ANew York Times, New York, New York, Thursday, May 20, 1971 - Page 38
Chess: Portisch No. 1 Substitute For Six-Man Eliminations by Al Horowitz
When Lajos Portisch of Hungary and Vasily Smyslov of the Soviet Union, a former world champion, finished in a tie for seventh place in last year's interzonal tournament at Palma, Majorca, neither could have been precisely overjoyed. The players who finished in the first six places in that tournament qualified for the series of matches now under way to determine the next challenger to the present world champion, Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.
Because the man who finished seventh in the interzonal was next in line for a place among the qualifiers and would substitute for any of the first six who could not or would not play in the elimination matches, a six-game match to break the tie between Portisch and Smyslov each winning one game, and drawing four, but, this time the tie was broken in favor of Portisch, who made the better score against the top players at Palma.
This became far more than of academic interest a few days ago when Mark Taimanov of the Soviet Union threatened to withdraw from his scheduled match with Bobby Fischer of the United States in a dispute over whether spectators were to be allowed in the playing room (Fischer had stipulated that spectators were to be excluded). When the International Chess Federation president, Dr. Max Euwe of the Netherlands, threatened to substitute Portisch in the match against Fischer, Taimanov withdrew his protest and Portisch was again out in the cold.
