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An auction at the Lund Academy has just ended. The first listing attracted me – A Curacao 1962 photo album with 32 photos, seven of Fischer, seven of Petrosian &c. The starting bid was 1 euro ($1.41 CAD).
If you are going to bid, you always think you are going to win. I vaguely thought I might get it for $150. Something no one else has. This was very naïve. Some of the photos are unpublished. The photo album came from estate of Czech GM Miroslav Filip, who was one of participants. He received the album as a personal gift during the tournament. The album measures 29 x 27 cm and contains 19 sheets with 32 photos.
Tigran Petrosian won the tourney ahead of Keres, Geller, Benko, Tal, Fischer and Korchnoi.
When the smoke had cleared, an hour ago, the hammer price was 827 euro or $1167.72 CAD. I dropped out quite early. There were 37 bids.
The good news is that the pictures are posted on the Internet. I don’t know for how long, but you might want to look at these:
Curacao was one of the most controversial tournaments in chess history, with allegations of game-fixing by the Soviets (five of them in the tournament, out of eight players) to stop GM Fischer from winning. Fischer had dominated the Interzonal in Stockholm just a few months earlier. The full truth will probably never be known. GM Korchnoi told GM Karpov about it a few years later, and Karpov went public in his memoirs, many years afterwards, about their conversation. Korchnoi said that there WAS a conspiracy, but (according to Karpov) he was angry the three participants didn't include him in it! Fischer's article for ''Sports Illustrated'' magazine a few months after the end of the tournament was entitled "The Russians have fixed world chess". It made headlines around the world. After it was published, FIDE voted reforms to replace the tournament format with knockout matches for the next cycle, starting in 1964.
Fischer opted to publish his article on the Russians cheating in Sports Illustrated. The article was dated August 20 1962.
The Russians Have Fixed World Chess
The international Candidates' Chess Tournament that ended June 28 in Curacao left me with one conviction: Russian control of chess has reached a point where there can be no honest competition for the world championship. The system set up by the Federation International des Echecs, the governing body of world chess, insures that there will always be a Russian world champion because only a Russian can win the preliminary tournament that determines his challenger. The Russians arranged it that way. As far as I am concerned, they can keep it that way. I will never again play in one of these tournaments.
Sometimes, after their quick draws with each other, the Russians wouldn't go back to the swimming pool. They would openly analyze my game while I was still playing it. It is strictly against the rules for a player to discuss a game in progress, or even to speak with another player during a game—or, for that matter, with anyone. I studied Russian enough to be able to read their chess books, and I could easily understand what they were saying. They would say this move is good, or that move is good—in Russian, of course. My Russian isn't the greatest but, believe me, they weren't talking about the weather. If I was playing against a Russian, and one of these debates was going on right in front of us, my opponent might get up and join the discussion after he had made his move. Even if the advice they gave each other was bad—and too many chess cooks can spoil a game—it was annoying. It made me mad that they thought they could get away with it. I protested to the officials. I learned that they could get away with it. I complained a few more times, but their lead had increased to the point where they were unworried, and they then gradually stopped doing it.
Somebody asked me, "What did you learn at the tournament?" I said, "I learned not to play in any more of them." It is a waste of time for any Western player. The present arrangement for selecting a challenger for the championship is bad for chess, bad for the players taking part in it and bad for any real standard of the world championship. The general public long ago lost interest in any title gained in this fashion. Maybe chess players are losing interest in it also. I have, permanently.
______
In 2006, an academic paper entitled "Did the Soviets collude? A Statistical Analysis of Championship Chess 1940-64" used mathematical models to find out "whether players from the former Soviet Union acted as a cartel in international tournaments - intentionally drawing against one another in order to focus effort on non-Soviet opponents - to maximize the chance of some Soviet winning". The authors came to a definite conclusion. :p
It was fascinating when it appeared, and it remains great reading, all 30 pages of it. Available here in full, the paper specifically deals with Curacao 1962 and claims by Fischer and Korchnoi.
Last edited by Vadim Tsypin; Tuesday, 22nd September, 2015, 05:21 PM.
Reason: Fixed a typo in Fischer's name. ;-)
In 2006, an academic paper entitled "Did the Soviets collude? A Statistical Analysis of Championship Chess 1940-64" used mathematical models to find out "whether players from the former Soviet Union acted as a cartel in international tournaments - intentionally drawing against one another in order to focus effort on non-Soviet opponents - to maximize the chance of some Soviet winning". The authors came to a definite conclusion. :p
It was fascinating when it appeared, and it remains great reading, all 30 pages of it. Available here in full, the paper specifically deals with Curacao 1962 and claims by Frischer and Korchnoi.
Interesting paper - thanks for posting that link. I haven't read all of it (yet) but I presume it does not address the 'alleged' outright discussion of positions and possible moves that Fischer mentioned he overheard... that is a lot harder to measure statistically... ;)
Some readers might want to get a copy of Jan Timman's revisit of the tournament:
Curacao 1962 - The Battle of Minds that Shook the Chess World One of the Fiercest Chess Battles of all Time by Jan Timman,
2005, 224 pages
with this sensational blurb:
The 1962 Candidates’ Tournament in Curaçao was one of the fiercest chess battles of all time. At the height of the Cold War, eight players contested the right to challenge World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik. The format of the tournament was a gruelling quadruple round-robin. Twenty-eight games were to be played on the tropical island, in a contest that lasted two months.
The air trembled with drama and intrigue. One of the favourites, the brilliant Mikhail Tal, was taken to hospital after 21 rounds and had to withdraw. Three other players from the Soviet Union, Keres, Petrosian, and Geller, were making suspiciously short draws when playing each other. The two American players came to blows over the services of the second they were supposed to share.
Bella Kortchnoi, whose husband took an early lead in the tournament, was a puppet in the hands of the scheming Rona Petrosian, the wife of the later winner. And one of the favourites was a lanky 19-year-old boy from Brooklyn, Bobby Fischer, who openly accused the Soviets of collusion and was later proven right.
In the end, Tigran Petrosian was the winner and went on to become the new World Champion the following year. But such was the impact of Fischer’s accusations that this was the last time such a battle was organised. Henceforth the challenger to the highest crown was determined in a series of matches. Curaçao 1962 was the last Candidates’ Tournament.
In Curaçao 1962, Jan Timman returns to this clash of giants and takes a fresh look at the games. Timman describes the course of the tournament and annotates the most important games (including 16 of Fischer’s!) in his usual lucid and instructive style. Curaçao 1962 revives a tradition of great tournament books, such as Alekhine’s New York 1927 and Bronstein’s Zurich 1953.
Thanks to Vadim Tsypin for posting the link to the article on statistical analysis of Soviet chess 'collusion.' I had been unaware of this work. :)
One thing to be aware of as well is the possibility of collusion in intra-Soviet events, notably involving GM Botvinnik, as there were allegations of other strong Soviet players being encouraged to lose to him in the early and mid 1940s, all while the Politburo and Soviet chess leadership worked to make the case for a Botvinnik vs Alekhine World Championship match. Two Soviet players of that era who did very well against Botvinnik were Ilya Kan and Fedor Bogatyrchuk. And GM Grigory Levenfish, a player from the older generation, drew a 1937 match with Botvinnik.
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