1961

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January 15, 1961

• The Courier-Journal Louisville, Kentucky Sunday, January 15, 1961 - Page 34 “Alekhine vs. Nimzovich”

January 23, 1961

• Sports Illustrated, January 23, 1961 — The Genius From Brooklyn — Bobby Fischer has now won the U.S. chess championship for the fourth consecutive year, and since he will not be 18 until March, this means he has been sole possessor of the title ever since he was 14 years old. What made his most recent triumph particularly meaningful, however, was the fact that the players who pressed him hardest are not much older than he is.
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February 07, 1961

• Austin American-Statesman Austin, Texas Tuesday, February 07, 1961 - Page 18 — Chess Battle — Ken Smith of Dallas, right, gauges his move which helped him win the title of Texas Chess Champion in the state tournament held this weekend at The University of Texas Student Union. Shown with him are Stephen Jones of Austin, left, who took fourth place, and Fred Tears of Dallas, a former champ.
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May 10, 1961

• The San Bernardino County Sun San Bernardino, California Wednesday, May 10, 1961 - Page 22 — 370-Minute Marathon — Dave Gibson, a San Bernardino Valley College student from Barstow, led the local talent by finishing 10th. Next came Tim Delaney (20th), Victor Hellman (21st) and the city champion, Dr. Max Schlosser (22nd). Two San Bernardino players battled for 105 moves, the tournament's only 100-move affair. Dr. Schlosser finally edged stubborn young Leon Blackwell, a Pacific High junior, aged 16. Blackwell deserved to draw, but lost a difficult end-game. Each player had a knight and a pawn. The longest game, time-wise, dragged out six hours and 10 minutes. Cunningham finally outgenerated Ronald Gross of Compton. Gross was the only man to win his first four games. He lost his last two, however, under the incredible nervous strain. The writer of this column, who finished 30th with a 2-4 record can testify that playing tournament chess is harder work than digging ditches or writing a hot story on deadline. It's too bad, however, that the San Bernardino Open comes but once a year. The red-hot chessnuts can hardly wait to try again. Read More

May 22, 1961

• The Berkshire Eagle Pittsfield, Massachusetts Monday, May 22, 1961 - Page 6 — Chess Championship changes hands in Moscow as Mikhail Botvinnik of Leningrad, left, is congratulated by the man he just beat, Mikhail Tal of Riga, Latvia. Tal was the former world chess champ since last year — winning it from Botvinnik. The match, which went 21 games, lasted for over two months in the Soviet capital city. (AP Photo). Read More

June 01, 1961

• The Gazette Montreal, Quebec, Quebec, Canada Thursday, June 01, 1961 - Page 27 — Russian First To Regain Chess Title [Caption: Mikhail Botvinnik prepares the first of many moves that won him world chess title against Mikhail Tal.] In the rarified atmosphere of world-class chess, where genius is commonplace and where mental agility and stamina meet their severest test, a scholarly Soviet engineer has performed an unprecedented feat. Mikhail Botvinnik, 49-year-old grandmaster from Leningrad, routed Mikhail Tal, brilliant 24-year-old Latvian, and regained the world chess championship May 13 for the second time. Botvinnik, who prepares so carefully for major competition that he once had a friend blow cigarette smoke in his face while practicing for a tournament against several heavy smokers, won over his youthful opponent in 21 games in Moscow. In all, he won 10, lost five and drew six with Tal, who wrested the title from him a year earlier with a pyrotechnic display of unorthodox chess strategy. The number of decisions was high for a world championship in which draws usually predominate. A year ago Tal won six, lost two and there were 13 draws. “This is truly amazing performance for a man of nearly 50,” said C.H. Alexander, former British champion, writing in the Sunday Times. “A world championship match, the best of 24 games in a series of five-hour sessions over a period of eight weeks and requiring constant unremitting concentration—a single lapse of attention will cost a game—is one of the most severe tests of nervous stamina to which one can be submitted.”
  
