Rubinstein Memorial 1984

◈The 22nd memorial

Polanica-Zdrój had honored Akiba Rubinstein with an annual memorial tournament since 1963, and the 1984 edition assembled sixteen players in a fifteen-round round-robin. The Soviet delegation was formidable — the experienced Ukrainian grandmaster Gennady Kuzmin, the young Odessa master Vereslav Eingorn, the Georgians Gennadi Zaichik and Maia Chiburdanidze — alongside Hungary's Péter Lukács, Czechoslovakia's Karel Mokrý, West Germany's Stefan Kindermann, and a large Polish contingent led by Marek Hawełko.

◈Zaichik's solid march

Zaichik, born in Tbilisi in 1957, played the event in a solid positional style, scoring seven wins and eight draws without a loss — and defeating every Polish participant except Krzysztof Pytel. His 11/15 edged Kuzmin by half a point, with Chiburdanidze third on 10 and Eingorn fourth on 9½. The Rubinstein Memorial victory came in the year of his grandmaster title, and he later shared first with the young Viswanathan Anand at Coimbatore 1987 and, after emigrating, tied for first at the 2002 U.S. Open.

Marek Hawełko produced the best Polish result with 8/15 — a combative score built on seven wins, including several sharp miniatures, against six losses.

◈Chiburdanidze among the men

Maia Chiburdanidze had taken the women's world title from Nona Gaprindashvili in 1978 at just seventeen, and through the 1980s she tested herself extensively in men's tournaments around the world. Polanica-Zdrój 1984 was a strong example: third place on 10/15, ahead of a dozen male grandmasters and masters, with six wins against a single loss. She would hold the women's crown until 1991.