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Lone Pine (1980) 10th Louis D. Statham Tournament Lone Pine, California March 16-26, 1980 By now, even an IM title was not sufficient to gain entry into Lone Pine. The 1980 edition was restricted to grandmasters, adults with a rating over 2450, and Juniors over 2350. This shrank the field to forty-three players-over half of them grandmasters-with an average rating of 2487. There might be chances for the lesser players to pick up a norm here or there, but they couldn't be expected to have much of an impact on the outcome. Only six players won their first two games: GMs Efim Geller, Miguel Quinteros, and Bozidar Ivanovic, IM Jon Arnason, and untitled players Jay Whitehead and Michael Wilder. After round three only Geller and Whitehead remained perfect, with Bent Larsen and another untitled player in Douglas Root joining Quinteros and Arnason on 2.5. What was happening to the other big guns? Yuri Balashov was a full point behind after a couple of draws, while Lev Alburt and Florin Gheorghiu had suffered round two losses. Even worse off at 1.5 were players like Anthony Miles, Samuel Reshevsky, and Walter Browne, while Svetozar Gligoric, Roman Dzindzichashvili, and Larry Christiansen were already two points off the pace. Whitehead managed to keep up by drawing Geller in round 4, then lost three in a row and dropped out of contention. Geller took the lead going into the weekend break with 4.5/5, with Larsen and Gheorghiu at 4.0 and Whitehead, Wilder, Balashov, Fedorowicz, John Peters and Eugenio Torre on 3.5. However, Geller would not win a single game the rest of the way. Larsen caught him in round 6, and their draw in round 7 left them just a half-point ahead of Balashov and a couple of late chargers in Alburt and Dzindzichashvili. Geller drew with Balashov in round 8, and was joined at the top by Alburt and Dzindzichashvili as the latter defeated Larsen. Going into the last round, it was Dzindzichashvili, Geller and Alburt with 6.0, and Balashov, Larsen and Miles on 5.5. The final pairings came out Alburt vs. Dzindzichashvili, Miles vs. Geller, and Balashov vs. Larsen. Miles wiped out Geller relatively quickly, leaving Alburt and Dzindzichashvili fighting for first place. Alburt missed a winning line right at the time control, and it was the Guy with the Really Long Name winning his sixth game in a row to hit the jackpot. A sidelight was Browne's withdrawal due to a bitter argument with TD Kashdan during round 5. It was made clear that Browne would not be welcomed back to future Statham tournaments, thus ending his streak of being the only player to participate in all the Lone Pine events. This version of the crosstable allows colors in each game to be determined. If the result (W, L, D) comes first, the player had White. If the result follows the opponent's number, the player had Black. For example, Dzindzichashvili's first three results are draw with Black vs. #43, loss with White vs. #23, draw with Black vs. #40. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 01 Roman Dzindzichashvili 43D L23 40D W34 28W W14 13W W06 04W 7.0 02 Anthony Miles 08L D20 43W W39 04D D09 14W W15 W03 6.5 03 Efim Geller W22 33W W16 14D W11 07D 06D D05 02L 6.0 04 Lev Alburt W41 15L W12 16D D02 18W W07 11W L01 6.0 05 Yuri Balashov 20W D08 21D D18 W13 15D W19 03D D06 6.0 06 Bent Larsen W40 21D W28 13D W18 10W D03 01L 05D 6.0 07 Florin Gheorghiu W37 13L W23 27W W14 D03 04L 09D W16 6.0 08 John Fedorowicz W02 05D D11 10D 29W D19 09L D13 W22 5.5 09 Evgenij Ermenkov L15 41D W17 28D W30 02D W08 D07 10D 5.5 10 John A Peters 36W L18 25W D08 16W L06 17D W20 D09 5.5 11 Oscar Panno 34W D39 08D W21 03L W20 15D L04 18W 5.5 12 Svetozar Gligoric 38W L14 04L W40 22W L13 36W D17 21W 5.5 13 Miguel Quinteros 35W W07 18D D06 05L 12W L01 08D D17 5.0 14 Jay E Whitehead W30 12W W15 D03 07L 01L L02 28D W27 5.0 15 Michael Wilder 09W W04 14L D19 42W D05 D11 02L D24 5.0 16 Bozidar Ivanovic 31W W29 03L D04 L10 27D W35 19W 07L 5.0 17 Margeir Petursson 19D L27 09L W43 34W W29 D10 12D 13D 5.0 18 Jon Loftur Arnason W24 10W D13 05D 06L L04 29W D26 L11 4.5 19 Eugenio Torre D17 25D W33 15D W35 08D 05L L16 26D 4.5 20 