The 1969
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013.
The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 match ...
was played between
Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian (, ; 17 June 1929 – 13 August 1984) was a Soviet-Armenian chess grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his almost-impenetrable defensive playing style ...
and
Boris Spassky in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
from April 14 to June 17, 1969. This was the second consecutive time Petrosian and Spassky played for the world title. Spassky reversed the previous result; winning the world title and becoming the tenth World Chess Champion.
1967 Interzonal
The 1967
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by the World Chess Federation FIDE from the 1950s to the 1990s. They were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle and were held after the Zonal tournaments, and before the C ...
Tournament was played in
Sousse,
Tunisia
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, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
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, capital = Tunis
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, ...
in October and November. The first six placegetters qualified for the Candidates, along with
Boris Spassky and
Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Nekhemyevich Tal; rus, Михаил Нехемьевич Таль, ''Mikhail Nekhem'yevich Tal' '', ; sometimes transliterated ''Mihails Tals'' or ''Mihail Tal'' (9 November 1936 – 28 June 1992) was a Soviet-Latvian chess player ...
who were seeded into the
Candidates matches
The Candidates Tournament (or in some periods Candidates Matches) is a chess tournament organized by FIDE, chess's international governing body, since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship. The win ...
as finalists of the previous tournament.
A major controversy occurred when
Bobby Fischer
Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943January 17, 2008) was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Championships at the age of 14. In 1964, he won with an 1 ...
, who was leading the tournament with seven wins and three
draws in ten rounds, abandoned the event over a dispute with the organisers. Because Fischer withdrew before he had played half his games, the results of his games were not included in his opponents' totals.
Bent Larsen
Jørgen Bent Larsen (4 March 1935 – 9 September 2010) was a Danish chess grandmaster and author. Known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play, he was the second strongest non-Soviet player, behind Bobby Fischer, for much of the 19 ...
went on to win, with Korchnoi, Geller, Gligorić, and Portisch taking the next four places.
There was a three-way tie for sixth place among
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Herman Reshevsky (born Szmul Rzeszewski; November 26, 1911 – April 4, 1992) was a Polish chess prodigy and later a leading American chess grandmaster. He was a contender for the World Chess Championship from the mid-1930s to the mid-196 ...
,
Vlastimil Hort
Vlastimil Hort (born 12 January 1944) is a German chess Grandmaster. During the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the world's strongest players and reached the 1977–78 Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship, but never qualified ...
, and
Leonid Stein
Leonid Zakharovich Stein (; November 12, 1934 – July 4, 1973) was a Soviet chess Grandmaster from Ukraine. He won three USSR Chess Championships in the 1960s (1963, 1965, and 1966), and was among the world's top ten players during that era.
...
, who played a round-robin playoff to determine the final place in the Candidates matches. In the event of a tie, the player with the best Sonneborn-Berger tie break from the Interzonal would qualify.
Los Angeles Interzonal Playoff (1968)
Chessgames.com
Chessgames.com is an Internet chess community with over 224,000 members. The site maintains a large database of chess games, where each game has its own discussion page for comments and analysis. Limited primarily to games where at least one pla ...
The playoff ended in a three-way tie, so Reshevsky qualified.
:
:
1968 Candidates matches
Spassky won the Candidates Tournament – as he did in the 1966 cycle – earning the right to challenge Petrosian for the World Championship a second time.
Larsen and Tal contested a third place playoff in the Dutch town of Eersel
Eersel () is a municipality and a town in southern Netherlands in the province of North Brabant. Eersel is situated in the Campine (Kempen) area.
Eersel is part of the Acht Zaligheden (Eight Beatitudes) and known for its attractive market. This ...
in March 1969, which Larsen won 5½–2½.
1969 Championship match
The match was played as best of 24 games. If it ended 12-12, Petrosian, the title holder, would retain the Championship.
Spassky won.
References
External links
1969 World Chess Championship
at the Internet Archive record of Graeme Cree's Chess Pages
{{World Chess Championships, state=expanded
1969
This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon.
Events January
* January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco.
* January 5
**Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...
1967 in chess
1968 in chess
1969 in chess
Chess in the Soviet Union
1967 in Tunisian sport
Chess in Tunisia
1969 in Russia
1969 in Soviet sport
1969 in Moscow