Reggio Emilia 1977/78

The twentieth Torneo di Capodanno came down to a duel of styles: Hungary's László Kovács won seven games — and lost one — to score 8½/11, while the field's lone grandmaster, the 55-year-old Soviet endgame authority Yuri Averbakh, went through the tournament unbeaten yet finished a point behind on 7½.

◇The twentieth New Year tournament

By its twentieth edition, Enrico Paoli's New Year tournament, begun in 1958 and traditionally running from just after Christmas to Epiphany, was Italy's oldest and best-known chess event. The 1977/78 field of twelve had one grandmaster, seven international masters and three FIDE masters: alongside Kovács and Averbakh were the American IM Edward Formanek, Sweden's Christer Niklasson, France's Aldo Haïk, Switzerland's Heinz Wirthensohn and a home group led by Giorgio Coppini and Pierluigi Passerotti.

Kovács was a Capodanno veteran himself — he had finished fourth at the 1971/72 edition won by Andrew Soltis — and this time he returned to take the title outright.

◇Fighting chess beats solidity

The winner's card read seven wins, one loss, three draws: 8½ points. Averbakh, Soviet champion in 1954 and one of the world's great endgame theoreticians, was the only player to get through all eleven rounds without a defeat, but four wins and seven draws left him second on 7½. Formanek took clear third on 7, ahead of Niklasson on 6½ and Coppini, best of the Italians, on 6.

Haïk, Passerotti, and Wirthensohn shared sixth on 5½. As a title defense Kovács' triumph proved short-lived — he returned the following winter and could not win a single game — but the 1977/78 scoreboard was his, a full point clear, on the strength of the tournament's most combative chess.