The 23rd

Chess Olympiad The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 an ...

( es, La 23^a Olimpíada de ajedrez), organized by

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

and comprising an openAlthough commonly referred to as the ''men's division'', this section is open to both male and female players. and a women's tournament, as well as several other events designed to promote the game of

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

, took place between October 25 and November 12, 1978, in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

. After the boycott two years earlier, the Eastern Bloc countries were back, including the Soviet team who, as usual, were huge favourites——but in the end they had to settle for the silver medal. Hungary, led by

Lajos Portisch Lajos Portisch (born 4 April 1937) is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster, whose positional style earned him the nickname, the "Hungarian Botvinnik". One of the strongest non-Soviet players from the early 1960s into the late 1980s, he participated ...

, caused quite an upset by taking the gold medals by a full point. The United States took the bronze. This tournament also witnessed the debut of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

, which placed 20th with six untitled players, and later became a chess power and won the Chess Olympiad in

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and

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Open event

Sixty-five nations played a 14-round

Swiss system tournament A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the othe ...

. To make for an even number of teams, the Argentine hosts also fielded a "B" team. In the event of a draw, the tie-break was decided first by using the

Buchholz system The Buchholz system (also spelled Buchholtz) is a ranking or scoring system in chess developed by Bruno Buchholz (died ca. 1958) in 1932, for Swiss system tournaments . It was originally developed as an auxiliary scoring method, but more recentl ...

, then by match points. :

Team standing

The following ratings were used to determine the placement (#). * BP (sum of board points) * TP (sum of team points) :

Individual medals

* Board 1:

Viktor Korchnoi Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ( rus, Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, p=vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. H ...

9/11 = 81.8% * Board 2: Adam Kuligowski 10/13 = 76.9% * Board 3:

Georgi Tringov Georgi Petrov Tringov ( bg, Георги Пеев Трингов) (7 March 1937 – 2 July 2000) was a Grandmaster of chess from Bulgaria. He won the Bulgarian national chess championship in 1963, the year he was awarded the Grandmaster title, ...

8½/11 = 77.3% * Board 4: Glenn Bordonada 7/9 = 77.8% * 1st reserve:

James Tarjan James Edward Tarjan (born February 22, 1952 in Pomona, California) is an American chess Grandmaster. Tarjan was 17 when he was selected to the American team for the 1969 World Students' Olympiad, at Dresden. He was a member of the winning America ...

9½/11 = 86.4% * 2nd reserve:

John Turner John Napier Wyndham Turner (June 7, 1929September 19, 2020) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 17th prime minister of Canada from June to September 1984. He served as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and leader of t ...

6½/7 = 92.9%

Women's event

Thirty-two nations took part in the women's Olympiad. From four preliminary groups the teams were split into four finals. In the event of a draw, the tie-break was decided first by match points, then by using the Sonneborn-Berger system. The Soviet team was back, and led by newly crowned world champion Chiburdanidze they secured the gold medals in a superior display, as well as all four individual board prizes. On the reserve board, Akhmilovskaya won all of her ten games, the only perfect score in Olympiad history. Hungary and West Germany took silver and bronze, respectively.

Preliminaries

* Group 1: * Group 2: * Group 3: * Group 4:

Finals

: : : :

Final «A»

Final «B»

Final «C»

Final «D»

Individual medals

* Board 1:

Maia Chiburdanidze Maia Chiburdanidze ( ka, მაია ჩიბურდანიძე; born 17 January 1961) is a Georgian chess Grandmaster. She is the sixth Women's World Chess Champion, a title she held from 1978 to 1991, and was the youngest one until 2 ...

9/11 = 81.8% * Board 2:

Nona Gaprindashvili Nona Gaprindashvili ( ka, ნონა გაფრინდაშვილი; born 3 May 1941) is a former Soviet and Georgian chess player, and the first woman ever to be awarded the FIDE title Grandmaster in 1978. She was the fifth women's ...

9½/11 = 86.4% * Board 3:

Nana Alexandria Nana Alexandria ( ka, ნანა გიორგის ასული ალექსანდრია, ''Nana Giorgis asuli Aleksandria''; born 13 October 1949) is a Georgian chess player. A three-time Soviet women's champion, she was the c ...

8/10 = 80% * Reserve:

Elena Akhmilovskaya Elena Donaldson-Akhmilovskaya (born ''Elena Bronislavovna Akhmilovskaya'', russian: Елена Брониславовна Ахмыловская; 11 March 1957 – 18 November 2012) was a Soviet-born American chess player. She was awarded t ...

10/10 = 100%

References

23rd Chess Olympiad: Buenos Aires 1978
OlimpBase {{Chess Olympiads 23 Women's Chess Olympiads Olympiad 23 Chess Olympiad 23 Olympiad 23 Chess Olympiad 23 1970s in Buenos Aires International chess competitions hosted by Argentina October 1978 sports events in South America November 1978 sports events in South America