Karpov-Spassky, Montreal 1979
Ten world-class Grandmasters met in Montreal in 1979 for a double round-robin tournament dubbed the “Tournament of the Stars.” Together with the experienced Tal, Spassky, Larsen and Portish the field of participants also featured the new generation of strong players like Karpov, Timman and Ljuboevic. The shared victors of this superb competition were Anatoly Karpov and Mikhail Tal.
In his best years, Karpov had a fine positional feeling and was a master of finding the optimal squares for his pieces. In the presented game Karpov-Spassky, the reigning World Champion showed a highly effective method of fighting against an isolated queen pawn in the middlegame. Typically for his style Karpov used small tactical tricks to exchange the "right" pieces for White and gradually annihilate any active counterplay from Black. Spassky was forced into complete passivity, and after optimally improving his position, Karpov started the decisive actions to win a perfectly conducted game.