Samuel Reshevsky L05 02D W41 30D W24 11L W27 10L 23D 4.5 21 Larry Kaufman 32W D06 D05 11L D27 35D D24 31W L12 4.5 22 Julio P Kaplan 03L D42 31D 37W L12 D25 30W W32 08L 4.5 23 Douglas Root D28 01W 07L L42 32L W38 39W 24D D20 4.5 24 Larry Christiansen 18L L34 38W W25 20L W39 21D D23 15D 4.5 25 Vladimir Raicevic 27D D19 L10 24L W38 22D 26L W39 36W 4.5 26 Ron W Henley 29L D31 42L D41 W37 32D W25 18D D19 4.5 27 Nick DeFirmian D25 17W 39D L07 21D D16 20L W36 14L 4.0 28 Peter Biyiasas 23D W43 06L D09 L01 36L W40 D14 30D 4.0 29 Leonid Shamkovich W26 16L W37 35D L08 17L L18 34W D33 4.0 30 Arthur Bisguier 14L W38 34D D20 09L D33 L22 35W D28 4.0 31 Anatoly Lein L16 26D D22 33D 39L W41 34W L21 32D 4.0 32 Vladimir Mikhailovich Liberzon L21 40D L35 36D W23 D26 33W 22L D31 4.0 33 Joel Benjamin 42W L03 19L D31 D36 30D L32 37W 29D 4.0 34 Bruce Rind L11 24W D30 01L L17 40W L31 L29 41W 3.5 35 Steven M Odendahl L13 43W 32W D29 19L D21 16L L30 37D 3.5 36 Perry Youngworth L10 37L 39W D32 33D W28 L12 27L L25 3.0 37 Dusan Rajkovic 07L W36 29L L22 26L D43 41W L33 D35 3.0 38 Victor J Frias Pablaza L12 30L L24 Bye 25L 23L W43 40D D39 3.0 39 Evan Michaelides L36 11D D27 02L W31 24L L23 25L 38D 2.5 40 Vitaly F Zaltsman 06L D32 D01 12L 41D L34 28L D38 43D 2.5 41 Mark Ginsburg 04L D09 20L 26D D40 31L L37 43W L34 2.5 42 Walter Shawn Browne L33 22D W26 23W L15 --- --- --- --- 2.5 43 John A Grefe D01 28L L02 17L L35 37D 38L L41 D40 1.5 The games Grefe 0 Odendahl and Michaelides 0 Youngworth were cross-round pairings, makeup games between players who originally had byes. (Grefe, Rd. 5; Odendahl, Rd. 2; Michaelides, Rd. 1; Youngworth, Rd. 3.) PRIZES 1st - Dzindzihashvili: $15,000 2nd - Miles: $10,000 3rd-7th - Larsen, Geller, Alburt, Balashov, Gheorghiu 8th-11th - Fedorowicz, Ermenkov, Peters, Panno, Gligoric IM Norms: Michael Wilder, Jay Whitehead, Douglas Root, Ron W Henley. FIDE Master Norm: Joel Benjamin. PREVIOUS: Lone Pine (1979). NEXT: Lone Pine (1981). Original collection: Game Collection: Lone Pine 1980, by User: Phony Benoni.  page 1 of 8; games 1-25 of 191  Game   Result Moves Year Event/Locale Opening 1. Alburt vs M Ginsburg 1-0 39 1980 Lone Pine A54 Old Indian, Ukrainian Variation, 4.Nf3 2. Browne vs Benjamin 0-1 41 1980 Lone Pine E60 King's Indian Defense 3. J Whitehead vs A Bisguier   1-0 44 1980 Lone Pine C65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense 4. de Firmian vs V Raicevic   ½-½ 42 1980 Lone Pine C00 French Defense 5. J Grefe vs Dzindzichashvili   ½-½ 31 1980 Lone Pine B22 Sicilian, Alapin 6. Fedorowicz vs Miles 1-0 45 1980 Lone Pine B42 Sicilian, Kan 7. Geller vs J Kaplan 1-0 34 1980 Lone Pine B83 Sicilian 8. J Arnason vs L Christiansen 1-0 50 1980 Lone Pine B16 Caro-Kann, Bronstein-Larsen Variation 9. E Torre vs Petursson   ½-½ 30 1980 Lone Pine B72 Sicilian, Dragon 10. S Odendahl vs Quinteros 0-1 52 1980 Lone Pine A43 Old Benoni 11. Larsen vs V Zaltsman 1-0 45 1980 Lone Pine A03 Bird's Opening 12. D Root vs P Biyiasas   ½-½ 62 1980 Lone Pine C44 King's Pawn Game 13. V Frias Pablaza vs Gligoric 0-1 32 1980 Lone Pine D34 Queen's Gambit Declined, Tarrasch 14. Shamkovich vs R Henley   1-0 34 1980 Lone Pine B93 Sicilian, Najdorf, 6.f4 15. A Lein vs B Ivanovic   0-1 72 1980 Lone Pine B23 Sicilian, Closed 16. E Ermenkov vs M Wilder 0-1 37 1980 Lone Pine B50 Sicilian 17. Gheorghiu vs D Rajkovic   1-0 47 1980 Lone Pine E12 Queen's Indian 18. V Liberzon vs L Kaufman   0-1 41 1980 Lone Pine D32 Queen's Gambit Declined, Tarrasch 19. Reshevsky vs Balashov 0-1 47 1980 Lone Pine E46 Nimzo-Indian 20. B Rind vs Panno   0-1 46 1980 Lone Pine A88 Dutch, Leningrad, Main Variation with c6 21. P Youngworth vs J Peters   0-1 36 1980 Lone Pine A62 Benoni, Fianchetto Variation 22. M Wilder vs Alburt 1-0 47 1980 Lone Pine A07 King's Indian Attack 23. Balashov vs Fedorowicz   ½-½ 24 1980 Lone Pine A43 Old Benoni 24. Benjamin vs Geller 0-1 49 1980 Lone Pine B23 Sicilian, Closed 25. A Bisguier vs V Frias Pablaza   1-0 35 1980 Lone Pine D60 Queen's Gambit Declined, Orthodox Defense  page 1 of 8; games 1-25 of 191    REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2)   May-27-14    Bartacus: Dzindzihashvili won the tournament by