The Final Round of the Curaçao 1962 Candidates Tournament

The tournament has lasted a grueling two months in the sweltering heat of the early Caribbean summer. What began as a contest among 8 of the best chess players in the world to determine a challenger for World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik has turned into a farce: the Soviet players are rather obviously colluding to play short draws among themselves in order to save energy against the American Robert “Bobby” Fischer, who at 19 years of age is already among the very best players in the world.

Heading into the final round their plan has worked: Tigran Petrosian is leading the way on 17 points, Paul Keres is in 2nd place on 16 ½ and Efim Geller is in 3rd with 16 points. Fischer is out of the hunt: he is in 4th on 13 ½ points.

In the final round the pairings are:

Tigran Petrosian – Miroslav Filip
Paul Keres – Robert Fischer
Efim Geller – Pal Benko
Mikhail Tal – Viktor Kortchnoi

The scenario is clear – if Petrosian wins against bottom-of-the-table Filip, he wins the tournament. If he draws and Keres wins, the two will finish in a tie for first place, which would be decided in a playoff match.

The late Jan Timman writes:

“... after Filip’s 14th move Petrosian thought for 40 minutes and then offered a draw without playing another move. Keres, meanwhile, had built up a promising position against Fischer. Filip shot his opponent a surprised look and then, with a shrug, accepted his offer...”

Why did Petrosian think for 40 minutes on move 14 and then offer a draw?

Perhaps he simply accurately assessed the position as being slightly better for black and decided not to take any risk of losing and being overtaken by Keres.

He certainly knew that defeating Filip would guarantee the tournament victory – and the Czechoslovakian had proven to be a rather easy opponent against the Soviet trio of Petrosian, Geller and Keres. Indeed, after short draws (13 and 14 moves, respectively) against Geller and Petrosian in the early rounds of the tournament, Filip lost all 6 games he played against the three Soviets in the middle part of the tournament (each player played all others 4 times).

Maybe Petrosian was thinking about the way his tournament lead had been achieved. He, Geller and Keres drew all 12 games they played against each other and later evidence has proven Fischer’s claim that this was intentional to be true. Perhaps in his heart Petrosian did not truly want to win this way - maybe he wanted a fair match with Keres and thus offered an early draw, hoping that Keres would defeat Fischer to draw level with him on points.

Unfortunately, Keres, despite building up what analysis showed to be a likely winning position, committed an inaccuracy in his game with Fischer, losing his advantage and drawing. Thus, Petrosian’s early draw secured him sole first place.

In the third game played in Round 28, Geller defeated Benko after the latter lost on time in a winning position.

Finally, Tal-Kortchnoi did not take place as Tal had fallen ill during the tournament and was in hospital. Perhaps fittingly, Kortchnoi who famously defected to Switzerland from the Soviet Union and likely refused to collude with the other Soviet players in Curaçao, played no part in the final round.

After this tournament, Fischer would quit top-level chess, playing sporadically during the next years and only returning seriously to fight for the World Championship about 8 years later. One wonders how much of a negative effect playing in such a tournament at a young age had on Fischer’s mentality. Perhaps it is even partly to blame for the severe mental illness he would later develop.

Petrosian would go on to defeat Botvinnik and become World Champion, losing the title in 1969 to Boris Spassky.

There you have it: the story of the final round in Curaçao 1962. I hope you enjoyed this post and feel free to discuss the topic in the forum.