MARK RUBERY CHESS

A great source of interviews with a variety of chess personalities is ‘The Perpetual Chess Podcast’ (perpetualchesspod.com) hosted by Ben Johnson. Episode 214 features the former world championship candidate, Vlastimil Hort. Here follows an interesting extract from the 75 minute interview…

BJ: There’s, there’s so many great stories, so many legendary encounters, but one that I particularly enjoyed was your story involving making a draw offer to former world champion Botvinnik. Could you share the details of that one?

GM Hort: Yes. It was very strange because we had some terrible discussion. We played the tournament in Monte Carlo and he wanted to win the tournament, but Bent Larsen was also involved and I had adjourned the game with Larsen and suddenly came a telephone call, and it was Botvinnik and he wanted to show me some variation in this game. I was very angry. I said to him ‘I analyse well enough, and you just want to help me because you want to win this tournament?’ It is not the way, you know, I am not used to it; to getting such help. And he got very angry and he just put the phone down. I played with him the next day and actually it was strange. He came, he did not offer his hand for a hand shake, we just sat there. He pressed me in the game, but in a completely drawing position, I offered him a draw in Russian, in English. He was sitting there and imagine: I suddenly returned to the board and there is nobody, he had left already! The arbiter said to me, ‘well, Mr. Hort, if you wish you may claim the game, because he just left (abandoned) the game. I will be your witness, but think about it very carefully.’ I thought very carefully and then I signed the score sheet. Then I left him. It was the last time that I really saw Botvinnik. He was not kind or sympathetic to me. You know, Mr Johnson, he was also Stalinist, and about him there’s nothing to say.

Botvinnik, Mikhail - Hort,Vlastimil [E69] Monte Carlo Monte Carlo (8), 1968 ‘In blitz, the knight is stronger than the bishop.’ Vlastimil Hort