ANew York Times, New York, New York, Monday, April 16, 1962 - Page 26
Chess: Byrne's Defeat of Smyslov Shows Resurgence of U.S.
It is a matter of record, though long forgotten, that the United States was the leading chess nation in the Thirties. Four world team championships in a row—Prague, 1931; Folkestone, 1933; Warsaw, 1935, and Stockholm, 1937 — added to the incredible feats of Reuben Fine and Samuel Reshevsky in finishing at or near the top of every important chess tournament.
After World War II the Soviet Union dominated the field, and one of its mainstays was Vassily Smyslov, a chess titan who has garnered all sorts of titles including the world championship. To the Americans, particularly, he was a tartar in that they never won a game from him in many, many tries.
The pendulum, however, is beginning to swing the other way. Little by little the Americans are making inroads as witness, for example, the United States victory in the world students team tournament not long ago, and Bobby Fischer's perpendicular rise to fame.
Smyslov Loses Gamble
Now comes Donald Byrne, the former United States Open Champion and presently a teacher at Pennsylvania State University. He ranked Symslov over the board in the recently ended Twenty-fifth International Chess Tournament of Argentina held at Mar del Plata.
Their game began as an English Opening. By introducing an unusual sequence of moves, Smyslov undoubtedly gambled on his opponent's not seeing the most exact refutation. In this, however, he was mistaken. Byrne occupied the center and followed through with a decisive break.
As early as move 4, Smyslov provoked an attack on his knight by an adverse pawn, with a loss of time. His idea was to create an unfavorable pawn structure for his opponent in the end game. The game never reached an end game. It may be said in passing that this style of play would have seemed too tortuous to the American classicists Morphy, Pillsbury and Marshall, who preferred an active, open development.
On move 20, Byrne began a sacrifice of two rooks for the queen. The uninitiated might consider this a gain rather than a loss of material. But, according to the table of relative values of the chessmen, using a pawn as a unit of one, a rook has the value of five, and a queen nine. Hence, this exchange was tantamount to giving up a pawn. Byrne's compensation was the awkward disposition of the enemy's minor men.
