Raymond Keene

Miles gloriosus

issue 10 August 2013

England’s leading female player, Jovanka Houska, recently called for a memorial to the late Tony Miles. The timing is fitting. Miles won the British championship in 1982 and the centenary British Championship concludes this weekend in Torquay, the scene of Miles’s victory.
 
The year after he won the championship, Miles also triumphed in the BBC Mastergame series, defeating the then world champion Karpov in the final. Mastergame is usually regarded as the gold standard for presentation of chess on television. Sadly, however, due to a BBC technicians’ strike, the 1983 series featuring this superb win by Miles was screened in Germany, but not in the UK. Here, then, is Miles’s win against Karpov, which never saw the light of UK television screens.
 
Karpov-Miles: TV Cup Final, Bath 1983; Caro-Kann Defence
 
1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nd2 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Nf6 The Caro-Kann has a peaceful reputation, but Black’s last move can spice things up.





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