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Bobby
Fischer won
the "Tournament of Peace" in 1970 by a full
two points over his nearest competitors. The event
was held in two different cities in Croatia; Rovinj from
April 12th to April 26th and Zagreb from April 27th to
May 8th. The tournament additionally came on the
heels of the USSR versus the World match in Belgrade and
the "Unofficial Speed Chess Championship" at
Herceg Novi (also won by Fischer).
Several
players that played in both of the previous tournaments
made the trip to play in Rovinj.
Tigran
Petrosian,
Victor Korchnoi, Vlastimil Hort, Wolfgang
Uhlmann,
Vasily Smyslov, Borislav Ivkov, and Fischer all had to
be exhausted from playing in the trio of tournaments
without any rest in between. Svetozar Gligoric
also made the trip from Belgrade to Rovinj, but skipped
out on the Blitz tournament to rest. There were
eighteen participants in all at this event, including
eleven grandmasters.
Fischer
was out of the gate quickly, winning 6 1/2 out of 7
points and laying claim to first place. In the
eighth round, Fischer came up against a little known
Yugoslav by the name of Vlado Kovacevic. Fischer quickly
found himself in a losing position against his
opponent's French Defense and resigned in thirty
moves. It was Fischer's first loss in
international play since losing to Efim Geller in Skopje
in 1967. He immediately rebounded to defeat the
second place Gligoric in the next round and had a point
and a half lead over the field through nine rounds.
Fischer
went on to win the tournament by a comfortable two point
margin and did not suffer any further defeats. His
last two games were classic battles with Korchnoi (62
moves) and Petrosian (44 moves) that both ended in
draws. Fischer received a sum of $1,000.00 for his
victory. Chess digest later referred to this event
as one of Fischer's greatest victories.
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