IBM Amsterdam 1974

◈The IBM tournament

From 1961 to 1981 the IBM Corporation sponsored a series of strong international tournaments in Amsterdam, part of the company's wider interest in chess and computer programming. Over its two decades the main group drew many of the world's best players, and its roll of winners came to include five world champions.

By 1974 the festival had grown to run parallel sections, but the top group remained an all-grandmaster affair — one of the strongest events of the year, alongside contemporaries such as Manila and Montilla.

◈A three-way finish

Sixteen titled players contested the 1974 main group as a single round-robin of fifteen rounds. Efim Geller was the top seed, in a field that also included Zoltán Ribli, István Csom, Albin Planinc, Dragoljub Velimirović, the veteran Dutchman Jan Hein Donner and a young Jan Timman.

The race was decided only at the close. Borislav Ivkov, Vlastimil Jansa and Vladimir Tukmakov all finished on 10/15 to share first place, with Ivkov awarded the trophy on tie-break. Ribli took clear fourth on 9, and Hans Ree was fifth on 8½.

◈Jansa's grandmaster year

The result came in a landmark year for Vlastimil Jansa, who was awarded the grandmaster title in 1974 — a rarer distinction then, with fewer than 150 living grandmasters in the world. For Ivkov, a former World Junior Champion and multiple Yugoslav champion, the shared win was one more strong result in a long international career.