AThe Province Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Friday, July 16, 1971 - Page 47
Larsen Tougher Than Taimanov?
Virtually everybody (on this side of the Atlantic, anyway) agrees that the eight-time United States champion, Bobby Fischer, will beat Grandmaster Bent Larsen of Denmark in their semi-final candidates' match, but there is considerable speculation about the final score.
Some people, apparently awestruck at Fischer's 6-0 victory in Vancouver against Soviet Grandmaster Mark Taimanov in the quarter-finals, predict that Larsen may meet the same fate. Others suggest the match will be very close.
Larsen should be a much tougher customer than Taimanov. His results over the last five years have shown him to be, next to Fischer, the top grandmaster in the West. He has played Fischer many times in tournaments, and, although Bobby has a substantial plus score, Larsen has won several fine games.
The two games below are among the many between two fine players over the last decade. Both are taken from the great international tournament held at Santa Monica, California in 1966, where Fischer finished second to the world champion, Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, and Larsen finished third.
Fischer and Larsen were fighting to catch Spassky, and so produced a game of more than usual tension eve for these two fierce competitors. In the early middle-game of the encounter that was won by Fischer, there is an interesting bit of by-play. When Fischer plays 18. … R-K1, he appears to offer Larsen the opportunity to draw by repetition: 19. B-N5, R-Q1; 20. B-K2, R-K1 etc. Instead, Larsen plays 19. P-B3, spurning the draw, but at the same time creating a weakness on the black squares. Would Fischer have agreed to a draw by repetition had Larsen played for one? Probably not.
In the second game, Bobby loses in a very uncharacteristic way: With a slight positional advantage he makes a miscalculation. “I do not know what Fischer overlooked,” Larsen remark in his annotations to this game, “but it must have been something very simple.” He goes on conjecture that Fischer overlooked that after the possibility of 31. B-6 P-Q5; 32. QxRPch KxQ; 33. R-R3ch, the Black queen could interpose. Anyway, in the final position, Black's passed pawns are a decisive advantage.
Bent Larsen vs Robert James Fischer
Second Piatigorsky Cup (1966), Santa Monica, CA USA, rd 15, Aug-10
King's Indian Defense: Averbakh. Benoni Defense Advance Variation (E75) 0-1
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044610
The Province Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Friday, July 16, 1971 Chess by Al Horowitz. Quiz. White moves. FEN...
Posted by Bobby Fischer's True History on Monday, June 29, 2020
Chess by Al Horowitz. Quiz. White moves.
FEN k4r2/1R4pb/1pQp1n1p/3P4/5p1P/3P2P1/r1q1R2K/8 w - - 0 1
