1962 in chess
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Events in chess in 1962:
- March 8 – 5th Interzonal Tournament at Stockholm won by Bobby Fischer (USA) with 17.5/22. Tigran Petrosian (USSR) and Efim Geller (USSR) tied for 2nd–3rd with 15 points, Victor Korchnoi (USSR) and Miroslav Filip (Czechoslovakia) tied for 4th–5th with 14 points. Pal Benko (USA) won the sixth and final qualifying position for the Candidates Tournament in a three-way playoff with Leonid Stein (USSR) and Svetozar Gligorić after all tied for 6th–8th with 13.5 points. Although Stein scored the most points in the playoff, he was barred from qualifying for the Candidates Tournament by a FIDE rule that allowed no more than three players from the same federation to qualify. The Interzonal was originally scheduled to be played in the Netherlands in 1961, but difficulties obtaining visas caused a delay while another site was found.
- 5th Candidates Tournament in Curaçao won by Tigran Petrosian (USSR) with 17.5/27, a half point ahead of Paul Keres (USSR) and Efim Geller (USSR) tied for 2nd–3rd. Bobby Fischer (USA) finishes fourth. The victory makes Petrosian the challenger in the 1963 World Championship against Mikhail Botvinnik (USSR).
- 20 April – 20 May – The inaugural Capablanca Memorial chess tournament is held in Havana. Miguel Najdorf is first in a field of 22 players, followed by Lev Polugaevsky and Boris Spassky, Svetozar Gligorić and Vasily Smyslov, Borislav Ivkov, etc.[1]
- 15 September – 10 October 10 – Thirty-seven teams compete at the 15th Chess Olympiad in Varna. The Soviet team featuring six grandmasters and led by World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik (Botvinnik, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Paul Keres, Efim Geller, and Mikhail Tal) wins gold. Yugoslavia and Argentina take silver and bronze, respectively. The Olympiad featured the famous game between World Champion Botvinnik and 19-year-old American Bobby Fischer. Playing the black side of a Grünfeld Defence, Fischer obtained a small advantage but was not able to convert the endgame into a victory. The endgame has been subjected to extensive analysis, starting during the adjournment when the Soviet team analyzed through the night in a successful attempt to save the game while Fischer looked for a win. In the decades following there has been much investigation of whether Fischer's advantage was ever large enough to force a win as Fischer claimed in My 60 Memorable Games.[1]
- The 1962 Women's World Chess Championship is held in Moscow. Twenty-year-old Nona Gaprindashvili (Soviet Union) goes undefeated in the match, beating incumbent champion Elisabeth Bykova (Soviet Union) by the score 9–2 to become the fifth and youngest Women's World Champion.[1]
- The first South African Open chess tournament is held in Wilderness, Western Cape, and won by Harry Golombek and Alberic O'Kelly.
- One of the earliest junior international tournaments held at Groningen under the sponsorship of tobacco firm T. Niemeyer. The event was later informally recognized as the European Junior Championship and later still, adopted by FIDE as the official contest. The boys U-20 event was won by Coenraad Zuidema (Netherlands).
- Robert Abbot invents the chess variant Baroque Chess.
- Martin Gardner invents hexapawn, a small two-player game.