  Won In 1948 Botvinnik first won the world championship in 1948 in a tournament to name a successor to the late Alexander Alekhine. He lost to countryman Vasily Smyslov in 1957 but returned the next year to regain the title. Up to that time Alekhine had been the only champion to make a comeback, regaining the championship from Max Euwe of the Netherlands. Alekhine was 45 at the time, the oldest man ever to become champion until Botvinnik did it at 47. Harry Golombek, international master from London who was judge of the latest match, said Botvinnik played “with a subtlety that could hardly be rivaled by any other master of the present time and by few of the past.” Alexander describes Botvinnik's victory as “at least as much a triumph of character as of intellect: he succeeded — something he failed to achieve last year — in imposing his style of game on Tal.” “Tal is a tactician of genius: he is at his best in very complicated positions, where he shows amazing insight and imagination; he is unequaled in his ability to build winning attacks in such situations.” “Botvinnik is a profound strategist: he excels in long-range planning and in subtle maneuvering to create and exploit weaknesses starting from quite ordinary-looking positions; his judgment in such positions is superb. “So the decision rested largely on whether Tal would be able to get the complex situations that suited him or Botvinnik would succeed in keeping the games in quieter channels and the outplaying Tal strategically. And this struggle was won by Botvinnik.” Vyacheslav Ragozin, Soviet grandmaster and editor-in-chief of the magazine, Chess In The USSR, who was Botvinnik's coach for 15 years, said the latest match revealed “Botvinnik's superior training both in theory and psychology.” He noted that in 10 of the first 14 games, queens were exchanged early in the struggle, posing a disadvantage for Tal, to whom the queen is the main and most dangerous piece.
  
  Family Shaken Up “Our family of Soviet grand masters with their scientifically substantiated approach to the game has been shaken up by Tal's tempestuous and daring style but we wonder whether this style is becoming too monotonous. As the years go by Tal's tactics are losing their acuteness and strength. The grand masters are finding antidotes to Tal's headlong attacks.”
  Looking to the future, Alexander wonders whether Tal will be able to recover from this reverse. He recalls that Smyslov, 10 years younger that Botvinnik, never regained his form after losing in 1958. Read More

June 09, 1961

• The Sheboygan Press Sheboygan, Wisconsin Friday, June 09, 1961 - Page 18 “Whittles Chessmen”

August 20, 1961

• The San Francisco Examiner San Francisco, California Sunday, August 20, 1961 - Page 8 — Bisguier, Kovacs Lead Chess Match — With the fifth round of play in the United States Open Chess Championship completed, only two players remained with perfect 5-0 scores. Thus the stage is set for a dramatic meeting tonight between Arthur Bisguier and Zoltan Kovacs. Kovacs, a former Hungarian national now living in Los Angeles, will have the white pieces against Grand master Bisguier, Benko and Byrne for the Open Championship. Benko lost his perfect score by drawing with Louis Levy of New York in the fifth round. Sacrifice. Meanwhile, Bisguier was playing brilliantly against Tibor Weinberger of Los Angeles. He initiated a sacrificial combination, the outcome of which was not clear to the spectators. Weinberger thought over his next move for 35 minutes, and then resigned. Analysis the following day proved the correctness of the combination. Three of the top contenders, by an unusual coincidence, are former Hungarian nationals. The Hungarian uprising in 1956 forced Benko, Kovacs, and Weinberger to seek refuge in this country. Zoltan Kocsis and Leslie Simon are other strong California players who fled Budapest. The Communist-bloc countries have produced a large percentage of the world's top players in recent years. According to one theory, the popularity of chess in these countries is the result of the suppression of other free thought by the Communist system. In any event, refugees from Eastern Europe have added greatly to the playing strength of American chess. Kovacs and Weinberger have dominated most California tournaments since their arrival four years ago. The U.S. Speed Championships, in which each player is allowed 10 seconds per move, were held last night as most of the tournament players took a day off. Winner of the “rapid transit” crown was Robert Byrne of Indianapolis, who won 12 straight games without a loss in both preliminary and final rounds. William Addison of San Francisco was second with a score of 6½ to 1½ while Bisguier and Ronald Gross of Compton tied for third place with scores of 5 to 3. Byrne played masterfully despite the pressure of time on every move. Official host for the tournament is Henry Gross of San Francisco… Read More

August 31, 1961

• The Miami News Miami, Florida Thursday, August 31, 1961 - Page 14 — Chess Champions Yell 'Foul' Over Cats and Cigars by Bill Pugh San Francisco—Playing the game to win seems to be the motto in some sports where large sums of money depend on the outcome. Could this be true of chess? The monetary rewards from the thinking man's game are so low that most of the so-called professionals have to have outside jobs.
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