Sunday Gazette-Mail Charleston, West Virginia Sunday, October 21, 1962 - Page 39
Speaking of Chess 21 Oct 1962, Sun Sunday Gazette-Mail (Charleston, West Virginia) Newspapers.com
Plan Eliminates USSR Collusion
An important change in the method of selecting the official challenger of the world chess champion has been voted by the FIDE, the international chess governing body.
The procedure in effect through the recent challengers tournament at Curacao, Dutch West Indies, gave the winner of that event the right to a match with the world title-holder. The new plan still qualifies candidates as before, but from now on the final eight contestants will play a series of individual matches, with winner then qualifying as the official challenger.
This new plan for determining who will challenge the world champion will probably eliminate the possibilities for collusion which the Russians have been charged with practicing in order to guarantee that the challenger for the title held by a Soviet master will be another Soviet master! Such collusion — and the evidence thereof is abundant — could insure a continuance of Russian dominance of the world chess championship so long as the champion did not risk his crown in any match other than the one with the duly qualified challenger.
Bobby Fischer openly charged collusion at Curacao and declared that he — would never again play in one of those tourneys.
Years before, Samuel Reshevsky was convinced that it was futile to try to best the Soviet “team effort”At Curacao, the three top finalists were all USSR representatives and they drew all of their games with each other, a total of 12 games, most of which were completed in less than 30 moves. If the draws were pre-arranged, it would have permitted the three Soviet players to take their “contests” in stride without the expenditure of any undue effort, saving their strength for their other opponents, who would not have the benefit of all these breathers.
The top three finalists were Petrosian, Keres and Geller. There were two other USSR masters in the Curacao event, Tal and Korchnoi. However, it was open season (evidently) on Tal from the start and on Korchnoi during the final half.
Incidentally, the British magazine, CHESS, referred to a Fischer interview at Curacao and seemed to support Bobby's charge of collusion. CHESS REVIEW said that Fischer's article in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED on the subject “was brash and may have gone too far. But, perhaps, it was well for someone to speak out bluntly.”
