Wijk aan Zee 1975 (Hoogovens)

◇A Category XII field

By 1975 the Hoogovens grandmaster group, sponsored by the Dutch steel concern Koninklijke Hoogovens and played each January at Wijk aan Zee, had grown into a genuine international elite event — a Category XII single round-robin of sixteen players, fifteen rounds and 120 games. Nine grandmasters and seven masters took part in the prestigious A group.

The field, in rating order, ran Lajos Portisch, Robert Hübner, Efim Geller, Vlastimil Hort, Jan Smejkal, Svetozar Gligorić, Semyon Furman, Lubomir Kavalek, Walter Browne and Jan Timman among the visitors, with Jan Hein Donner, Hans Ree, Genna Sosonko, Luben Popov, Frans Kuijpers and Kick Langeweg completing the sixteen.

◇A win without a loss

Portisch, the great Hungarian grandmaster whose deep classical preparation earned him the nickname of the Hungarian Botvinnik, played the tournament of a favourite. He won six games, drew nine and lost none, finishing on 10½/15 — half a point clear of the whole field.

The title continued a long association between Portisch and the North Sea tournament: he had already won at Beverwijk in 1965 and shared first at Wijk aan Zee in 1972, and he would return to win again in 1978.

◇Hort, Smejkal and the pack

Czechoslovakia supplied the next two places: Vlastimil Hort took clear second on 10 with six wins and a single loss, and Jan Smejkal third on 9½. Lubomir Kavalek was fourth on 9, also unbeaten, and a three-way tie on 8½ — Sosonko, Hübner and Gligorić — headed a tightly bunched middle of the table in which only two points separated fifth from eleventh.