Evans On Chess. July 26, 1996. Copyright Chesstours. All rights reserved.

                               A LIFE IN CHESS

Of all the grandmasters who came to America after the fall of the USSR,
none is more colorful than Edward Gufeld, 60, who hails from Soviet
Georgia. "I am the world's greatest chess coach!" he avers.

Gufeld trained a string of female titleholders in his homeland as well as
various Olympic teams from India, Malaysia, Philippines and Russia. While
circling the globe he found the time to write 53 chess books.

This affable ambassador of the royal game delights audiences with a
seemingly endless cornucopia of chess tales. About 50 are included in his
autobiography MY LIFE IN CHESS, The Search For La Gioconda (1994) along
with 217 games.

Wit shines through every page. "This story happened a long time ago and I
have my own way of counting time," writes the portly author. "It happened
40 kilograms ago."

"I was jubilant," he admits, when a famous chess magazine awarded one of
his moves four stars. "I wanted to to out and buy a bottle of cognac with
the same number of stars."

In a serious vein, Gufeld states: "Peace is indispensable for human
society but totally unacceptable in chess. If you sit down at the board,
the struggle is inevitable!"

World champ Gary Kasparov had this to say about his colleague: "Behind
all the oddities, interspersed with humor, lies a limitless devotion to
our noble game, a sacred faith in its inexhaustibility and a permanent
striving for beauty and harmony in his games."

And the great Mikhail Tal noted, "Gufeld can beat anybody. He can also
lose with equal ease to anybody."

Bobby Fischer once despised Mikhail Botvinnik, the iron symbol of Soviet
chess supremacy. "Yet in some ways they were both alike -- both legends
who set out to destroy chess after they lost the crown," remarked Gufeld
recently.

Puzzled, I asked him to explain. "Well, you see, look what happened when
they were past their prime. Botvinnik ended his days working on a machine
to smash young rivals. And today Fischer refuses to play chess unless
each game starts from a different position with a random setup of pieces
on the back row."

A chapter on Fischer recalls their first meeting at Tunisia in 1967. "Oh,
Gufeld! I know you!" said Bobby. "I saw your game against Smyslov."

Here is that stunning victory over former world champ Vassily Smyslov,
who missed a chance to repel the attack by 17 Ra2! Qxb7 18 f3! His last
hope was 21 Nd3 Rxb7 22 Bg2.

White: VASSILY SMYSLOV Black: EDWARD GUFELD Reti Opening, Moscow 1967

1 c4 Nf6 2 Nf3 g6 3 b4 Bg7 4 Bb2 0-0 5 e3 b6 6 d4 c5 7 dxc5 bxc5 8 b5 a6
9 a4 Ne4 10 Bxg7 Kxg7 11 Qd5 Qa5 12 Ke2 Bb7! 13 Qxb7 Nc6! 14 Nfd2 Ra7 15
bxc6 Rxb7 16 cxb7 Qb4 17 Nxe4? Qb2 18 Nbd2 Qxa1 19 Nxc5 Rb8 20 g3 Qa3 21
Nxd7? Rxb7 22 Bh3 Qd6 23 c5 Qd5 24 f3 Rb2 25 Rd1 e6 26 c6 Qc4 27 Ke1 Qd3
28 Bf1 Qxe3 29 Be2 a5! 30 g4 f6 31 c7 Rc2 32 Kf1 Rxc7 33 Nc4 Rxc4 34 Bxc4
Qxf3 35 Ke1 Qc3 White Resigns
