Vlastimil Hort Remembers Tony Miles

I have a bad back and it has flared up this week, making it difficult to sit for any period of time. This happened about the time I noticed a picture, which brought back memories at, Chessbase, in an article, Hort stories: Wrong place wrong time (https://en.chessbase.com/post/hort-stories-wrong-place-wrong-time) which is the second part of
Hort stories: Remembering Tony Miles, by Vlastimil Hort. (https://en.chessbase.com/post/vlastimil-hort-remembers-tony-miles)

The picture of Tony Miles lying flat while playing Ljubomir Ljubojevic, “…who played lying down, suffering from back pain, caused a stir — and not only in the chess world.”

An unusual position | Photo: Persbureau van Eindhoven

Tony won that game, and the other game versus Ljubo, which helped him to finish in a three way tie for first place at Tilburg in 1985 with Robert Huebner and Victor Korchnoi.

“This time the German grandmaster protested against GM Miles playing the tournament on a stretcher. During the tournament Anthony Miles suffered back pain; therefore he played some of his games lying down on a massage table.”

“Many participants of the tournament protested in their own unique way. When GM Dzindzichashvili played his game vs. Miles, he spent the whole game standing in front of the British grandmaster. GM Ljubojevic used a different approach. He was sitting the whole game; however, he was sitting at a totally separate table from the one where Miles played their game!”

GM Robert Huebner decided to play a prearranged draw where his moves would look ridiculous. When Miles learned about Huebner’s idea, he said, “I’ll play sensible moves, you play what you like, and I’ll offer a draw on move five.”

“And that’s how that outlandish game was born.” (https://www.chess.com/article/view/when-chess-players-protest)

The article also contains one of the most famous Chess games of my half century of Chess, the game Tony won against the current World Chess Champion, Anatoly Karpov.

Hort writes: “His most famous game will probably remain the one against Karpov in 1980 in Skara, Sweden. Miles defeated the World Champion with the extravagant move 1…a6?! and proved that even the “Soviet giants” could be beaten.”

The sensational win against Karpov with 1…a6 in the 1980 European Team Championship | Photo: “It’s only me”

If you are unfamiliar with the game please do yourself a favor and click on over to Chessbase and enjoy. You can thank me later…

 

 

 

 

 

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