Tunis 1985 Interzonal

Incomplete record. This archive holds 147 of the 148 games played; 1 is missing.

The second of the three 1985 Interzonals was played on the Tunisian coast at Gammarth. Artur Yusupov came through a strong field unbeaten to win, and three of the four Candidates places were settled at the board — but the last one had to be decided by a separate play-off in Moscow between Alexander Chernin and Viktor Gavrikov.

◇Interzonal on the Tunisian coast

Eighteen players assembled at the Cap Carthage Méditerranée Hotel in Gammarth, just north of Tunis, for one of the three 1985 Interzonals. As at Taxco and Biel, the four leading finishers would qualify for the Candidates stage of the world-championship cycle.

The line-up was formidable — Yusupov, Alexander Beliavsky, Lajos Portisch, Vlastimil Hort, Gennadi Sosonko, Tony Miles, Predrag Nikolić and the young Americans Maxim Dlugy and Nick de Firmian among them.

◇Yusupov first, unbeaten

Artur Yusupov won the tournament outright and without defeat, scoring 11½/16 from seven wins and nine draws. Beliavsky followed on 11 and Portisch on 10; those three qualified directly. Behind them, Chernin and Gavrikov finished level on 9½, tied for the crucial fourth qualifying place.

Slim Bouaziz, a FIDE appointee, withdrew after six rounds, and his results were annulled from the other players' totals in the official table.

◇The Moscow play-off

With Chernin and Gavrikov unable to be separated on the board, the fourth Candidates place went to a play-off held later in Moscow. Chernin won the mini-match 3½–2½ to claim it, completing a qualifying quartet of Yusupov, Beliavsky, Portisch and Chernin.

Those six play-off games are preserved in this archive alongside the round-robin, so Chernin and Gavrikov each appear in the cross-table with more games than the rest of the field. Read against the official Interzonal, the round-robin standings are the ones that decided qualification, with the Moscow match settling only fourth place.