The Vancouver Sun Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Friday, October 01, 1971 - Page 28
Fischer Wins In Chess Opener
Buenos Aires (UPI) — U.S. grandmaster Bobby Fischer took a 1-0 lead over Tigran Petrosian of Soviet Union in their candidate's chess match when the former world champion resigned on the 40th move of their opening game Thursday night.
Fischer overcame a difficult moment during the middle game and the irritation of a faulty lighting system to come back and win the first of the 12 scheduled games.
The second game will be played Oct. 5. Winner of the match will play Boris Spassky, the Soviet Union's world champion, for the title.
Petrosian, 42, world champion from 1963 until he lost the title to Spassky in 1969, gave in when Fischer, 28, threatened to queen a pawn.
The Russian grandmaster still had two pawns, a rook and a knight left but was not able to stop the only pawn Fischer had left from promotion.
Fischer, U.S. champion at 14 and the youngest-ever grandmaster at 15, had a rook and a knight in addition to the pawn.
Petrosian, playing black and using a Sicilian defense, appeared to have control of the match through the 15th move when he had superior position. But Fischer offered a bishop trade and castled to relieve the pressure.
For Fischer, it was his 13th consecutive candidates' tournament victory. Earlier this year, he overwhelmed Denmark's Bent Larsen and the Soviet Union's Mark Taimanov by identical 6-0 scores.
Fischer, a stickler about lighting arrangements, suffered through 11 minutes of near-darkness when several neon lights on the stage went out 18 minutes into the match.
