The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles, California Sunday, April 22, 1962 - Page 78
Fischer, Tal Rivals In Curacao Tourney 22 Apr 1962, Sun The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California) Newspapers.com
Fischer, Tal Rivals In Curacao Tourney
The Candidates' Tournament to determine a challenger for the world chess championship will get under way Wednesday, May 2, at the Hotel Intercontinental in Curacao, Netherlands, Antilles.
American hopes will rest mainly with Bobby Fischer, brilliant 19-year-old grandmaster from Brooklyn, making his first appearance since his overwhelming victory in the Stockholm Interzonal Tournament.
Fischer's chief opponent, and favorite to win the tournament, is Mikhail Tal of Latvia, who won the world championship in a match with Mikhail Botvinnik of Moscow in 1960, then lost a return match last year.
In the previous candidates' tournament in Yugoslavia in 1959 Tal took first place with a score of 20-8, while Fischer tied for fifth with 12½-15½. In their individual encounters Tal scored 4-0.
But only the foolhardy or prejudiced would predict anything remotely similar this time. Fischer's improvement in the last three years has been dramatic. In their most recent joint tournament, in Bled, Yugoslavia, last year, Fischer defeated Tal in a beautiful game.
The second American representative in Curacao will be Pal Benko of New York, who qualified through a playoff match after tying for sixth place in Stockholm.
The majority of the eight players will be from the Soviet Union. In addition to Tal they will have Paul Keres, Ewfim Geller, Tigran Petrosian and Victor Korchnoi. The final qualifier is Dr. Miroslav Filip of Czechoslovakia.
The tournament will be a quadruple round-robin for a total of 28 rounds. Played at an average rate of four games a week, it will go on until June 28, when the last adjourned game is scheduled to be completed and the closing banquet will be held.
