AThe Vancouver Sun Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Wednesday, October 06, 1971 - Page 40
Petrosian Wins Against Fischer
Buenos Aires (Reuter) — Soviet grandmaster Tigran Petrosian beat Bobby Fischer of the U.S. Tuesday night, evening the score at 1-1 in their 12-game world chess match.
Petrosian, the former world champion, playing white, displayed his best tactical abilities in a queen's pawn opening, to which Fischer put up a Gruenfeld defense.
The Armenian's serenity helped him to cope with Fischer's constantly dangerous maneuvers, and finally forced the 28-year-old grandmaster to resign at move 32.
It was Fischer's first defeat in 21 games against grandmasters. He won the previous 20 games in a row.
Soviet grandmaster Yuri Averbach said: “Petrosian really shone tonight as when he was world champion in the '60s. He stuck to his plan, overcoming Fischer's complicated and shrewd steps.”
Petrosian managed to consolidate a firm center of pawns, and after castling short seemed to have a superior position. Fischer, who won the first game against Petrosian Thursday, tried to create weaknesses at the queen's flank.
But he had to forgo castling, after Petrosian checked with queen at queen's rook four and continued to press with his pawns at the center.
Fischer placed his queen at king seven at a crucial stage of the game, offering to change queens and threatening the 42-year-old Petrosian's king sector.
But Petrosian elegantly surrendered a rook against a bishop, and continued to exert irresistible pressure against Fischer's wandering king.
A combined succession of checks by his queen and rook finally led Fischer to an unsustainable situation, and Fischer congratulated his rival at the San Martin Theatre, where more than 2,000 people packed corridors and aisles to watch the game.
Third game of the match will be played Thursday. First player to score 6½ points in the match qualifies to meet world champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union for the title next spring.
