Las Palmas 1980

◈The ninth edition

For its ninth edition the Gran Torneo Internacional gathered twelve players for a single round-robin of 66 games. Beside the eventual winners came the Soviet-born Dutch grandmaster Genna Sosonko and Sweden's Ulf Andersson, with the field completed by a Spanish and Cuban contingent: Spain's Juan Manuel Bellón López, the Cuban grandmaster Román Hernández Onna — who had shared fourth place here with Tal and Browne in 1977 — his compatriot Guillermo García González, and a group of local Canarian and Spanish masters.

◈Three winners, none beaten

Geller, Petrosian and Miles finished level on 8½ from 11, each with six wins and five draws and not a single loss between them. Sosonko and Andersson followed on 7, with Bellón López the best of the Spaniards on 6.

For each winner the result carried its own meaning. Geller, who had taken clear first at Las Palmas 1976 and won his second Soviet Championship at Minsk in 1979 at the age of 54 — the oldest Soviet champion ever — showed his late-career strength was no accident. Petrosian, world champion from 1963 to 1969, repeated his shared Las Palmas victory of 1973. And Miles, Britain's first home-grown over-the-board grandmaster, added another elite shared first to a rising international career.