ANew York Times, New York, New York, Monday, July 12, 1971 - Page 24
Fischer Wins Third Straight In Denver as Larsen Plays Badly
Denver, July 11 — Bobby Fischer tonight defeated Bent Larsen of Denmark for the third straight time in their chess match at Temple Buell College here.
The match is one of the semifinals in an elimination series to determine a challenger for the world chess title held by Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.
The other semifinal is being held in Moscow between two Soviet grandmasters, Victor Korchnoi and Tigran Petrosian.
Fischer needs 2½ points of the seven scheduled games remaining to win the series here.
The winner will play a 12-game match with the Moscow victor in September. The ultimate survivor will take on Spassky in a 24-game match for the world title next spring.
Tonight's game here started with the Sicilian defense and lasted 41 moves. Larsen was clearly outclassed from the outset. He played a rather backward variation of the opening. Fischer's 11. P-B5 planned the opening of lines on the king's side. Larsen should have countered with 11. … P-K4, rather than Q-B1.
Larsen also played poorly on his 12th turn, when PxP would have offered more resistance than BxP. As played, Fischer forced the win of a valuable center pawn.
From that point, it was a matter of accurate play on Fischer's part. With an advantage of this type, Fischer's play is generally flawless, and this game was no exception.
Larsen tried for an inroad with his queen, but this was easily rebuffed, with no other black pieces available for aggressive action. An exchange of queens soon followed, in the 24th and 25th moves, ending any possible danger to Fischer's king side.
The end came when Fischer's rook forced its way behind Larsen's pawn. After several exchanges, Fischer established a powerful passed pawn on the queen file.
Supported by the white king, the pawn would soon reach the queening file; Larsen recognized the inevitable and resigned.
