Wijk aan Zee 1976 (Hoogovens)

Twelve masters gathered in the North Sea steel village of Wijk aan Zee for the annual Hoogovens grandmaster tournament. Ljubomir Ljubojević set the pace with three wins from the gun and led for most of the event, but a late charge by Iceland's Fridrik Ólafsson — two wins to close — pulled him level. The pair shared first on 7½/11, a point clear of Mikhail Tal and Bojan Kurajica.

◇The Hoogovens grandmaster group

By 1976 the Hoogovens tournament — named for the steelworks that hosted it and staged each January in the seaside town of Wijk aan Zee — had become a fixture of the winter chess calendar. The top group was a single round-robin of twelve players, eleven rounds and sixty-six games in all.

The field mixed established grandmasters with rising talent: Ljubomir Ljubojević of Yugoslavia and the former world-title Candidate Mihail Tal headed the seedings, alongside Jan Smejkal, Walter Browne, Ulf Andersson, Bojan Kurajica, Fridrik Ólafsson, and the Dutch contingent of Hans Ree, Kick Langeweg, Gennadi Sosonko and Hans Böhm, with Mark Dvoretzky completing the group.

◇Ljubojević leads, Ólafsson closes

Ljubojević made the best start of anyone, beating Dvoretzky, Böhm and Andersson in the first three rounds. He then drew with Ólafsson, ground out a 133-move endgame win over Browne, and looked set to run away with the event before losing to Kurajica. Tal, after a scratchy opening with draws and a loss, recovered with a pair of wins, and after seven rounds Ljubojević and Kurajica shared the lead on 5.

The tournament turned on the finish. In the closing rounds Ljubojević conceded two more draws while Ólafsson won both of his games and caught the Yugoslav on 7½. Tal and Kurajica took third and fourth on 6½. It was a characteristically resilient result for Ólafsson, then in the veteran phase of a career that had already carried him to the Candidates.

“Fridrik Olafsson and Ljubomir Ljubojevic shared first place in the tournament.”