Kasparov Conqueror Boris Gulko Lectured At ICA Teaneck May 8th! Bronstein vs Gulko Annotated by the Man Who had Kasparov’s Number Himself! Yeliseyev Wins Swiss.
The argument about the greatest chess player of all time will always invariably include the name Garry Kasparov. The list of players who have a plus score (meaning have beat him more times than losing to him) against Garry Kasparov includes just three or four people and two of those (Murray Chandler, and Vladimir Kramnik) are in the category on the strength of a one game lead (Kramnik won the championship while Chandler beat a very young Kasparov when they were kids and won a simul game when Kasparov was playing many people).
Grandmaster Boris Gulko, despite facing the same political obstacles that ironically some say Kasparov faces now (albeit for somewhat different reasons), managed to beat Garry Kasparov on three separate occasions while losing to him only once. Included in that record is a win with the black pieces and a victory when Kasparov was world champion which given the adversity Gulko faced in the Soviet Union says something about his potential as a chess player and what those political challenges took away from it. Boris is also the only man to have been chess champion of the USSR (1977) and the USA (1994, 1999)
GM Gulko, who has taught at our school before, and is a good friend of the ICA, finally dropped by to provide a lecture for our Thursday night Swiss competition this past May 7th.
Bronstein, is arguably the greatest player to never become world champion (he was also the closest man to never be champion given that he tied Botvinnik in their World Championship match) and GM Gulko discussed and demonstrated this important game from his career.
In the swiss itself ICA coach Igor Yeliseyev won first place over a field of eight other players.
We would like to thank GM Gulko and hope to see him lecture about his other great wins in the future (He doesn’t regard the Kasparov games as very memorable but there is no doubt many players would be interested in his analysis of those games at some point in the future).
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