Helping Hand Needed

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31521, 8 November 1967, Page 19

Helping Hand Needed

'THE leading New Zealand chess player. 0. Sarapu, is not the only one to find the absence of a second an almost insurmountable problem. Miss Marion McGrath, New Zealand’s top woman player and the Australian women’s champion, expertenced similar trouble in a tournament in Yugoslavia recently. In a letter to the presadent of the New Zealand Chess Association (Mr A. S. Hollander). Miss McGrath said that everyone, except herself and two Americans, had master seconds in the tournament and although the Yugoslav Chess Federation had been asked to find some assistance for Miss MeGrath, none was forthcom“After the tournament I was told that my score

might well have doubled had I had a good master to analyse for me, writes Miss McGrath. She adds that she had many games virtually won against some of the strongest players but, sometimes because of time pressure and sometimes through choosing a faulty plan, I went wrong.’’ Miss McGrath finished sixteenth out of 18 entrants j n tournament: the Amerjcans were fourteenth and eighteenth. Sarapu, who has been competing in an inter-zonal tournament in Tunisia, has h a d disadvantage of playing without a second. In one matc h, his Russian opponent had a sound night’s sleep while nine Russian grand masters analysed the game until 5 a.m. Without similar assistance, Sarapu lost on move 57.