The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles, California Sunday, September 12, 1971 - Page 90
Fischer, Petrosian Meet In Argentina
U.S. chess ace Bobby Fischer and former world champion Tigran Petrosian of the Soviet Union will start a 12-game-match in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Thursday, Sept. 30.
This is the final in a series of elimination matches to determine the challenger for the world championship title now held by Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.
Argentina had been Fischer's first choice of the three countries bidding for the match. Petrosian preferred Greece. Yugoslavia was given little consideration, despite the great interest in chess there.
With the rivals unable to agree, the question was who would make the decision as to the site. Normally it would be Dr. Max Euwe of Holland, president of the International Chess Federation.
As it happened, however, the federation was holding its annual congress in Vancouver, ending last weekend. Dr. Euwe was willing to leave it to the delegates representing some 50 countries.
Representatives of the U.S. and Russia did some fast counting of prospective votes, and as has happened in weightier political matters, were uncertain of the result. They decided to toss a coin, and Argentina won.
Games will be played at the rate of three each week, on Thursdays, Sundays and Tuesdays. Any game not finished in the first session will be competed the following day.
The winner of a game will score one point. Draws will count half a point for each player. A total of 6½ points is required to win the match.
Fischer is favored based on his excellent recent record. He is on a fantastic winning streak that has reached 19 games in succession without a single draw.
This includes match victories by 6-0 over Mark Taimanov of the Soviet Union and Bent Larsen of Denmark, a completely unprecedented feat in grandmaster chess.
Petrosian had a much harder time in his preliminary matches of the current series. Against Robert Huebner of West Germany he drew the first six games and won the seventh. Huebner then resigned the match for reasons of health.
A single game was also the margin in Petrosian's encounter with his compatriot Victor Korchnoi. Eight draws were run off before Petrosian succeeded in winning the ninth game. The 10th was also drawn for a total of 5½-4½.
In individual results over their lifetime Fischer and Petrosian are exactly even, with three wins each and 12 draws out of 18 meetings. In their most recent series last year Fischer was the victor with two wins and two draws.
This is the first time since 1948 that a non-Russian has been so close to the world championship. All title matches since then have been between two Soviet grandmasters.
