1978 Petrosian / Hort / Shamkovich Simuls, 15 January (Petrosian) & 22 January (Hort & Shamkovitch)

BCM, May 1978, ppn 214-217

BCF JUNIORS v GMs - by Leonard Barden

English juniors have done so well in recent years against visiting grandmasters in the traditional post-Hastings simuls that the GMs have taken to preparing for the matches as seriously as they do for tournament games. This year Petrosian and Hort, conscious of the threat to their reputations both restricted their diet the night before and went to bed early.

Because Petrosian is an ex-World Champion, we decided to make a serious attempt on a long-standing British record. Probably the best-ever result in this country against a World Champion, past, present or future, was Capablanca's match against the City of London C.C. on November 15th 1911. The opponents included several masters and Capa conceded three draws and nine defeats in 28 games — an enormous number for one who, at his peak, was possibly the all-time best at simul-play. (On this occasion, Capablanca was probably tired. Contemporary reports state that he had arrived in London earlier in the day - BCM Ed.).

The match, held at the new Central YMCA, London, on January 15th [1978], was sponsored by the Slater Foundation. Petrosian's 30 opponents came from the Centymca first team, Centymca juniors, and the BCF junior squad. The team was led by Jim Plaskett, Julian Hodgson and Nigel Short and included nine 200+ [Elo 2200+] players, and the result was an even more spectacular version of the traditional grandmaster disaster in these matches. The ex-world champion won only 10 games, conceding 11 draws and 9 losses in 5¼ hours. The winners were Centymca seniors Ian Watson, Daryl Taylor, Ray Cannon and Ian Whittaker and juniors Richard Holmes (15), Tony Peterson (18), Daniel King (14), Simon Brown (17) and Nigel Short who, at the age of 12, now has 2½/4 in simuls against Karpov, Korchnoi, Petrosian and Portisch.

It is likely that this is the best score against a world champion outside the USSR. Capa did worse at Moscow in February 1935, when he scored + 7=9 -14 against opponents who included masters or masters-to-be Tolush, Zagoryansky, Betvyev and Rubtsova. And Euwe once lost 15 games in Tiflis.

Petrosian, understandably, was not too pleased with himself at the end (the pressure from so many strong opponents produced blunders, including a couple of missed mates in two) and said: 'They should be playing in master tournaments, not simuls.' In fact, they already are, for which credit is due to the new £10,000 Lloyds Bank programme. With the help of the Bank's chess scholarships, nine of Petrosian's opponents played in the Lloyds Bank Masters, last August, and six took part in the Hastings Challengers.

HORT & SHAMKOVICH SIMUL

After the Russians left for home, IGMs Hort and Shamkovich took on the Slater Foundation simuls at the Evening Standard London Junior Championships prize-giving on 22nd January [1978].

Hort was impressive: his opponents though not so as strong as Petrosian's, still included many of the best players from the BCF Junior Squad. The grandmaster's resolute strategic approach gave few of them the chance to mix it tactically, and Hort also scrambled out of some bad positions for a score of +15 =11 -4 (to Jim Plaskett, Michael Pagden, Ian Raindle and Gavin Crowley).

Shamkovich, though meeting inexperienced young second-string juniors, had a hard time and only made +15 =7 -8 (to John Cox, Neil Bradbury (13), Andrew Kinsman (13), Nicky Andrews, Neil Fox (11), John Lawrence, Helen Granat and Andrew Soane (13)). We are becoming as strong in depth as the famous Moscow Young Pioneers; even three years ago, English juniors would not have been able to win or draw half the games against grandmasters over 60 boards. Incidentally, Helen Granat is possibly the first British girl to beat a GM since Elaine Saunders (now Pritchard) defeated Spielmann at Margate 1939 — any other claimants?

Hort was surprised that few of the juniors have a personal trainer; he, like Petrosian, thought many of them good enough for master chess. Of course, the lack of coaches in Britain is primarily due to our chronic lack of money; in most other countries the government supports junior chess training, but in Britain the Department of Education and Science won't cough up half a new penny to help.

However, seeing these results does strengthen my growing conviction that formal 'training' of juniors, so emphasised in Eastern Europe, is overrated. Some of our best youngsters have had personal sessions with chess masters Wade, Kottnauer or John Littlewood, and yet others in the BCF squad are (with help from the Slater Foundation and the British Chess Educational Trust) receiving cassette tuition, courtesy of Audio Chess, from leading British Internationals.

But even those who have some master help gain most of their chess knowledge the practical way — from competitions in weekend tournaments, the Junior Squad Championships, county and league games. Their chess study is often limited by the dizzy prices of much theoretical literature — fortunately, the Chess Player has offered the BCF some back issues at nominal cost.

Strikingly often, juniors improve quickly once playing in hard adult competition rather than school games or purely junior events. And juniors who play frequently - say at least 70-80 tournament games a year and up to 100 or 150 - can improve very rapidly.

Hort asked after his display 'What will you do with them all when there are so few opportunities in England?'.

He is right about the problem — the danger is that we shall soon have twenty or so eager youngsters in the 190-210 [c. Elo 2100-2300] grading bracket with insufficient opportunities to develop into masters. The same difficulty has surfaced in the United States which also has a profusion of talents who have risen from the weekend opens. The only satisfactory answer is to establish 'international swiss' events on the Lone Pine tournaments model, with 30-60 players, as a central feature of national chess activity. These events can qualify for GM and IM norms and also give the right opportunities to a large number of rising juniors. The Lloyds Bank Silver Jubilee congress, last August, and the Aaronson Masters this Easter are the first such events. I hope there will be many others.

Petrosian playing Ray Cannon (who won). From CHESS, April 1978, p217

Petrosian playing Nigel Short (who won) in the 15 January 1978 simul at Centymca (a.k.a. London Central YMCA).
Beyond Short is Andrew Martin while Leonard Barden can just be seen watching from the right.

Allan Beardsworth's blog post on his draw with Petrosian

---

File Updated

Date	Notes
19 August 2025	First upload. Six games, two photos and Leonard Barden's report from BCM.