Serendipity in the Chess Olympiad 30 years ago – the Ribli-Ljubojevic game
Submitted by on Mon, 11/24/2008 at 8:33am.
The victory in the Chess Olympiad never came of itself. In 1978 in Buenos Aires was the Olympiad. There were 66 teams of men and 32 of woman. It’s a pleasure that the number of teams in Dresden grew to 146 and 111.
But the serendepity we could search in two games of Hungarian team during the Olympiad. The Hungarian found a novelty in the Catalan opening in the 12th move against the proposal of Chess Encyclopedia. This novelty meant two victories in the Portisch – Radulov and Ribli – Ljubojevic games. At that time Hungary won the Olympiad before Soviet Union with one point difference. In the last round (14th) was played the Ribli – Ljubojevic game, where Ribli obtained the very important one point. Mere the opening was also Hungarian (the Barcza Opening) and later was transformed into the Catalan.
And here is the second serendipity. Grandmaster István Bilek – who was the eyewitness of the victory as consultant, and who gave an interview by the television in novadays – said that grandmaster Barcza was the person who showed in several games: „how to bone the opponent?”
But let us see the bear! (game) We could see how to bone the opponent in the game which began with Barcza Opening. Show it grandmaster Zoltán Ribli. The game was analyzed by Gedeon Barcza! On the picture there is the Hamilton-Russel cup on a Hungarian stamp from 1978.
Here isn’t third serendipity, but I hope so – that a next Olympiad will be in Budapest! (never was it in our country)