Chess the Grand Master

In 1996, Claus Spahn moderated Grand Masters Chess with Viswanathan Anand and Wladimir Kramnik, photo WDR.

Schach der Großmeister is a former German television show . The show was designed, editorially supervised and moderated by Claus Spahn .

history

It was broadcast once a year from 1983 to 2005 on Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) television. The concept of the program was that two chess grandmasters played a game of chess against each other and this was commented on and analyzed by the two grandmasters Helmut Pfleger and Vlastimil Hort , and later also by the chess program Fritz . The winner received the WDR television chess prize and was able to defend this title against a new challenger the following year.

The invited players included Wladimir Kramnik , Viswanathan Anand , Péter Lékó and Jan Timman . The first game in 1983 was played by world champion Anatoli Karpow and the strongest German player at the time, Robert Huebner . In the last event in 2005, the two commentators Pfleger and Hort met themselves and played an exciting draw. Afterwards, Dr. Spahn the two protagonists the portraits created by Gautam as a gift from WDR. Lothar Schmidt quipped: "Who gets what!"

In 1997 the program was broadcast on the Internet for the first time. Gerhard Hund and his daughter Barbara , who was in charge of a chat , helped . Gerhard Hund reported on TeleSchach . A video of the broadcast can be called up there.

In 1995 Kasparov won two games against the Genius 3 chess program with 1.5: 0.5. As he had recently lost to this program in a rapid chess tournament in London , this competition received more media attention.

Game examples

Huebner - Kasparow 1992

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Position after 14.… f7 – f5.

Hübner played 15. Qe4xf5, after 15.… Nd7 – f6 the attacked queen had no square and White gave up.

The notable games in the series included the victory of the then only fourteen-year-old Judit Polgár against the experienced German grandmaster Rainer Knaak in 1990 and Huebner's defeat against Kasparow in 1992 in just 15 moves.

Judit Polgár - Rainer Knaak , Chess of the Grand Masters 1990

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3 + 6. bxc3 Ne7 ( the Winawer variant of the French defense , ECO code C18 ) 7. Qg4 Qc7 8. Bd3 cxd4 9. Ne2 Qxe5 10. Bf4 Qf6 11. Bg5 De5 12. cxd4 h5 13. Qh4 Qc7 14. Bf4 Qa5 + 15. Bd2 Qd8 16.g4 e5 17.dxe5 Bxg4 18.Rg1 Qd7 19.f3 Be6 20.Nd4 Nbc6 21.Nxc6 Nxc6 22. Rxg7 Qc7 23. f4 Nxe5 24. fxe5 Qxe5 + 25. Kf2 Qxg7 26. Rg1 Qb2 27. Bb4 f6 28. Re1 0–0–0 29. Rxe6 Kb8 30. Qxf6 Qa2 31. Qd4 Rc8 32. Bd2 Ka8 33. Be3 Rxc2 + 34.Bxc2 Qxc2 + 35. Ke1 Qb1 + 36. Kd2 Qa2 + 37. Kd1 Qb1 + 38. Ke2 Qc2 + 39.Bd2 Rf8 40. Qxd5 1: 0

Pairings and results

The tables below show replayable games (JavaScript).

The television chess prize of the West German Radio from 2002, a Cycladic idol .

Spahn, Adams and Kramnik with the 1998 trophy

Sculpture by Max Meuter, TV chess prize until 2002

Pfleger, Hort and Spahn, in Cologne in 2005 before the pairings between 1983 and 1993

TV chess prize:

year	White	black	Results	Lots
1983	Robert Huebner	Anatoly Karpov	draw	( 1983 )
1984	Viktor Korchnoi	Robert Huebner	0: 1	( 1984 )
1985	Robert Huebner	Jan Timman	0: 1	( 1985 )
1986	Tony Miles	Jan Timman	0: 1	( 1986 )
1987	Jan Timman	Zsuzsa Polgár	draw	( 1987 )
1988	Jörg Hickl	Zsuzsa Polgár	draw	( 1988 )
1989	Eric Lobron	Judit Polgár	draw	( 1989 )
1990	Judit Polgár	Rainer Knaak	1-0	( 1990 )
1991	Judit Polgár	Gerald Hertneck	0: 1	( 1991 )
1992	Matthias Wahls	Gerald Hertneck	1-0	( 1992 )
1993	Matthias Wahls	Christopher Lutz	draw	( 1993 )
1994	Christopher Lutz	Jeroen Piket	0: 1	( 1994 )
1995	Jeroen Piket	Viswanathan Anand	0: 1	( 1995 )
1996	Viswanathan Anand	Vladimir Kramnik	draw	( 1996 )
1997	Vladimir Kramnik	Judit Polgár	1-0	( 1997 )
1998	Vladimir Kramnik	Michael Adams	1-0	( 1998 )
1999	Artur Yusupov	Jörg Hickl	1-0	( 1999 )
2000	Vladimir Kramnik	Péter Lékó	1-0	( 2000 )
2001	Péter Lékó	Viswanathan Anand	draw	( 2001 )
2002	Anatoly Karpov	Robert Huebner	Draw, Draw, 0: 1 ( Blitz )	( 2002 )
2003	Jan Timman	Arkadij Naiditsch	0: 1	( 2003 )
2004	Arkadij Naiditsch	Rustam Kasimjanov	1-0	( 2004 )
2005	Helmut Pfleger	Vlastimil hoard	draw	( 2005 )

Other programs:

year	White	black	Result	annotation
1992	Garry Kasparov	Robert Huebner	draw
1992	Robert Huebner	Garry Kasparov	0: 1
1992	Robert Huebner	Garry Kasparov	0: 1	lightning
1992	Garry Kasparov	Robert Huebner	0: 1	lightning
1995	Garry Kasparov	Chess Genius 3	1-0	computer
1995	Chess Genius 3	Garry Kasparov	draw	computer

Individual proofs / lots

1. ↑ Schach der Großmeister - TV chess prize 1997 on TeleSchach.
2. ↑ Wolfram Runkel: Champ beats Chip , Die Zeit 22/1995
3. ↑ See up to 2001 at the archive of the television chess prize ( Memento from December 10, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) (results and games), the two pictures in Commons with the pairings from 1983 to 2004, as well as the reports listed below (with photos and games).
4. ↑ Game at chessgames.com
5. ↑ Game at chessgames.com

• The 25 games of the television chess prize and the 6 games of the other broadcasts of the WDR on TeleSchach (for download)

Web links / reports

Commons : Claus Spahn and Schach der Großmeister  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Chess of the Grand Masters '97: Wladimir Kramnik - Judit Polgar, August 31, 1997 in Cologne
• WDR: Schach der Großmeister '98 - Wladimir Kramnik - Michael Adams, August 16, 1998
• WDR: Chess of the Grand Masters '99 - Artur Jussupow - Jörg Hickl, August 15, 1999
• Interview with Claus Spahn, July 12, 2001 on the occasion of the presentation of the German Chess Prize 2001
• "Schach der Großmeister" on WDR television on August 12, 2001 in Cologne
• To the last broadcast of Schach der Großmeister on August 24, 2005
• 23 broadcasts of the WDR: Schach dem Großmeister (1983 to 2005) on YouTube