Las Palmas 1973

◇Sixteen players on Gran Canaria

The second edition of the Ciudad de Las Palmas tournament gathered sixteen players at the Hotel Santa Catalina for a single round-robin of 120 games, played from 2 to 21 April 1973 with five rest days built into the schedule. The field mixed Soviet strength — Stein, Petrosian, and the young Ljubomir Ljubojević — with a strong European and American contingent: Vlastimil Hort, Florin Gheorghiu, Lubomir Kavalek, Ulf Andersson, Zoltán Ribli, Oscar Panno, and a home group led by Spain's Ricardo Calvo and Jesús Díez del Corral.

It was a tournament of fine margins throughout. Nine players finished within two and a half points of the lead, and the destination of first prize was not settled until the final round.

◇A tie at the top

Stein and Petrosian went through the fifteen rounds locked together, both finishing on 9½ points; Stein took first prize on Sonneborn-Berger tiebreak. Andersson and Ribli shared third on 9, with Hort and Panno a half-point back. It was a good tournament for the next generation too: Ribli earned his second grandmaster norm, and Ricardo Calvo picked up his first international master norm along with the event's brilliancy prize for his win over Kavalek.

For Petrosian, a former World Champion still among the strongest players alive, sharing the top spot with the Soviet Union's reigning three-time champion was a thoroughly creditable result in a deep field.

◇An ending no one saw coming

Leonid Stein was one of the finest attacking players never to hold the world title, a three-time Soviet Champion whose combinations were admired everywhere. No one knew it then, but Las Palmas 1973 was the last tournament of his career: he died of a heart attack on July 4, 1973, at thirty-eight, while traveling to play in the European Team Championship. The shared first place on Gran Canaria was his last result.