Today’s chess quotation
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS
Hungarian superstar Lajos Portisch (born 1937) was one of the dominant European players between 1960 and 1990. Fischer described him as one of the ‘best players of the past 50 years.” Candidate for the world championship countless times, winner of a record number of international events and member of the legendary Hungarian national team that won the gold medal at the 1978 Olympiad. Portisch’s achievements have never been matched by any player since, including Judit Polgar.
There is an interesting interview with Portisch this week published on Chessbase. I recommend it to my readers! At one point he talks of the fast modern time controls and the negative impact they have had on the endgame:
” This time control of forty moves in two hours followed by a half an hour for the rest of the game spoils the entire endgame phase.
I’m afraid the gentleman of FIDE are simply not chess players and do not understand the spirit of the game. They are just officials and I rather doubt there is a strong player in the lot that establishes the rules.
The rules should be changed as the endgame is completely spoiled. Of course with computers today, adjournments are no longer possible, but a solution should be found.
I have studied chess history, and in the early 20th century and even later, the first time control was after thirty moves, not forty. Why not shorten the time of the first time control to one hour for thirty moves? Everyone knows the openings extremely well nowadays, with the internet, ChessBase, New in Chess and so on.
That way there would be more time for the ending. Certainly what is going on now is no good…”
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS