One hundred and seven teams take part at the
Chess Olympiad, held at
Novi Sad. The USSR win by a good margin, with 39/56. The USA and England share second place on 35½/56, with the USA taking silver medals on tie-break. The best individual rating performances come from
Robert Hübner (gold),
Murray Chandler (silver) and Vassily Ivanchuk (bronze). The Women's Olympiad is won by Hungary, on tie-break from the USSR (both 35/42), with China taking bronze on 29/42. The Polgar family are multiple medal winners, each sister taking gold for her respective board, along with a haul of team and performance rating medals.
Ketevan Arakhamia earns a gold medal for her perfect 12/12 score as first reserve for the USSR.
Charismatic Grandmaster
Guillermo Garcia Gonzales of Cuba is killed in a car accident in
Havana, while preparing to take part in the Olympiad.
Kasparov wins a training match against
Lev Psakhis +4, -0, =2 in
Murcia, Spain.
A 'Chess Summit', held in
Reykjavík, comprises four teams of ten players. The USSR wins (31½/60) ahead of England (31/60), USA (30/60) and a combined 'Nordic countries' team (27½/60). England records its first ever match victory over the Soviet team with a 6-4 result.
Karpov wins a game against
Deep Thought at
Harvard. The program, created by scientists at
Carnegie-Mellon University, is remotely attached to an
IBM Mainframe, enabling it to examine 750,000 positions per second.
Seirawan defeats Timman 4-2 in the annual KRO Exhibition Match, held in
Hilversum. This is one in a novel series of matches in which Timman is pitted against his contemporary grandmaster rivals.
The
World Youth Chess Festival for Peace caters for the younger children at
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Although there are categories for girls, Hungarian child prodigy
Judit Polgár enters and wins the Boys Under-14 section. This repeats her (Under-12) achievement at
Timișoara in 1988.
Boris Avrukh of the Soviet Union wins the Boys Under-12 category.