AThe Vancouver Sun Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Wednesday, August 25, 1971 - Page 30
Chess Tourney: Student Tackles World Champion Wed, Aug 25, 1971 – 30 · The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) · Newspapers.com
Chess Tourney: Student Tackles World Champion by Bill Rayner
Life at the Burnaby Chess Club will never be quite the same again for Simon Fraser University student Pete Danenhower.
For Danenhower, 19, had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity Tuesday night of playing — and losing to — world champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union in the opening round of the Canadian Open chess championship.
It was one of the more interesting games of the first night's play in the 11-round Open, which with 153 players is the second largest in its history and has the strongest field.
Four grandmasters and three international masters are entered along with some of Canada's strongest players.
Besides Spassky, the grandmasters are Pal Benko and Lubomir Kavalek of the United States and Walter Browne of Australia.
The international masters are Duncan Suttles of Vancouver, Zvonko Vranesic of Toronto and Hans Ree of The Netherlands. All won their games, as did the other top-ranked players in the tournament.
Spassky attempted no tricks against his less-experienced opponent. He employed the Benoni defense against Danenhower's queen pawn opening and soon had a methodical kingside pawn assault rolling that eventually broke through white's defenses.
Danenhower resigned after 31 moves but not before displaying cool, stubborn resistance.
Benko defeated Terry Smith of Saskatchewan, while Kavalek defeated Ernie Kryzowski of Vancouver and Brown disposed of Erik Jefferson of Winnipeg.
It was Suttles over L. Bunning of Ottawa, Vranesic over V. Mudroch of Hamilton and Rees over Brian McLaren of Nanaimo.
Other results on the top boards: B.C. champion and U.S. junior open champion Peter Biyiasis of Vancouver over Ken Morton of Vancouver;
Tony Zaradic of Vancouver over Russell Miller of Yakima; Walter Dobrich of Toronto over Phil McCready of Eugene, Oregon; and Jonathan Berry of Vancouver over Ben Kruger of Vancouver.
Dr. Elod Macskasy of Vancouver, who won the Open in 1958, defeated David Jones of Eugene, while Ruth Cardoso, women's champion of Brazil, defeated Lewis Udow of Winnipeg.
The Benko-Smith game took the record for brevity. After only 16 minutes of play, Smith blundered and resigned on the 12th move.
“My God, I've been playing in tournaments since 1960 and now I'm a patzer (chess duffer),” Smith moaned.
The tournament will continue every night at the University of B.C.'s Ponderosa Cafeteria until September 3.
Score of Spassky-Danenhower game:
Peter Danenhower vs Boris Spassky
9th Canadian Open (1971), Vancouver CAN, rd 1, Aug-24
Benoni Defense: Fianchetto Variation. Hastings Defense (A63) 0-1
