1988 in chess

Events in chess in 1988.

Top players

Kasparov and Karpov remained the top two players in the world, positions that they had held since July 1982. Over the year, Dutch player Jan Timman and Alexander Beliavsky of the USSR moved up the list, whilst Andrei Sokolov from the USSR and Ljubomir Ljubojević of Yugoslavia moved down.^[1]

January 1988 FIDE rating list. Top 11 players

Elo FIDE Top Eleven Men FIDE Top Eleven Women[2] Elo 2750  Garry Kasparov (URS)  Maia Chiburdanidze (URS) 2560 2715  Anatoly Karpov (URS)  Nona Gaprindashvili (URS) 2485 2675  Jan Timman (NED)  Zsuzsa Polgar (HUN) 2475 2645  Alexander Beliavsky (URS)  Nana Ioseliani (URS) 2455 2640  Viktor Korchnoi (CHE)  Pia Cramling (SWE) 2435 2630  Mikhail Tal (URS)  Ketevan Arakhamia (URS) 2420 2630  Predrag Nikolić (YUG)  Nana Alexandria (URS) 2415 2630  Nigel Short (ENG)  Marta Litinskaya-Shul (URS) 2415 2625  Artur Yusupov (URS)  Elena Akhmilovskaya (URS) 2400 2625  Jon Speelman (ENG)  Agnieszka Brustman (POL) 2395 2625  Mikhail Gurevich (URS)  Anna Akhsharumova (USA) 2385

Events

The following major chess tournaments took place in 1988:

Grandmasters Association World Cup

The Grandmasters Association held six World Cup tournaments over 1988 and 1989, with some of the world's best players invited. The first three of these tournaments were held in 1988.

• 1 April – 22 April: The first tournament was held in Brussels and won by Karpov with 11/16, ahead of Valery Salov with 10.^[3]
• 14 June – 3 July: The second tournament was held in Belfort, France, and won by Kasparov with 11½/15, ahead of Karpov with 10½.^[4]
• 3 October – 24 October: The third tournament was held in Reykjavík and was again won by Kasparov, with 11/17. Beliavsky was second, with 10½/15.^[5]

28th Chess Olympiad

The 28th Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki, Greece, was held between 12 November and 30 November. It was won by the USSR, ahead of England in second and the Netherlands in third.^[6]

The gold medal on the first board was won by Kasparov of USSR with 8½/10. Lajos Portisch of Hungary was second, also scoring 8½, but from 11 games.^[7]

The Women's Chess Olympiad was held alongside the open tournament. The winners were Hungary, ahead of the USSR and Yugoslavia.^[8]

Other major tournaments

• 23 February – 8 March: The Linares tournament was won by Timman with 8½/11, ahead of Beliavsky with 7.^[9]
• 6 September – 28 September: The 12th Tilburg tournament was won by Karpov with 10½/14, ahead of Short with 8½.^[10]
• December 1988 – January 1989: The Reggio Emilia tournament was won by Mikhail Gurevich with 6½/9, ahead of Kiril Georgiev and Ulf Andersson Ivanchuk with 5½.^[11]
• The Wijk aan Zee tournament was won by Karpov with 9/13, ahead of Anderssen with 8½.^[12]

Titles awarded

Grandmaster

In 1989, FIDE awarded the Grandmaster title to the following 20 players:^[13]

• Viswanathan Anand (born 1969)  India
• Zurab Azmaiparashvili (born 1960)  Georgia
• Emir Dizdarevic (born 1958)  Yugoslavia
• Yury Dokhoian (1964–2021)  Soviet Union
• Boris Gelfand (born 1968)  Soviet Union
• Krum Georgiev (born 1958)  Bulgaria^[14]
• Jörg Hickl (born 1965)  Germany
• Julian Hodgson (born 1963)  England
• Miguel Illescas (born 1963)  Spain
• Gregory Kaidanov (born 1959)  Ukraine/ United States
• Stefan Kindermann (born 1959)  Germany
• Josef Klinger (born 1967)  Austria
• Bogdan Lalić (born 1964)  Croatia/ England
• Valentin Lukov (born 1955)  Bulgaria
• Gilberto Milos (born 1963)  Brazil
• Michael Rohde (born 1959)  United States
• Harry Schussler (born 1957)  Sweden
• Elizbar Ubilava (born 1950)  Georgia/ Spain
• Reynaldo Vera (born 1961)  Cuba
• Michael Wilder (born 1962)  United States

