MARK RUBERY CHESS
Wolfgang Unzicker (1925-2006), described by Karpov as the “world champion of amateurs”, passed away at the age of 80. Unlike many of his professional rivals, Unzicker followed a legal career becoming a judge of an administrative court. He became a Grandmaster in 1954, won the German Championship 7 times, and played in 12 Olympiads, on top board in 10 of them. His best results were probably joint 1st with Spassky in the Chigorin Memorial Sochi 1965 and 4th= in the famous 2nd Piatigorsky-Cup behind Spassky, Fischer and Larsen.
His longevity across the board saw him cross swords with many of the game’s great masters. He had at least one victory over the likes of Tartakower, Bogoljubov, Gligoric, Keres, Reshevsky, Fischer, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Larsen, Donner, Timman, Ljubojevic, Korchnoi and Tal. He possessed a solid classical style, much like his country man Tarrasch, and in a match with Keres every game played featured the Ruy Lopez. Unzicker,W - Fischer,R [B98] Buenos Aires (11) 1960
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7 8.Qf3 Qc7 9.0–0–0 0–0 10.Bd3 Nc6 11.Nxc6 bxc6 12.Qg3 h5?
(An infamous moment in the young Fischer’s career. Having touched his h pawn by mistake he is obliged to move it. To his credit, the German GM finishes crisply) 13.e5 dxe5 14.fxe5 Ng4 15.Bxe7 Qxe7 16.Ne4 Qc7 17.h3 Nxe5 18.Nf6+ Kh8 19.Qg5 Nxd3+ 20.Rxd3 gxf6 21.Qxh5+ Kg7 22.Qg4+ 1–0 “It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you’ve made, and there’s this panic because you don’t know yet the scale of disaster you’ve left yourself open to.”
(Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature)
Unzicker remembers:
‘On the 12th move — I did not trust my eyes — Fischer, who was to move, touched his h-pawn, apparently to move it. After a few seconds he let go of it again. In this moment Fischer showed exemplary sportsmanship. As he had touched the pawn he moved it according to the rules even though it lost. I did not intend to protest if he had moved another piece. I would have been hard pressed to prove that he had violated the ‘touch move’ rule, and I also thoroughly dislike turning to the tournament director because of such incidents. Fischer also lost this game because of his fairness, and I have never derived pleasure from this win.’ Unzicker visited this country in 1979 where he came second behind Korchnoi in the initial Oude Meester Grand Prix.