Karpov takes chess lead

Press, 19 September 1984, Page 56

Karpov takes chess lead

NZPA-AP Moscow The champion, Anatoly Karpov, took a 1-0 lead against the challenger and his fellow Soviet, Garri Kasparov, in the third game of the world chess championship yesterday when Kasparov was forced to resign on the thirty-first move in a hopeless position. The game was considered a positional masterpiece on Karpov’s part and Kasparov was thoroughly outplayed. During the 31 moves, neither king came under direct attack.

The first two games between the 33-year-old titleholder and the 21-year-old challenger ended in draws, which do not count. The fourth game is to be played tomorrow.

The pace became quite slow after the opening — a Taimanov variation of the Sicilian defence, a variation also known as hedgehog. Kasparov drifted toward time pressure as his position worsened, and pondered his sixteenth move for 50 minutes. Under international chess rules, each player must make 40 moves in two and one-half hours.

By the twenty-first move, Karpov has a 30min advantage against Kasparov, who, in the first two games, has opened much more quickly than the champion. At his resignation,

Kasparov had less than 15 minutes for his remaining 10 moves. Even with all the time in the world, experts felt, there was no way for him to salvage anything from a hopeless position.

Most observers felt that Kasparov ran into trouble on the twelfth move, when he adopted a continuation which is infrequently seen these days. He moved his queen’s knight on the edge of the board, leading to a position that became inferior and allowed Karpov a maximum exploitation of weaknesses.

The champion will be the first man to win six games outright.