World Chess Championship Blog

A number of complications -- a failing PC, two new chess960 correspondence events, complications around an inheritance, tax season, vacation -- have all arrived at the same time and have resulted in a serious lag between the date on this post and the date that I'm writing it. I wanted to catch up by doing a series of easy posts as a follow-up to Fischer vs. Carlsen (December 2023) and Rogues' Gallery (ditto), but I ran into technical issues with the underlying cloud software.

Since I'm not seeing an easy fix to the technical problems, I'll skip posting to this blog until I get my affairs in order. Back in a jiffy ... (he said).

I added a new clipping to the page (C08) Zonals 1969-1972 (m-w.com), under the zonal titled '5 New York 1969-11'. It's taken from the letters section of the November 2007 issue of Chess Life and starts,

September Issue: "Fischer Fallout" Fallout • Reading the sidebar on page 25 of the September Chess Life, "Myth of the lone gun," I found two sentences which [mention] me and I think I should correct them.

"Fischer couldn't have played [the 1970 Interzonal] if Pal Benko had not been bought out," and "They then paid GM Pal Benko $2,000 to step aside."

This is indeed only half true. [...]

Five paragraphs later, the letter signs off,

So I state again: I never got anything, not even a penny, for giving up my place to Fischer and I never regretted it. I only asked Fischer, "Don't quit." And indeed, he became the only American world champion.

Pal Benko
Budapest, Hungary

One of the intermediate paragraphs mentions,

Fischer once asked me, "Is it true you got money to give up your place for me?" [...] After I answered, "No," he asked me, "Can you put that in writing?" Indeed I did; one can find it in my old Chess Life column.

If I ever find that needle in the haystack of Benko columns, I'll add the reference.

This month's featured photo on my main blog, Enhanced Chess Art (March 2025), won over another photo on the short list that I also wanted to use. Luckily, the second photo is equally appropriate for this current blog.

I play my enemies like a game of chess... © Flickr user Dunk under Creative Commons.

The description copied the first paragraph of Wikipedia's page on Hou Yifan (wikipedia.org), ...

Hou Yifan (born 1994) is a Chinese chess grandmaster, four-time Women's World Chess Champion and professor at Shenzhen University. She is the second highest rated female player of all time. A chess prodigy, she was the youngest female player ever to qualify for the title of grandmaster (at the age of 14 years, 6 months, 16 days) and the youngest ever to win the Women's World Chess Championship (at age 16).

... then added,

Portrait of Hou Yifan at the 2016 Chess Olympiad by Andreas Kontokanis via Wikimedia Commons [plus a link].

The Flickr title, 'I play my enemies...', is a line from the 1996 Fugees hit 'Ready or Not'. For a look at Hou Yifan's path to the Women's World Championship, see 2010 FIDE Knockout Matches (m-w.com; 'Antakya (Turkey), XII, 2010').

The Fischer - Spassky era is officially over.

Russian chess grandmaster Boris Spassky dies aged 88 | Reuters (1:15) • '[Published on] Feb 28, 2025'

The description of the video omitted any mention of Fischer. It was, after all, not Spassky's greatest accomplishment.

Russian chess grandmaster Boris Spassky has died at the age of 88. Spassky was the 10th World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972.

His Wikipedia page Boris Spassky (wikipedia.org), mentions all three of his title matches in the first paragraph.

Boris Vasilievich Spassky (January 30, 1937 – February 27, 2025) was a Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. Spassky played three world championship matches: he lost to Tigran Petrosian in 1966; defeated Petrosian in 1969 to become world champion; then lost to Bobby Fischer in a famous match in 1972.

As for the dozens of mentions of Spassky on this blog and on my main blog, the two that I remember best are:-

• 2018-07: Another Bad Day for Spassky; see also the link to 'A Bad Day for Spassky'.
• 2009-04: Photogenic Spassky

RIP, Grandmaster. You earned it.

At the start of the previous post, Feedback on C10 Zonals (February 2025), I wrote,

During the six months of inactivity mentioned in [a] recent post, I received a number of relevant comments about my pages, some of them requiring non-trivial updates to those pages.

