheless already a very strong player by the age of 21. This feels like a strange decision. My instinct is that Black’s slight ascendancy on the dark squares always outweighs the bishop pair after this, although the extent to which this plays out so devastatingly in the final combination could, of course, hardly have been anticipated.
15…Bxf5 16.Bxf5 Qb6 17.b3 g6 18.Bh3 Ne4
Already White’s pieces, particularly the bishop pair look poorly coordinated. Somehow the defence of the d4 pawn will force White into passivity, whereas Black can shield d5 effectively without losing any of the dynamic potential of his forces.
19.Qd3 Be7 20.g3 Bf6 21.Be3 Re7 22.Rac1 Rae8 23.Rfd1 Qd6?! 24.Bg2
24...h5!
The right plan. Black’s pressure on the e-file prevents White from placing obstacles in the way of this advance and when the pawn reaches h4 it turns Black’s dark-square pressure into something much more tangible.
25.Qb5?! a6 26.Qa5 h4 27.g4?! Bg5!
Averbakh mentions that 27 Bf4 would have been met by 27…Qe6 28 Be5 h3 ‘with an attack’. This is true, but should still have been preferred to this further compromising of the dark squares. The exchange of dark-squared bishops accentuates White’s weaknesses and the resulting knight on g5 is a powerful attacker which it is virtually impossible to evict.
28.Bxg5 Nxg5 29.h3
29 Qxd5? Nxh3+ 30 Kf1 Re2! just wins for Black as Averbakh points out.
29…Re2 30.Rf1
30...R8e3! 31.fxe3
This just loses, but there was little joy in declining the material either with 31 Rc3 leading after 31…b6! 32 Qxa6 Rxc3 33 Qxe2 Nxh3+ 34 Bxh3 Rxh3 35 Qe8+ Kg7 36 Qe5+ Qxe5 37 dxe5 Rd3 (even stronger than grabbing the b-pawn) to an ending in which Black’s active rook and White’s pawn weaknesses would have found Averbakh in his element.
31…Rxg2+ 32.Kxg2 Qg3+ 33.Kh1 Qxh3+ 34.Kg1 Qxe3+
“Incredible as it seems, Black now manages to win both of White’s rooks” – Averbakh.
35.Kh1 Qh3+ 36.Kg1 Qg3+ 37.Kh1 Nf3 38.Qd8+ Kg7 39.Rxf3 Qxf3+ 40.Kh2 Qf4+ 41.Kg2 Qxg4+
0–1 (Averbakh’s comments translated by Douglas Griffin)