ICCF Game of The Month - February 2000

This month we showcase a game by Kari Tikkanen, the winner of the John F. Cleeve Memorial Tournament.  This tournament was organized by the Canadian Correspondence Chess Association (CCCA) in memory of John Cleeve, one of its leading members and organizers who for many years dedicated much time and effort to further Correspondence Chess in Canada, NAPZ, and ICCF.   

Kari Tikkanen is 43 years old, married, and has three sons.  By profession he is a general practice physician at a health center in Iisalmi, a town of 23,000 inhabitants in the middle of Finland where he lives. Kari learned the moves of chess in '71 and began correspondence chess the same year. Clearly he was serious about chess!  Just four years later he won the OTB Finnish Junior chess championship, and in '85  became Correspondence Chess Champion of Finland. Other successes in CC followed.  He received the IM title in '94 through the Heitmann Memorial tournament, and the GM title in '99 for his excellent performance in the John Cleeve Memorial.

Like many chessplayers whose professions demand much time, Kari has primarily stayed with postal chess and plays in OTB tournaments only once or twice a year. But even during these brief excursions OTB, he has managed to gather the national and FIDE master titles. He has played in the Finnish League since '85 for the team Kuopion Shakinystävät (KSY: translation is Chess Friends of Kuopio).  The KSY team has won four silver medals and one bronze medal since that time, but the Finnish championship has still eluded them. There is always next year! 

Kari describes his performance quite modestly "I did lose one game to Dr. Nimtz, who took second place, after a dubious theoretical novelty on the black side of a Caro-Kann defence, but only because my opponent found a most profound refutation. ..... Otherwise the tournament went very smoothly for me". 

Kari Tikkanen's win over Dr. Klaus Engel contains a very instructive theme. A double edged position is reached where White has a lead in development and is rapidly building pressure on the f-file, while Black tries to block the f-file and take advantage of White's weak squares on the e-file. At a critical time, Black slips slightly and allows White to open the position with the thematic Knight offer 18.Nfg5!  Attempts to block the lines of attack are to no avail, as White opens the way for his remaining pieces with the clearing sacrifice 21.Rxf5!  A well played game by the winner. (Annotations are by Kari Tikkanen; my comments are noted with VVP).

This article originally appeared at the Official ICCF Website.