Times Colonist Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Saturday, July 10, 1971 - Page 22
How It Went In The Quarter Finals
As this is being written, the quarter-finals for the world championship have just ended; as you read it, the semi-finals should be getting underway.
In looking over the games played by the eight grandmasters, I found that most of my predictions on winners and losers were correct. My estimates of the scores were not always so close.
Bobby Fischer-Mark Taimanov on paper looks like a complete rout for and by our Bobby. After all, the final score was 6-0. But it really wasn't all that easy. In the second game, Taimanov could easily have drawn. It is hard to see how a grandmaster could possibly have gone astray on a move that would be obvious to any B player. But what really must have demoralized Taimanov was the third game which he had easily in the bag — and then let out. I had predicted that Bobby would win 5½-4½, but who could have predicted 6-0?
Tigran Petrosian-Robert Huebner was 4-3 when the 21-year-old West German student fled the scene, forfeiting the match. (I have an on-the-spot report on this weird circumstance which will appear in next week's column.) I had predicted that Huebner had the talent and would score an upset victory over Petrosian, a former world champion. Maybe I would have been right, but I didn't anticipate the effect of temperament.
Bent Larsen-Wolfgang Uhlmann was off to a wobbly start with Uhlmann losing a sure game in the fourth to the happy Dane, Larsen later gave the East German the point back, in the eighth, but clinched the win in the ninth. Final result: Larsen, 5½; Uhlmann, 3½.
Victor Korchnoi-Ewfim Geller, an all-Russian match was a 5½-2½. My prediction on these last two was within half a point of being right.
How about the semi-finals? Well, I pick Korchnoi to beat Petrosian. Wherever it is played (Las Palmas in the Canary Islands is trying to get it), the Fischer-Larsen match should be a whistler. Larsen is capable of beating anybody, even Bobby, but he tends to be erratic. Bobby is a solid player and plays until the last piece is moved, without pity or remorse. He has the killer instinct. Larsen will have to play must better chess than he did against Uhlmann or he will be crushed like Taimanov. If I have to make a prediction, I'll say Fischer.