unintentionally playing the Swiss Gambit; an early loss then winning his last 6 games! May-28-14    Shams: What was Browne so upset about, I wonder. May-28-14    perfidious: <Shams> No idea, but with Browne, it has always been something. We played in a blitz event once at Philadelphia and he was bent out of shape about one thing or another. Didn't seen to bother him too much after surviving a lost or nearly lost position to win on time. Always suspected he would have cried to the TD had he not won. May-28-14    HeMateMe: Two Russian nationals, a Russian defector and a Ukrainian defector here, as well as eastern Europeans who emigrated or defected, as well as a strong showing of native Americans. Quite a nice pot pouri, Lone Pine. A cute movie came out of one of the lone Pine events, too, featuring Karpov and Korchnoi. May-28-14    perfidious: <Bartacus> A feat Larsen had managed at Lone Pine (1978) by scoring 7.5/8 after coming in for the following defeat: Speelman vs Larsen, 1978. May-28-14    Howard: In the 1978 Lone Pine, Larsen dropped half a point to Poluguevsky while winning the other seven games--after his first-round loss to Speelman. Regarding Browne, I vaguely recall he lost on time to Wilder but disputed the time forfeiture---but I don't recall on what grounds. Kashdan (the tournament director...and not exactly one of Browne's favorite people) ruled against Browne, so the three-time U.S. champion (as of early 1980) packed up and withdrew. He and Kashdan had certainly had their disagreements before, with the most notable one being at the 1978 U.S. Championship---in which Browne walked out altogether. Interestingly enough, had Browne stayed in the tournament and completed it, he would have been the only (!) player to have competed in all ten of the Lone Pine events so far. And if not for his dispute with Kashdan, he almost certainly would have been at the 11th--and last--edition, in 1981. But, not surprisingly, he didn't bother to go to the 1981 one--certainly not as long as Kashdan was, once again, directing it. May-28-14    Strongest Force: I remember the great young masters like Joel, Fed and Wilder talking about this. I regret not meeting Speelman; me and my 'student who became a master and millionaire were playing blitz all night. We would have been joined by Speelman if I had my beeper. Remember those pre-cellphone days? May-28-14    Strongest Force: The 'Speelman miss' was eight years later. May-28-14    perfidious: <Howard: In the 1978 Lone Pine, Larsen dropped half a point to Poluguevsky while winning the other seven games--after his first-round loss to Speelman.> As stated above. Jul-08-14    Howard: A back issue of the Illinois Chess Bulletin from 1980 gives some details about the Browne-Wilder incident. It seems that the clock that the two players were using, was judged to be a bit faulty while the game was still in progress. When this was brought to Kashdan's attention, he approached the table with a different clock with the intention of replacing the alleged "defective" one with the one he had in his hand. But Browne strongly objected to this for some unknown reason, so Kashdan backed away. Browne though was rattled by the brief exchange of words between him and Kashdan, and he ended up blundering the game away. Apparently believing that Kashdan was partially to blame for the loss to Wilder, he then withdrew from the tournament. No doubt past differences between Kashdan and Browne had something to do with his decision. For one notable example, read what happened at the 1978 U.S. chess championship ! Jan-17-15    Caissanist: After the Browne-Wilder incident, one of the other participants was quoted as saying: "after many years of playing in Kashdan tournaments, I've learned that protests never work". May-30-15    zanzibar: Who can resist suggesting a rewording where one can get the word, heretofore in? <A sidelight was Browne's withdrawal <was> due to a bitter argument with TD Kashdan during round 5. It was made clear that he would not be welcomed back to future Statham tournaments, thus ending his streak of being the only player to participate in all the Lone Pine events.