Vlastimil Hort
Encyclopedia
Vlastimil Hort is a chess
Grandmaster
of Czech
nationality. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the world's strongest players and reached the Candidates stage of competition for the world chess championship
, but was never able to compete for the actual title.
Hort was born in Kladno
, Czechoslovakia
and was a citizen of Czechoslovakia for the first part of his chess career, winning national championships in 1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, and 1977. He achieved the Grandmaster title in 1965 as a Czechoslovak citizen. While playing for Czechoslovakia he won a number of major tournaments (Hastings
1967-8, Skopje
1969, etc.), gaining recognition as one of the strongest non-Soviet
players in the world. This led to him representing the "World" team in the great "USSR vs. Rest of the World"
match of 1970, where he occupied fourth board and had a commendable +1 score against the formidable Soviet Grandmaster Lev Polugaevsky
—in some regards his greatest result. He defected to the West after the 1985 Tunis Interzonal, moving to West Germany
and winning the national championship of his new homeland in 1987, 1989, and 1991.
Despite advancing age he has remained an active tournament competitor, representing the unified Germany
and playing inter alia on "Veterans" teams in Scheveningen system
matches against teams of Woman Grandmasters.
Hort participated in a number of Zonal and Interzonal
qualifying tournaments to select a challenger for the world title, generally with good results but without reaching the final stages of the Candidates process. He did reach the stage of the Candidates matches of 1977-78 but was eliminated in the first round, in a close match versus the former world champion Boris Spassky
.
Hort's long-standing reputation as one of the great sportsmen
of chess was enhanced by an event during this match. During the latter stages of the competition, Spassky fell ill and was unable to play. During Candidates matches, each player was allotted a fixed number of rest days to accommodate such situations, but Spassky exhausted his entire allocation of time-outs yet was still unable to compete. At this point Hort would have been entirely within his rights to claim the match won by forfeit, and indeed many of his peers would have done so. In the event, however, Hort made the sporting gesture of offering Spassky one of his own time-outs so that the ex-champion could complete his recovery. Spassky (a noted chess gentleman in his own right) did so and went on to win the match by the narrowest possible margin, eliminating Hort from that Candidates cycle but ensuring that he would be remembered by chess fans for his gallantry.
The penultimate game of the match was rather bizarre in its conclusion, as Hort had established a clearly winning position, but inexplicably forgot about the time factor, and sat thinking until his time elapsed, handing the win to Spassky. With a draw
in the next and final game, Spassky won the match. The following day Hort gave what was then a world record simultaneous exhibition in which he took on over 600 opponents. He explained that he gave the exhibition in order to get the stupid loss against Spassky out of his system.
The 1967 Interzonal
tournament at Sousse
included among its participants not only Hort, but also the great but volatile Bobby Fischer
. While leading the tournament, Fischer was involved in a dispute with the tournament organizers regarding playing schedule that resulted in his forfeiting a game with the Soviet player Aivars Gipslis
. While accounts of subsequent events differ, it is clear that he was persuaded to resume play, but then did not appear for his game with Hort, who was awarded a victory by forfeit. Negotiations with the organizers went downhill from this point, and Fischer withdrew from the tournament to begin his penultimate estrangement from grandmaster chess. Hort went on to finish the Interzonal in a tie for sixth with Samuel Reshevsky
and Leonid Stein
, but did not advance to the Candidates matches, Reshevsky becoming the successful Candidate following a three-way tie-breaking match.
Sporting spirit may flow in the family veins, as Hort's son pursued a career as a professional footballer.
) held at Halle
, East Germany that well illustrates Hort's capacity for converting a positional initiative into a winning attack. His opponent in this game was a prominent Yugoslav
International Master (later Grandmaster
). Note that if Black captures the queen in the final position, White has an elegant mate with 29. Nf4+ Kh4 30. g3+!
Hort–Minić
, King's Indian Defense
:
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 0-0 6.Bg5 c5 7.d5 h6 8.Be3 Kh7 9.Nf3 Re8 10.0-0 Nbd7 11.Qc2 e6 12.dxe6 Rxe6 13.Rad1 Qe7 14.Rfe1 Nxe4 15.Nd5 Qd8 16.Bd3 f5 17.Nf4 Re8 18.Bxe4 Rxe4 19.Rxd6 Qc7 20.Rxg6 Rxf4 21.Bxf4 Qxf4 22.Rxg7+ Kxg7 23.Qc3+ Nf6 24.Re7+ Kg6 25.Ne5+ Kh5 26.Rg7 Be6 27.Qh3+ Qh4 28.Ng6 1–0
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
Grandmaster
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
of Czech
Czech people
Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...
nationality. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the world's strongest players and reached the Candidates stage of competition for the world chess championship
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
, but was never able to compete for the actual title.
Hort was born in Kladno
Kladno
Kladno is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It is located 25 km northwest of Prague. Kladno is the largest city of the region and holds a population together with its adjacent suburban areas of more than 110,000 people...
, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and was a citizen of Czechoslovakia for the first part of his chess career, winning national championships in 1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, and 1977. He achieved the Grandmaster title in 1965 as a Czechoslovak citizen. While playing for Czechoslovakia he won a number of major tournaments (Hastings
Hastings International Chess Congress
The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the...
1967-8, Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
1969, etc.), gaining recognition as one of the strongest non-Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
players in the world. This led to him representing the "World" team in the great "USSR vs. Rest of the World"
Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World
There have been two chess matches featuring USSR vs. Rest of the World and 1 match Russia vs. Rest of the World. The first two matches were between a team from the USSR and a team of players from the "rest of the world"...
match of 1970, where he occupied fourth board and had a commendable +1 score against the formidable Soviet Grandmaster Lev Polugaevsky
Lev Polugaevsky
Lev Abramovich Polugaevsky was an International Grandmaster of chess and frequent contender for the world chess championship, although he never achieved that title...
—in some regards his greatest result. He defected to the West after the 1985 Tunis Interzonal, moving to West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
and winning the national championship of his new homeland in 1987, 1989, and 1991.
Despite advancing age he has remained an active tournament competitor, representing the unified Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and playing inter alia on "Veterans" teams in Scheveningen system
Scheveningen system
The Scheveningen system is a method of organizing a chess match between two teams. Each player on one team plays each player on the other team . The team with the highest number of games won is the winner. This system is a popular way to create title norm opportunities.The system was first used...
matches against teams of Woman Grandmasters.
Zonals and interzonals
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, and were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle.- Zonal tournaments :...
qualifying tournaments to select a challenger for the world title, generally with good results but without reaching the final stages of the Candidates process. He did reach the stage of the Candidates matches of 1977-78 but was eliminated in the first round, in a close match versus the former world champion Boris Spassky
Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky is a Soviet-French chess grandmaster. He was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from late 1969 to 1972...
.
Hort's long-standing reputation as one of the great sportsmen
Sportsmanship
Sportsmanship is an aspiration or ethos that a sport or activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors...
of chess was enhanced by an event during this match. During the latter stages of the competition, Spassky fell ill and was unable to play. During Candidates matches, each player was allotted a fixed number of rest days to accommodate such situations, but Spassky exhausted his entire allocation of time-outs yet was still unable to compete. At this point Hort would have been entirely within his rights to claim the match won by forfeit, and indeed many of his peers would have done so. In the event, however, Hort made the sporting gesture of offering Spassky one of his own time-outs so that the ex-champion could complete his recovery. Spassky (a noted chess gentleman in his own right) did so and went on to win the match by the narrowest possible margin, eliminating Hort from that Candidates cycle but ensuring that he would be remembered by chess fans for his gallantry.
The penultimate game of the match was rather bizarre in its conclusion, as Hort had established a clearly winning position, but inexplicably forgot about the time factor, and sat thinking until his time elapsed, handing the win to Spassky. With a draw
Draw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
in the next and final game, Spassky won the match. The following day Hort gave what was then a world record simultaneous exhibition in which he took on over 600 opponents. He explained that he gave the exhibition in order to get the stupid loss against Spassky out of his system.
Sousse Interzonal 1967
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, and were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle.- Zonal tournaments :...
tournament at Sousse
Sousse
Sousse is a city in Tunisia. Located 140 km south of the capital Tunis, the city has 173,047 inhabitants . Sousse is in the central-east of the country, on the Gulf of Hammamet, which is a part of the Mediterranean Sea. The name may be of Berber origin: similar names are found in Libya and in...
included among its participants not only Hort, but also the great but volatile Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
. While leading the tournament, Fischer was involved in a dispute with the tournament organizers regarding playing schedule that resulted in his forfeiting a game with the Soviet player Aivars Gipslis
Aivars Gipslis
Aivars Gipslis was a Latvian chess FIDE Grandmaster and also an ICCF Grandmaster, and a chess writer.-History:...
. While accounts of subsequent events differ, it is clear that he was persuaded to resume play, but then did not appear for his game with Hort, who was awarded a victory by forfeit. Negotiations with the organizers went downhill from this point, and Fischer withdrew from the tournament to begin his penultimate estrangement from grandmaster chess. Hort went on to finish the Interzonal in a tie for sixth with Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...
and Leonid Stein
Leonid Stein
Leonid Zakharovich Stein was a Soviet chess Grandmaster from Ukraine. He won three USSR Chess Championships in the 1960s , and was among the world's top ten players during that era.- Early life :...
, but did not advance to the Candidates matches, Reshevsky becoming the successful Candidate following a three-way tie-breaking match.
Sporting spirit may flow in the family veins, as Hort's son pursued a career as a professional footballer.
Olympiad career
Hort played for Czechoslovakia in the Chess Olympiads of 1960, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1980, 1982, 1984, and for Germany in 1988, 1990, 1992.Sample game
The following is a game from the 1967 Zonal tournament (qualifying event for the Sousse InterzonalInterzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, and were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle.- Zonal tournaments :...
) held at Halle
Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...
, East Germany that well illustrates Hort's capacity for converting a positional initiative into a winning attack. His opponent in this game was a prominent Yugoslav
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
International Master (later Grandmaster
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
). Note that if Black captures the queen in the final position, White has an elegant mate with 29. Nf4+ Kh4 30. g3+!
Hort–Minić
Dragoljub Minic
Dragoljub Minić was a Yugoslav Grandmaster of chess....
, King's Indian Defense
King's Indian Defence
The King's Indian Defence is a common chess opening. It arises after the moves:Black intends to follow up with 3...Bg7 and 4...d6.The Grünfeld Defence arises when Black plays 3...d5 instead, and is considered a separate opening...
:
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be2 0-0 6.Bg5 c5 7.d5 h6 8.Be3 Kh7 9.Nf3 Re8 10.0-0 Nbd7 11.Qc2 e6 12.dxe6 Rxe6 13.Rad1 Qe7 14.Rfe1 Nxe4 15.Nd5 Qd8 16.Bd3 f5 17.Nf4 Re8 18.Bxe4 Rxe4 19.Rxd6 Qc7 20.Rxg6 Rxf4 21.Bxf4 Qxf4 22.Rxg7+ Kxg7 23.Qc3+ Nf6 24.Re7+ Kg6 25.Ne5+ Kh5 26.Rg7 Be6 27.Qh3+ Qh4 28.Ng6 1–0