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Tigran Petrosian earned the right to challenge for the World
Chess Championship by winning the 1962 Candidates
tournament on the Caribbean island of Curacao
(Netherlands). The event took place at the Hotel
Curacao Intercontinental from May 2nd to June
26th, with a mini-break between quarters in
St. Martin from May 26th through the 31st. The tournament format was a
quadruple round-robin, consisting of 28 rounds.
The Soviet Union
contingent made up five of the eight contestants,
including Paul Keres, Efim Geller,
Victor Kortchnoi,
Mikhail Tal, and Petrosian.
They additionally arrived with two seconds (Issak
Boleslavsky and Yuri Averbach). The United States was
represented by Pal Benko and the rising star
Bobby Fischer. The two Americans had Arthur
Bisguier with them as their shared second, which later
led to controversy and dissention between Benko and
Fischer. Miroslav Filip of the Czech Republic
finished out the group of eight competitors.
The Soviet trio of
Petrosian, Geller, and Keres were consistently the front
runners for most of the tournament, with Fischer and
Kortchnoi struggling between fourth and fifth place.
Mikhail Tal was off his game early and appeared ill for
most of the tournament, as he was coming off of a kidney
operation right before the tournament. He eventually
had to be hospitalized and withdraw from the tournament
following the 21st round. None of his Soviet
compatriots even visited him in the hospital, but
Fischer was said to have visited him quite a few times,
even playing through some of the games with him on a
pocket set on his hospital bed.
Petrosian was the lone undefeated player remaining after
23 rounds and was tied with Keres for the lead. Geller
was still just a half point behind and Fischer was in fourth
place, but out of contention. Petrosian could not
shake Keres until round 27, when Benko defeated Keres
and Petrosian held on for a draw with the Black pieces
against Fischer. He
would go on to win the tournament by a half point with Geller
and Keres tying for second place (Keres later won a
playoff for outright second place).
The three Soviets
(Petrosian, Geller, Keres) suspiciously had all draws between them, with most of
them coming in less than 20 moves. This prompted
accusations from Fischer and resulted in the famous
article “The Russians Have Fixed Chess” in
the August 20, 1962 issue of Sports Illustrated.
Fischer’s allegations were supported by many and
eventually led to modifications to the championship
cycle.
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