The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles, California Sunday, July 31, 1966 - Page 41
Spassky Leads Chess Championship Tourney
Russian Master Tops Field After 8th Round of Play in International Games
Boris Spassky of the U.S.S.R., recent challenger for the world chess championship, led with a score of 5½-2½ after eight completed rounds of the Piatigorsky Cup International Chess Tournament at the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica.
Spassky moved ahead of the field of 10 grand masters by winning two sharp games in succession, against Borislav Ivkov of Yugoslavia in the seventh round and U.S. champion Bobby Fischer of Brooklyn, N.Y. in the eighth.
His total includes five wins and two draws.
In second place at this stage is Bent Larsen of Denmark. with 5-3. Larsen lost his first game to Ivkov, but has been undefeated since with three victories and four draws.
The feature of Larsen's record is his sensational victory over world chess champion Tigran Petrosian of the U.S.S.R., easily the most brilliant game of the tournament to date.
Tied for third with scores of 4½-3½ are Lajos Portisch of Hungary and Samuel Reshevsky of Spring Valley, N. Y. They have identical results, one win and seven draws. Following is Miguel Najdorf of Argentina, with 4-4.
Most surprising are the low standings of Petrosian and Fischer who were prime favorites to capture the top prizes.
Petrosian won for the first time in the eighth round against Najdorf. He is tied with Jan Donner of Holland and Wolfgang Unzicker of West Germany, all with 3½-4½.
Fischer shares the bottom of the list with Ivkov, each having lost three games, won one and drawn four, with a point score of 3-5.
Fischer was doing reasonably well, but has dropped three games in succession, to Larsen, Najdorf and Spassky.
The ninth round will be played from 1 to 6 p.m. today at the Miramar. Despite their setbacks, the pairing that will arouse the most interest is Fischer vs. Petrosian, with the American having the white pieces.
The other pairings are Donner vs. Spassky, Unzicker vs. Ivkov. Larsen vs. Portisch, and Najdorf vs. Reshevsky.
Following are the recent results and the moves of the instructive games between Larsen and Petrosian, and between Spassky and Fischer.