From: hau4@ellis.uchicago.edu (sven  hauptfeld)
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
Subject: Re: Best player never to win the World Championship
Date: 6 Nov 92 19:48:10 GMT
Article-I.D.: midway.1992Nov6.194810.16486
Reply-To: hau4@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Nov6.121821.18395@maths.nott.ac.uk> anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker) writes:
>In article <1992Nov5.152457.25196@gdr.bath.ac.uk> mapmef@gdr.bath.ac.uk
>(M E Fletcher) writes of Short and Timman:
>
>>[Of course neither of them has the remotest chance against Kasparov.]
>
>	Of course not.  On the other hand, nor did Alekhine against
>Capablanca, Euwe against Alekhine [1935], Botvinnik against Smyslov
>[1958], Tal against Botvinnik [1960], Botvinnik against Tal [1961],
>Petrosian against Spassky [1966],

Of all the matches you mentioned, Euwe-Alekhine was the only real surprise,
but even that was not a surprise at all when Alekhine's drinking is taken
into account. Alekhine underwent treatment for his alchoholism before the 
rematch.

Alekhine was a great player, not as much of a natural genius as Capa, but
much more systematic and thoroughly prepared. Botvinnik and Smyslov were of
roughly equal strength, so it was not surprising that in three matches they
went +1-1=1. Tal was a genius like Fischer a little later, and he had amazing
results in the two years before he beat 49 year old Botvinnik; on the other
hand, the rematch was easy for the older Mikhail because the younger Mikhail's
kidneys didn't work. Finally, Spassky was certainly a stronger player than
Petrosian in '66, but Petrosian was always very tough and very stable, so his
minimal win (or was the match drawn? all I remember is that it was not more
than a point difference) was only a minor surprise.

> not to mention near misses like
>Schlecter, Korchnoi, Karpov.

Yeah, but they did miss the upset, didn't they?

>  Did you really think Short was going
>to beat Karpov?

I thought Short had a 30% chance. Karpov's decline was obvious, his tournament
results in the last two years were not nearly as good as before.

>	This century, by my estimation, about a quarter of World
>Championship matches have gone completely against predictions, another
>quarter have been very much tighter than was expected [ie, a much
>stronger player has very nearly come unstuck], some [eg Botvinnik
>v Bronstein and Smyslov in 1951-7] might reasonably have been expected
>to go either way, and only about a third have really been walkovers.

I am surprised that you count Botvinnik-Bronstein as not a surprise. According
to what I heard, at the time it was considered a major surprise that the 
jovial Bronstein drew the match with the scientific Botvinnik. Bronstein was
much younger (26, I think, vs. 39) and had much less top tournament experience.

>	On that basis, either Short or Timman must have quite a
>reasonable chance of becoming a candidate in a few years time
>when the discussion of "who was the weakest world champion?"
>comes round again [:-)]!

Short never came closer than 100 points to Kasparov, and the average difference
during the last 2-3 years was about 130-140 points. Timman is slightly farther
yet. If either of them becomes WC, it would be, based on rating, the biggest
upset in WC matches ever.

	Sven
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess