Andreas Dückstein. Living Legend At 96. A Small Tribute.
Last time round I mentioned that I really should do something on Dückstein. Still with us at 96 years old.
Usually I get to do these things when such guys have left us, so it's a bit of a Christmas treat for me to be able to put this together. Obviously I don't have a lot of time at this point in the year, but I wanted to get it on the page.
Dückstein. A true chess lover and chessboard warrior. I love my chessboard warriors! The list of players he has been up against is a real who's who of the era, and he beat three World Champions. Not so bad mate! And he went toe to toe with all of them. Anyone who is in time trouble against the great Petrosian and turns down a draw gets my absolute respect!
You can find a nice article on him on chessbase, at the age of 90 - still loving chess.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/austrian-chess-legend-andreas-dueckstein-turns-90
The year before - at a sprightly 89 years young - he gave a simultaneous exhibition at the World seniors championships. I have mislaid the link, but saved the pictures.
What a guy!
Let's do my thing and present some games and pictures. I have only had time to do proper notes to one game, so that will be the feature game.
He won two board prize gold medals at the Olympiads back in the days when the USSR team basically owned them - an interesting question mark against one, but other sources credit him with the medal - so some olympiad games.
Moscow. 1956.
That best game prize game.
Kramer in 1962. via justchessminiatures on twitter.
1958 Olympiad. The great Bent Larsen gets beaten. No backward steps with these two! Have fun with this one.
A game against another great, but almost unknown, chess figure. Jim Walsh.
Whist we are looking at Dückstein playing the French, you can have fun looking at this piece of madness for yourself!
The little mystery around his other gold medal. All other sources say he was awarded the prize.
As I say, he beat three World Champions. The win against Spasskycame late on in his career. Spassky blundered, sadly, in a fascinating position.
His win against Max Euwe
was a full on theoretical debate of the time. Of course, Bobby Fischer later rewrote the theory with a couple of improvements at move 12. It's a shame that we don't really see such debates these days.
So, to my feature game.
In the whole of the 1958 Olympiad, the mighty USSR lost just one individual game - this one.
The story I saw digging out the file is that afterwards Botvinnik
took a couple of days off ( with Petrosian on reserve board, the USSR could afford such things!) and when he next played he brought his own table lamp with him!! No idea if it's true or not, but it's a nice story!
It's a fascinating game. Dückstein is totally unafraid of his illustrious opponent, goes for the win, and gets it. Deservedly so as well. For a non-Grandmaster to outplay a World Champion at the top of his game is no mean feat.
That's it for today guys. It's been a pleasure sharing some chess with you this year. Have a great Christmas and hopefully we will all - including Andreas Dückstein - will be here in good health and spirits this time next year. Cheers!
