Sunday Gazette-Mail Charleston, West Virginia Sunday, July 31, 1966 - Page 35
Chess Champ Struggling In Grandmaster Tourney
The Piatigorsky International All-Grandmaster Tournament at Santa Monica, Calif.—one of the outstanding chess events of this decade—is producing some startling results.
World champion Tigran Petrosian of Russia has fallen to next-to-last place among the 10 famed players who are competing. He was beaten in only 30 moves by Bent Larsen of Denmark in the seventh round and dropped to a feeble score of 2½-4½.
Larsen, with 4½-2½, is tied with Boris Spassky of Russia for first place. Miguel Najdorf of Argentina and Lajos Portisch of Hungary are close behind with 4-3.
America's bright young star, Bobby Fischer, also is making a poor showing. He has a minus score of 3-4—a half-point behind the other American entry, Samuel Reshevsky.
But the 18-round tourney is not yet half over, so there's plenty of time for the standings to change.