Daily News New York, New York Friday, October 15, 1971 - Page 279
Fischer Ties 5th Game of Chess Series by Robert Byrne
Buenos Aires, Oct. 14—The United States' Bobby Fischer and Russia's Tigran Petrosian fought to a draw in the fifth game of their 12-game match in the Teatro General San Martin tonight.
The score is now 2½ to 2½. The winner will vie with Boris Spassky of Russia for the world chess championship in April.
Petrosian opened with the sound, cautious Petroff defense, which he had adopted with success in his match with Spassky three years ago. But Fischer was quick to seize an advantage in space, exerting sharp pressure.
But he lost time with his 13th move, when he would have done better with Q-B2 or perhaps even the two-edged P-Q5. Still, he pressed Petrosian hard with the advance of his queen's knight pawn at move 18, threatening to chose the queen side and bury the queen's bishop.
Although the situation was very difficult, Petrosian fought back ingeniously, counterattacking the binding queen's knight pawn by his 21st and 22d moves. Allowing the doubling of his queen's pawns, while permitting Fischer a passed queen's knight pawn was an extraordinary stroke, giving him a terrific grip on the center squares.
And he quickly showed, by his moves 24-27, that the white queen side pawns were nothing but a headache to his opponent. For it took everything Fischer could muster to avoid parting with one of them. By the 34th move, when the complexities of the sharp position had been resolved into a level end game, Petrosian offered a draw. But it took four moves more before Fischer was persuaded to agree.
Game six is scheduled for Sunday.
