Mark Lyell - Vojtech Plat , Groningen 2011
Quite a game.
Right from the off Black was intent on complicating it.
Groningen.
There must be something in the water there. Groningen tournaments produce
some fantastic games. They should hold a full World Championship match there.
Milan Vidmar.
If you look at the line up for the first Groningen tournament in 1946.
Botvinnik, Euwe, Smyslov, Najdorf, Szabó, Boleslavsky, Flohr, Lundin,
Stoltz, Denker, Kotov, Tartakower....
If one of the above players published his best games you will usually find
their win v Vidmar from Groningen 1946 in it.
Milan Vidmar was getting on a bit then so you would hardly expect him to hold
his own against this younger generation. But even so the players had to
play at their intructive best to beat him.
The exception I know off being Najdorf who drew with Vidmar.
Of course it was at Groningen in 1946 that Najdorf beat Botvinnik thus in effect,
due to Soviet intervention, barring him from taking Fine' s place in the 1948
tournament to find the World Champion after Alkehine death in 1946.
Botvinnik, though he is reported to have disliked Najdorf, ('hated' is the word Najdorf uses.)
had nothing to do with the selection of the players who took part in the 1948
tournament. The full behind the scenes manipulation may never become fully known.