CHESS

WE SO often write about young players, but this column is largely about two old men.

Mark Taimanov is a living legend and when he celebrates his 90th birthday tomorrow many guests will visit St Petersburg to congratulate him. In the course of his long career Taimanov met all the great players of his time and a number of historical personalities such as Winston Churchill, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro.

Taimanov is the world’s second oldest grandmaster (only Yuri Averbakh is older).

He was awarded the International Grandmaster title in 1952 and played in the Candidates Tournament in Zurich in 1953, where he tied for eighth place. From 1946 to 1956, he was among the world’s top ten players. He played in 23 USSR Chess Championships ( a record equalled by Efim Geller), tying for first place twice. In 1952 he lost the playoff match to Mikhail Botvinnik, while in 1956, he beat Averbakh and Boris Spassky for the title.

He is probably best known for his 6–0 loss to Bobby Fischer in the 1971 World Championship Candidates match. However, few players have beaten six world champions ( Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Spassky, and Anatoly Karpov) as Taimanov has.

After his loss to Fischer, the Soviet government was embarrassed, and, as Taimanov later put it in a 2002 interview, found it “unthinkable” that he could have lost the match so badly to an American without a “political explanation”. Soviet officials took away Taimanov’s salary and no longer allowed him to travel overseas. The officials later “forgave” Taimanov, and lifted the sanctions against him.

■■■ What has chess in common with cryptic crossword puzzles? Sir Jeremy Morse KCMG who died last week at 87 was an English banker, cruciverbalist and chess composer who was chancellor of the University of Bristol from 1989 to 2003, and chairman of Lloyds Bank.

He was also the first chairman of the International Monetary Fund’s Committee of Twenty (C20).

Morse had a keen interest in cryptic crosswords and was a skilful writer of clues. His record of success in the clue-writing competitions of Ximenes and Azed was such that Azed’s December 2008 Competition puzzle was dedicated to the occasion of his 80th birthday.

Morse also had an interest in other types of word puzzles, and was a frequent contributor to Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics. Morse was also a chess writer and problem composer. He wrote a book called Chess Problems: Tasks and Records.