AThe San Francisco Examiner San Francisco, California Tuesday, June 01, 1971 - Page 20
World Chess Play
Moscow — (AP) — The field of grand masters seeking a chance to unseat the Soviet Union's world chess champion, Boris Spassky, next spring has been narrowed to four.
They are the survivors of the quarterfinals of the challengers tournament, a slow ritual that began last year and will climax this September when two finalists battle for the right to meet Spassky with his title at stake.
The quarterfinal play began May 13 and the first to reach the semifinal stage was the Soviet Union's Tigran Petrosian.
Petrosian was leading 4-3 in the play at Seville, Spain, when his opponent, Robert Huebner of West Germany, gave up eight days ago.
Yesterday, Bent Larsen of Denmark and Viktor Korchnoi of the Soviet Union moved up to the semifinals.
Larsen, playing at Las Palmas on the Canary Islands, defeated Wolfgang Uhlmann of East Germany, 5½-3½, while Korchnoi beat his countryman, Yefim Geller, 5½-2½.
One quarterfinal contest is still in progress at Vancouver, B.C., where Bobby Fischer of the United States has a 5-0 lead over Mark Taimanov of the Soviet Union and needs only half a point more to win. Fischer's victory is regarded as certain.
