Champion Of Champions (part seven)

HERE is the tournament bracket after six matches.

Round of 16               Quarter-Finals
1. Steinitz
v----------------------------Carlsen
16. Carlsen (+102.5)

8.Tal (+8.5)
v----------------------------Tal
9.Petrosian

6. Botvinnik (+66)
v----------------------------Botvinnik
11. Fischer

13. Kasparov
v----------------------------Alekhine
4. Alekhine (+21.5)

3. Capablanca
v----------------------------Kramnik
14. Kramnik (+12)

5. Euwe
v----------------------------Karpov
12. Karpov (+11.5)

7. Smyslov
v--------------------------
10. Spassky

15. Anand
v--------------------------
2. Lasker

Round of 16

Match Seven: Smyslov v Spassky

Game One

Vasily Smyslov - Boris Spassky

Spanish Closed

1.e4

Preferred by Smyslov over 1.d4 in ChessBase's 2020 Mega database by 454 games to 425.

1...e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7

Spassky did not highly rate the Open Variation: 5...Nxe4.

6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 Nb8

As far as we can get as Smyslov, somewhat surprisingly, did not face Breyer's System

Stockfish11 and Komodo11.01 give Smyslov an averaged advantage of +57, which will be hard to overturn.

Game Two

Boris Spassky - Vasily Smyslov

Spanish Closed

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0

Another heavyweight Spanish, and this time Black leaves open the possibility of playing the Marshall Attack ...

8.c3 d6

... but there are no Smyslov games with 8...d5.

9.h3 Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 Qc7 12.Nbd2 Nc6 13.d5 Nd8 14.Nf1

Spassky reached the position after 13...Nd8 three times as White, winning with the text but drawing with 14.a4 and 14.c4, so the text is chosen on tiebreak. It turns out not to have been faced by Symslov.

The deepest into a 'game' we have reached in the tournament before running out of played moves for one champion

The engines give Spassky an averaged advantage of +39 - good, but not enough to overturn Smyslov's advantage from game one.

Here is the updated bracket after seven matches.

Round of 16               Quarter-Finals
1. Steinitz
v----------------------------Carlsen
16. Carlsen (+102.5)

8.Tal (+8.5)
v----------------------------Tal
9.Petrosian

6. Botvinnik (+66)
v----------------------------Botvinnik
11. Fischer

13. Kasparov
v----------------------------Alekhine
4. Alekhine (+21.5)

3. Capablanca
v----------------------------Kramnik
14. Kramnik (+12)

5. Euwe
v----------------------------Karpov
12. Karpov (+11.5)

7. Smyslov (+18)
v----------------------------Smyslov
10. Spassky

15. Anand
v--------------------------
2. Lasker