ANew York Times, New York, New York, Wednesday, October 06, 1971 - Page 44
Fischer's Winning Streak Ends With Game 2 Loss to Petrosian
Buenos Aires, Oct. 5 (AP) —Bobby Fischer of the United States resigned on the 32d move of his second match game with Tigran Petrosian of the Soviet Union today.
The defeat was the first for the 28-year-old Fischer after 20 straight victories, including two 6-0 matches against grandmasters in elimination matches for the world chess championship.
The winner of the 12-game match between Fischer and Petrosian will meet Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union next spring for the championship.
Fischer won the first game last Thursday when Petrosian resigned on the 40th move. The two grandmasters now have 1 point each in the match. A victory counts 1 point, a draw half a point and a loss zero; the first player to reach 6½ points wins in the match.
For Fischer the loss ended an incredible winning streak that he started last December with seven straight victories at a tournament in Spain. He continued to run in the present elimination series by taking two matches with six straight games each against Mark Taimanov of the Soviet Union and Bent Larsen of Denmark. The 20th was his victory last week over Petrosian, who lost the world championship to Spassky.