In addition George Koltanowski (born 1903) was awarded an honorary Grandmaster title in 1988.^[15]

Births

The following chess grandmasters were born in 1988:^[16]

• 9 January Viktor Láznička  Czech Republic
• 5 February Markus Ragger  Austria
• 8 February Arik Braun  Germany
• 14 February Evgeny Romanov  Russia
• 14 February Adam Tukhaev  Ukraine
• 3 March Timur Gareev  Uzbekistan
• 11 March Ante Brkić  Croatia
• 11 March Alexandr Fier  Brazil
• 14 April Pawel Czarnota  Poland
• 18 April Yuriy Ajrapetjan  Ukraine
• 20 April Mark Bluvshtein  Canada
• 21 April Subramanian Arun Prasad  India
• 26 April Boban Bogosavljević  Serbia
• 26 April Rauf Mamedov  Azerbaijan
• 30 April Denes Boros  Hungary
• 13 May Luka Lenič  Slovenia
• 11 June Zhou Jianchao  China
• 21 June Alejandro Ramírez  Costa Rica
• 7 July Wen Yang  China
• 8 August Marin Bosiočić  Croatia
• 23 August Dmitry Kononenko  Ukraine
• 6 September Valentin Iotov  Bulgaria
• 9 September Bassem Amin  Egypt
• 27 September David Baramidze  Germany
• 11 November Yuri Vovk  Ukraine
• Anatoly Bykhovsky  Israel
• Nikolai Chadaev  Russia
• Laszlo Gonda  Hungary
• Vitaliy Kiselev  Russia
• Daniel Alsina Leal  Spain
• Wojciech Moranda  Poland
• Ioannis Papadopoulos  Greece
• Pavel Ponkratov  Russia
• Deep Sengupta  India

Deaths

The following leading chess personalities died in 1988:

• 30 June Bernardo Wexler (born 1925): Argentine International Master who was the 1959 national champion and played in three Olympiads.
• 27 November Jan Hein Donner (born 1927): Dutch Grandmaster who won the Dutch Championship in 1954, 1957 and 1958.^[17]

Other events

• The German chess magazine, Deutsche Schachzeitung ceased publication in December 1988, having been published regularly since 1846.
• The musical Chess premiered on Broadway in April 1988. It closed in June 1988.^[18]

See also

• Corus Chess Tournament
• Linares chess tournament
• List of strong chess tournaments

References

1. "Top men's ratings 1970–1997". Archived from the original on 24 July 2010. Retrieved 5 August 2010.
2. olimpbase.org. "History of Elo ratings 1971–2001". Retrieved 5 August 2010.
3. www.chessgames.com. "Brussels WC 1988". Retrieved 5 August 2010.
4. www.chessgames.com. "Belfort WC 1988". Retrieved 5 August 2010.
5. www.chessgames.com. "Reykjavík WC 1988". Retrieved 5 August 2010.
6. www.olimpbase.org. "28th Chess Olympiad, Thessaloniki". Retrieved 5 August 2010.
7. www.olimpbase.org. "28th Chess Olympiad, individual medalists". Retrieved 5 August 2010.
8. www.olimpbase.org. "28th Chess Olympiad, women's tournament". Retrieved 5 August 2010.
9. www.chessgames.com. "Linares 1988". Retrieved 5 August 2010.
10. "Tilburg 1988" (in French). Retrieved 5 August 2010.^{[permanent dead link‍]}
11. "Reggio Emilia 1988/89" (in Italian). Retrieved 5 August 2010.
12. "Wijk aan Zee 1988". Archived from the original on 2010-06-09. Retrieved 5 August 2010.
13. Bill Wall. "List of rated players". Archived from the original on 2009-10-28. Retrieved 6 August 2010.
14. "FIDE ratings card". Retrieved 6 August 2010.
15. "The chess games of Georges Koltanowski". Retrieved 6 August 2010.
16. "Grandmasters born in 1988". FIDE. Retrieved 6 August 2010.
17. "Jan Hein Donner at www.chessgames.com". Retrieved 6 August 2010.
18. "Chess the musical". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 6 August 2010.