> Suggested edit: <A sidelight was Browne's withdrawal due to a bitter argument with TD Kashdan during round 5. It was made clear that he would not be welcomed back to future Statham tournaments, thus ending his streak of being the only player to heretofore participate in all the Lone Pine events.> Adding the "heretofore" isn't mandatory, but removing the "was" is. May-30-15    perfidious: <zanzibar> Most probably a stray from a sentence I rewrote here some weeks back. May-30-15    Benzol: <He and Kashdan had certainly had their disagreements before, with the most notable one being at the 1978 U.S. Championship---in which Browne walked out altogether.> What was the problem between them in the 1978 US Ch? May-30-15    Phony Benoni: <zanzibar> The double "was" occurs in my original collection, so it was my mistake. I would suggest this rewording for the second sentence: <It was made clear that Browne, who had been the only player to participate in all ten Statham tournaments, would not be welcomed back to Lone Pine in the future.> Sorry, but "heretofore" just doesn't do it for me. May-30-15    OhioChessFan: I was here earlier. Someone else had already addressed the extra "was". I cleaned up a few specks here and there. I agree that "heretofore" doesn't work. May-30-15    OhioChessFan: I still would like a Wiki modeled page for editing. I don't think I ever make mistakes, but in the rare event I did, I'd like to know it. The anonymous nature of editing now really doesn't seem best. I noticed someone undid a change I'd made a few minutes ago, one that I wasn't 100% confident of, and so it goes. However, I don't want to see that descend into a back and forth change battle. Anyone should be able to see the last person to edit a page. May-30-15    zanzibar: You guys just don't know a good fun word whereupon ye may happenstance one! As long as was is was-ted, I'm per-happy-chance. May-30-15    zanzibar: <Benzol> Here's a cursory explanation: https://books.google.com/books?id=h... There was some disagreement over "playing conditions". Tartajubow has much more, the issue was over "lighting conditions": http://tartajubow.blogspot.com/2012... May-30-15    Benzol: < zanzibar > Thanks. It seems that Browne is more Fischeresque than I imagined. :) May-31-15    zanzibar: Here's another Browne story, this time involving Kashdan and Sloan: http://anusha.com/sloanbrowne.htm (Beware, chrome complained about some unsupported plugin at anusha) Feb-18-18    thegoodanarchist: Browne was a grumpy gus, that's my impression. One time I had an exchange with him. I was playing in a tournament, World Open IIRC, in a lower section. During a bye or something, I was spectating in the open section. I was looking at a game next to Browne, and he was on the move. He stopped thinking to ask me "are you playing in this section?" No, I said. "Then you need to leave" he said (or something along those lines). Not wanting to have a dispute with a GM, with the of risk tournament expulsion, I left. (I paid a large amount of money to enter that tournament, but I know who the TD would side with!) Feb-18-18    Howard: Sorry about your "dispute" with Browne. Personally, I just would have walked away just a few steps to get out of his vision range. If HE wanted to call the TD over, that'd be his decision. Feb-18-18    morfishine: <thegoodanarchist> Sorry bout that encounter with Browne. Personally, I would've gone and asked the TD if Browne was in-line. I doubt Browne was making the rules ***** NOTE: Create an account today to post replies and access other powerful features which are available only to registered users. Becoming a member is free, anonymous, and takes less than 1 minute! If you already have a username, then simply login login under your username now to join the discussion. Please observe our posting guidelines: No obscene, racist, sexist, or profane language. No spamming, advertising, duplicate, or gibberish posts. No vitriolic or systematic personal attacks against other members. Nothing in violation of United States law. No cyberstalking or malicious posting of negative or private information (doxing/doxxing) of members. 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