| Michael Stean | |
|---|---|
 Stean at the Amsterdam Zonal 1978 | |
| Full name | Michael Francis Stean |
| Country | England |
| Born | 4 September 1953 London, England |
| Title | Grandmaster (1977) |
| Peak rating | 2540 (January 1979) |
Michael Francis Stean (born 4 September 1953) is an English chess grandmaster, an author of chess books and a tax accountant.
Stean was born on 4 September 1953 in London. He learned to play chess before the age of five, developing a promising talent that led to junior honours, including the London under-14 and British under-16 titles.
There was more progress in 1971, when he placed third at a junior event in Norwich (behind Sax and Tarjan, two other young players with bright futures). By 1973, he was able to top a tournament in Canterbury (ahead of Adorjan) and speculation began to grow that England had another potential runner in the race to become the country's first grandmaster. Fellow contenders were Ray Keene, whom Stean knew from Cambridge University and Tony Miles, who ultimately took the accolade. 1973 was also the year when Stean entered the (Teesside) World Junior Chess Championship and finished third behind Miles and tournament victor Alexander Beliavsky (ahead of Larry Christiansen). Curiously, both Stean and Miles defeated Beliavsky, but couldn't match his ruthlessness in dispatching inferior opposition.
Domestically, he was a joint winner of the British Chess Championship in 1974, but lost the play-off to George Botterill. In the first of his five Chess Olympiads at Nice in 1974, he won the prize for best game of the Olympiad, for his effort against Walter Browne. His next Olympiad was even more of a success; individual gold and team bronze medals at Haifa 1976. His performances in these events never resulted in a score of less than 50%.
International Master and International Grandmaster titles were awarded in 1975 and 1977 respectively.
In London in 1977, Stean lost a blitz game to a computer program (CHESS 4.6), making him the first grandmaster to lose a game to a computer. The moves, with Stean playing black, were: 1.e4 b6 2.d4 Bb7 3.Nc3 c5 4.dxc5 bxc5 5.Be3 d6 6.Bb5+ Nd7 7.Nf3 e6 8.O-O a6 9.Bxd7+ Qxd7 10.Qd3 Ne7 11.Rad1 Rd8 12.Qc4 Ng6 13.Rfe1 Be7 14.Qb3 Qc6 15.Kh1 O-O 16.Bg5 Ba8 17.Bxe7 Nxe7 18.a4 Rb8 19.Qa2 Rb4 20.b3 f5 21.Ng5 fxe4 22.Ncxe4 Rxf2 23.Rxd6 Qxd6 24.Nxd6 Rxg2 25.Nge4 Rg4 26.c4 Nf5 27.h3 Ng3+ 28.Kh2 Rxe4 29.Qf2 h6 30.Nxe4 Nxe4 31.Qf3 Rb8 32.Rxe4 Rf8 33.Qg4 Bxe4 34.Qxe6+ Kh8 35.Qxe4 Rf6 36.Qe5 Rb6 37.Qxc5 Rxb3 38.Qc8+ Kh7 39.Qxa6 1-0. [1] After 27 h3, Stean exclaimed, "This computer is a genius!" [2]
In international tournaments, he competed successfully at Montilla 1976 (2nd= with Kavalek and Calvo after Karpov), Montilla 1977 (3rd after Gligorić and Kavalek), London 1977 (2nd= with Mestel and Quinteros after Hort), Vršac 1979 (1st), Smederevska Palanka 1980 (1st) and Beersheba 1982 (1st).
During this period, Stean frequently had to put aside his own playing ambitions, as he was engaged as one of Viktor Korchnoi's team of seconds for world championship campaigns in 1977–78 and 1980–81. In many respects, the partnerships that developed were reasonably successful; Korchnoi brushed aside some powerful rival Candidates like Boris Spassky, Robert Hübner and Lev Polugaevsky en route to his two finals with Karpov. Stean's role was mostly involved with opening preparation and he and Korchnoi became good friends.
While playing chess, he wrote two books – Sicilian Najdorf (Batsford, 1976) and Simple Chess (Faber, 1978). Both books were well received and the latter has become known as a chess classic, [3] remaining in print many years later (reprinted algebraic edition – Dover, 2003). Simple Chess concentrates on simple positional ideas and strategies and shows how they might be developed with the aid of sample games. He also contributed a lengthy introduction to Bent Larsen's book about the 1978 World Championship.
