GM Bent Larsen turns 75 this thursday, march the 4th.
His birthday is a major event in Denmark because Bent Larsen has been an icon for the last few generations of danish chess players. Several small tournaments to celebrate Bent Larsen will be held this week and at the Copenhagen Chess Festival this summer there will be a rapid and a blitz match between danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen and russian super GM Peter Svidler.
Why is Bent Larsen so important to danish chess?
There are several answers to this question, but first and foremost, he was our first GM ever!
Bent had become an international master in 1955 and nobody expected him to become grandmaster only a year later. But that was what happened, because at the FIDE congress following the 1956 olympiad in Moscow, he was awarded the title because of his brillant performance on the top board in the A-final.
He scored 77% which was more than any other player on board 1, including reigning world champion Mikhail Botvinnik!!
In the next 10 years, Bent Larsen became more and more competitive. And from mid-60’s to the late 70’s, Bent Larsen belonged to the absolute world elite. He was awarded the first chess oscar in 1967 acknowledging him as the strongest player in the world that year. On my video page there are several annotated videos from that year…
From the late 70’s his relative playing strength declined somewhat although he still played a lot and won many tournaments, but he no longer belonged to the absolute top.
In the last 10 years he has played a few tournaments in Argentina - where he has lived for many, many years - and his official FIDE rating is still 2415. I suspect his playing strength now is significantly lower, though.
Bent Larsen has written several books, most of them with an instructional purpose. This is another important reason why Bent Larsen is an institution in danish chess.
Bent Larsen mastered all aspects of the game.
He was not afraid of playing risky openings if he felt that this could give him a psychological advantage.
He did have excellent tactical skills, but more often than not, he won by positional means.
He had a positional style and he loved to convert a good positon into a won endgame. He was definitely one of the best endgame players of his time.
As a curiosum taken from wikipedia it could be mentioned that Larsen has beaten all world champions who reigned in the period 1948-1985. He has beaten Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer, and Anatoly Karpov.
A few examples of Larsens game from 3 different decades and showing 3 different aspects of his game:
1956 Olympiad
Bent Larsen - Svetozar Gligoric
White to move
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40.Kf5!
Taking the side opposition - 40.Ke4?? would be drawn after 40…Kxc4! since the black king now has the opposition.
After 40.Kf5! 40…Kxc4 loses to 41.Ke4!, so Gligoric tried
40…Kd4
but to no help because Larsen took the opposition with
41.Kf4! Kc5 42.Ke5 Kxc4 Ke4!
and Larsen went on to win this game, which was his only win against a GM in the olympiad. He drew all the other GM’s in that event.
1966 Santa Monica - 2nd Piatigorsky Cup
Bent Larsen - Tigran Petrosian
White to move
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Larsen has played this game with great energy and now we have reached the point of the game that proves that Larsen is not just a positional player. He has excellent tactical skills! The next move was planned several moves ahead and is a true beauty:
25.Qxg6!!
Larsen is sacing his queen against the world champion!!
And there’s no defence. Petrosian tried 25…Nf4 but lasted only 4 more moves before he resigned.
Probably the most famous Larsen game of all…
1976 Biel Interzonal
Bent Larsen - Oscar Castro
White to move
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Castro has just moved 20…e4, threatening Larsen’s Queen on b2.
It’s a very sharp and complex position and Larsen needs a win to maintain his lead in the tournament.
I think most players would move their queen to b3 and hope to be able to squeeze out a win and this may be the objectively best continuation.
But Larsen evaluated the position both tactically and psychologically!
And he decided to play
21.Nxe4!?!
Probably a few more marks is required to describe this extremely interesting move!
Poor Castro couldn’t believe his own eyes: Was the leading player really sacing his queen?
And how was he supposed to be able to calculate the consequences of taking the queen over the board?
Even the strongest chess engines these days cannot quite figure out if the queen sac is correct, they tend to believe white can get no more than a draw through perpetuals:
21…Bxb2 22.Bxb2 (threatening Nf6+) Kf8 23.Nf6 Qe2 24.Nxh7+ Ke8 25.Nf6+ etc
But Castro didn’t dare to take the queen. He played
21…Ne5
And although the position is still fairly even, Castro had lost the psychological battle and lost the game in 36 moves!
These were a few examples from a long and succesful career of the best danish chess player ever, soon-to-be 75 year old GM Bent Larsen.
Tillykke med fødselsdagen, Bent!
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