The Guardian London, Greater London, England Tuesday, March 06, 1962 - Page 5
18-year-old beats grandmasters for chess prize 06 Mar 1962, Tue The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
18 Year Old Beats Grandmasters For Chess Prize
Stockholm, Monday.
Bobby Fischer, the American champion, who is not yet 19 years old, has won the inter-zonal chess tournament at Stockholm with two and a half up and two to play—a victory the extent of which has surprised all the experts and will give the Russians furiously to think.
This is the first major tournament since the war in which none of the competing Russian grandmasters has carried off first prize, and even if it is admitted that most of their representatives, with the possible exception of Korchnoi, played merely in order to qualify for the Candidates' Tournament, whereas the American played to win. Fischer's achievement in scoring by so decisive a margin may mean a virtual revolution in world chess.
The second important feature of last week's play has been the steady advance of Leonid Stein, least favored of the four Russian players, who a few rounds ago seemed hopelessly placed in view of the fact that only three Russians are eligible for qualification. In the last eight rounds he score 6½ points (surpassing even Fischer's score during this period), and he may well deprive Korchnoi, pre-tournament favorite, of the ticket to Curaçao, where the Candidates' Tournament will be held.
The leading scores, with one round to go and a number of important adjourned games to be cleared off, are as follows:
