CHESS Lubomir Kavalek

Imagine one particular opening novelty being discovered independently, almost at the same time, in two different parts of the world more than 40 years ago.

Was it a remarkable coincidence or an attempt to steal an idea created in the Closed Sicilian on move 3? Jeroen Bosch and his Dutch friends, preparing the fifth volume of "Secrets of Opening Surprises," were not sure and began to ask around.

They discovered that Duncan Suttles played this variation in June 1965 at the Canadian championship and thought that he was the inventor. They also found out that Michael Janata and I played the line one month later at the Student Olympiad in Sinaia, Romania.

Because news about new chess ideas was not traveling as fast as it does today, the Dutchmen assumed that we worked it out separately, but Suttles beat us by a month. We knew differently.

The Vinohrady Variation

The spiritual father of the variation was Jaromir Kubicek, a romantic player with a passion for the King's and other gambits and for various unusual openings. He was also a member of our school team, on which Janata was the leading player. Together we won several school championships in Prague. Janata became an exceptional player, sharing first place at the 1963 World Junior championship with Florin Gheorghiu of Romania.

At the 1965 Student Olympiad in Sinaia, Janata and I decided to introduce Kubicek's variation to the international scene.

We played it on the same day in the match against Sweden and it caused a huge stir in the tournament hall.

The Soviet captain, grandmaster Alexander Konstantinopolsky, later called it "the Czech Double-Punch."

We named the line "the Vinohrady variation," after a district in Prague where we went to school. Here is my game from Sinaia against Jan-Erik Westman.

Kavalek-Westman