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Chess With Sam Laird 07 Feb 1962, Wed Courier-Post (Camden, New Jersey) Newspapers.com
Courier-Post Camden, New Jersey Wednesday, February 07, 1962 - Page 4
Fischer and Filip Tied In World Tournament
After six rounds of play in the world interzonal chess tournament at Stockholm, America's Bobby Fischer and Czechoslovakia's Miroslav Filip were tied for the lead with scores of 5-1 each. All of their rivals in the field of 23 had at least 1½ losing points.
Fischer had lost no games but could do no better than draw with teammate Pal Benko of New York and Rudolph Teschner of East Germany. He defeated four other opponents.
The 19-year-old former American champion seems almost a sure bet to finish among the first six at Stockholm. They will advance to the candidates' tournament, scheduled at Curacao this spring. The winner of this one will qualify to play Mikhail Botvinnik, the world's champion, for his title.
Famous grandmasters who were not doing too well in the early rounds at Stockholm include Tigran Petrosian, Victor Korchnoi and Ewfim Geller of the Soviet Union, Svetozar Gligoric of Yugoslavia, and Arthur Bisguier of the United States.
Chess stars, for the most part, have the reputation of being egocentrics, not to say eccentrics. Ralph Ginzburg's January Harper's Magazine certainly will do nothing to dispel this belief. However, it is one of the most striking word pictures of a chess personality we have read in a long time. Whether the picture is distorted in other ways may be debatable, but there is little doubt it is accurate in portraying Bobby's complete devotion to chess and in predicting that he will ultimately reach heights that no champion before him has attained.