In 1982, at the age of 29 and more or less in his chess playing prime, Michael Stean retired from chess to become a tax accountant; a decision he does not appear to have regretted, as there has been no attempted return to playing chess in subsequent years. He joined tax consultants Casson Beckman early in 1984. [4]
Stean did however serve for a while as the manager of Nigel Short. [5]
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, and politician. He was the 12th World Chess Champion from 1975 to 1985, a three-time FIDE World Champion, twice World Chess champion as a member of the USSR team, and a six-time winner of Chess Olympiads as a member of the USSR team. The International Association of Chess Press awarded him nine Chess Oscars.
Raymond Dennis Keene is an English chess grandmaster, a FIDE International Arbiter, a chess organiser, and a journalist and author. He won the British Chess Championship in 1971 and was the first player from England to earn a Grandmaster norm, in 1974. In 1976, he became the second Englishman to be awarded the Grandmaster title, and he was the second British chess player to beat an incumbent World Chess Champion. He represented England in eight Chess Olympiads.
Anthony John Miles was an English chess player and the first Englishman to earn the Grandmaster title.
Jørgen Bent Larsen was a Danish chess grandmaster and author. Known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play, he was the second strongest non-Soviet player, behind Bobby Fischer, for much of the 1960s and 1970s. He is considered to be the strongest player born in Denmark and the strongest from Scandinavia until the emergence of Magnus Carlsen.
John Denis Martin Nunn is an English chess grandmaster, a three-time world champion in chess problem solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician. He is one of England's strongest chess players and was formerly in the world's top ten.
The Giuoco Piano is a chess opening beginning with the moves:
The King's Indian Defence is a common chess opening. It is defined by the following moves:
Wolfgang Unzicker was one of the strongest German chess Grandmasters from 1945 to about 1970. He decided against making chess his profession, choosing law instead. Unzicker was at times the world's strongest amateur chess player, and World Champion Anatoly Karpov called him the "world champion of amateurs".
Ulf Andersson is a leading Swedish chess player. FIDE awarded him the International Master title in 1970 and the Grandmaster title in 1972.
Henrique Costa Mecking, also known as Mequinho, is a Brazilian chess grandmaster who reached his zenith in the 1970s and is still one of the strongest players in Brazil. He was a chess prodigy, drawing comparisons to Bobby Fischer, although he did not achieve the International Grandmaster title until 1972. He won the Interzonals of Petropolis 1973 and Manila 1976. His highest FIDE rating is 2635, achieved in 1977, when he was ranked number four in the world. He became the 3rd best in the world in 1977, behind only World Champion Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi. He is the first Brazilian to become a grandmaster. Despite winning his first national championship at the age of 13, he played in very few tournaments. He won at Vršac in 1971 and finished third with Robert Byrne at Hastings in 1971–72. In 1975, he twice shared second place behind Ljubomir Ljubojević, firstly at Las Palmas with Ulf Andersson and Mikhail Tal and then at Manila with Lev Polugaevsky, Bent Larsen and Helmut Pfleger.
Vladimir Andreyevich Savon was a Ukrainian chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1973.
Lubomir (Lubosh) Kavalek was a Czech-American chess player. He was awarded both the International Master and International Grandmaster titles by FIDE in 1965. He won two Czechoslovak and three U.S. championships, and was ranked as the world's No. 10 player in 1974. He was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 2001. Kavalek was also a chess coach, organizer, teacher, commentator, author and award-winning columnist.
In chess, a blunder is a critically bad move or decision. A blunder severely worsens the player's situation by allowing a loss of material, checkmate, or anything similar. It is usually caused by some tactical oversight, whether due to time trouble, overconfidence, or carelessness. Although blunders are most common in beginner games, all human players make them, even at the world championship level. Creating opportunities for the opponent to blunder is an important skill in over-the-board chess.
The 1978 World Chess Championship was played between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi in Baguio, Philippines, from July 18 to October 18, 1978. Karpov won, thereby retaining the title.
The 1981 World Chess Championship was played between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi in Merano, Italy from October 1 to November 19, 1981. Karpov won with six wins against two, with 10 draws. The two players had already played against each other in the World Chess Championship match 1978 in the Philippines, when Karpov also won.
Events in chess in 1973:
Events in chess in 1974;
Events in chess in 1976;
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi was a Soviet and Swiss chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. He is considered one of the strongest players never to have become World Chess Champion.
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