AThe Courier-Journal Louisville, Kentucky Sunday, January 24, 1971 - Page 52
Fischer Finishes First In Interzonal at Palma
My good friend and newspaper colleague, Bob Barnard, suggests that it's high time the King's Men had something to say about the most recent achievements of the incredible Bobby Fischer. The point is well taken, because Fischer is the brightest star to rise on the American chess horizon since the golden era of Paul Morphy, more than a century ago.
Fischer captured first place in the recent interzonal tournament at Palma, Majorca, winning the 24-man round-robin knockout by the considerable margin of 3½ points. His final score was 18½, and this included 15 wins over the world's greatest players.
In the course of the tournament, the American grandmaster from Los Angeles exploded the myth of Soviet invincibility, scoring 3½ points out of a possible 4 against the best the Russians could muster against him. He defeated the Czechoslovakian players, 2-0, and East Germany, 1-0.
Despite this astounding show of strength, Fischer oddly could do no better than split the point against the three Palma participants who finished at the bottom—Naranja of the Philippines, Jimenez of Cuba, and Uituman of Mongolia.
A number of pre-tournament favorites failed to qualify for the coming elimination matches for the world title challenge. Among them was the noted Yugoslavian grandmaster, Svetozar Gligoric.
Fischer was bad news, as usual, for just about everybody he met during the Tournament of Peace, held last year at Rovinj and Zagreb, Yugoslavia. In today's game, Fischer, White. forces M. Udovcic to resign in 31 moves. The latter, however, came up with a very pretty move after Fischer's 16. K-K2. Pretty, but to no avail. Before playing, study the diagram and see if you can find it.