A few months after the comment on the 'C10 Zonals', I received an email from Przemek Jahr [PJ; of szachypolskie.pl] titled, 'C02 Qualifiers, 3* EUR Marianske Lazne 1951-08'. That title echoes a page titled, (C02) 1951-1954 Zonal Cycle (m-w.com) plus its corresponding 'Qualifiers' page. The email informed,

According to the report of Andrzej Pytlakowski, a participant of the zonal tournament, published in "Szachy" 9/1951, a play-off for 5th place was not planned and Jan Foltys took this place due to the better Sonneborn-Berger system.

The same email included an attachment showing the cover page of the referenced Polish chess magazine.

The paragraph outlined in red translates to:-

The most fierce battle was probably for fifth place. After 12 rounds, the contenders for this place were, apart from Benko, who had 7 points at the time. Lokvenc, Sajtar and I, all with 6 points each, also claimed. It seemed that Foltys with 5 1/2 points had no chance. However, events took an unexpected turn.

Foltys, who started even worse than Barcza, pulled himself up with a magnificent finish. Foltys gained 4 1/2 points from the last 5 games, winning against Benko among others. The game, as it turned out, decided who would qualify fifth for the interzonal tournament. Benko, playing white, gained an advantage, which he methodically increased. However, he ran into a very serious time deficit, which became the cause of his defeat.

Shortly before the time control, instead of carrying out a winning maneuver, Benko suffered material losses, as a result of which he lost the game. In general, time deficits were the greatest enemy of the talented Hungarian, who was the youngest participant in the tournament.

Foltys and Benko obtained an equal number of 10 points each and shared 5th-6th place. The Sonneborn-Berger evaluation system, which turned out to be beneficial for Foltys, decided who would play in the interzonal tournament.

The rest of the page is undoubtedly equally useful and I might tackle its translation some day.

During the six months of inactivity mentioned in my recent post, Now I'm Here (January 2025), I received a number of relevant comments about my pages, some of them requiring non-trivial updates to those pages. The first such comment was the continuation of an older email exchange, titled 'Arandjelovac 1976'. It started,

I have investigated the cycle 1975-1978 and I can comment some facts.

The updates, to two related pages, are marked with the initials of the correspondent 'VA' [Vladica Andrejic] on those pages:-

• Zonals 1975-1978 (C10; m-w.com)
• Zonal Qualifiers 1975-1978 (ditto)

VA concluded his comment saying,

I hope that this helps. I cover Interzonals (and some zonals) with some info written in Serbian here:

• http://www.perpetualcheck.com/show/show.php?lan=en&data=T1976005&job=i
• http://www.perpetualcheck.com/show/show.php?lan=en&data=T1976006&job=i

Your favorite online language translator will reveal the secrets of those two pages, which are similar. Thanks, VA!

The previous post on this blog, FIDE Asserts Its Authority (February 2025), ended with a statement from FIDE:-

Attempts by FCPC [Freestyle Chess Players Club] to present their project as a World Championship are in contradiction with the well-established status of FIDE and its authority over world championship titles in all relevant variations of chess - including Chess960/Freestyle chess, as outlined in the FIDE Handbook.

Since that statement, we've seen interviews with responsibles from the two organizations. Both of the following videos are from Youtube channel Take Take Take:-

• 2025-02-04: FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky on the Freestyle Chess Conflict
• 2025-02-07: Freestyle Chess CEO on the FIDE Conflict • Weissenhaus [CEO?] Jan Henric Buettner

For a representative player's point of view, here is GM Fabiano Caruana on his own Youtube channel.

Drama between FIDE & Freestyle Chess | C-Squared (30:31) • '[Published on] Feb 7, 20255'

That clip from Youtube channel 'C-Squared Clips' is an extract from the full video on the main 'C-Squared' channel. A few days later, the FCPC backed down:-

2025-02-10: Press Release (Weissenhaus) • 'At a Sunday evening meeting in Weissenhaus with organizer Jan Henric Buettner, 12 Freestyle Chess Players Club members unanimously decided that the 2025 Grand Slam Tour winner in December (South Africa) will be titled "Freestyle Chess Champion." They also plan to form their own independent association with a qualified legal team to represent their interests.'

For the full text, see Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Participants Agree on "Freestyle Chess Champion" Title (freestyle-chess.com). FIDE is a non-profit association of national chess federations. FCPC is backed by for-profit Weissenhaus and represents an association of elite chess players. Federations and players are often at loggerheads over their particular interests. The two organizations have different objectives, so it's likely that we haven't seen the end of this tension.