ASunday Gazette-Mail Charleston, West Virginia Sunday, September 27, 1959
With ten of fourteen rounds of play complete in the challengers tournament at Bled, Yugoslavia, it has become quite apparent that the United States' 16-year-old chess champion Bobby Fischer of Brooklyn, will not win first place and the right to play Mikhail Botvinnik for the championship of the world in 1960.
After three straight defeats, Bobby rallied to defeat Paul Benko in round 10 giving him a 4 to 6 record and fifth position. But four more rounds remain to be contested.
In the lead with a fine 6½ to 2½ is Paul Keres of the Soviet Union (but an Estonian by birth). Fellow Russians (one is an Armenian and the other a Latvian) Tigran Petrosian and Mikhail Tal, trail Keres, with 6 to 4 scores. The fourth Russian entry, ex-world champion Vassily Smyslov, is having his troubles and is in sixth position, one half point behind young Fischer.
If, as seems most probable, the youthful American titleholder will not win the challengers tourney, many chess players in the United States would look kindly on a Keres victory and would be pulling for him to overthrow Botvinnik next year.
Keres has been a modest and popular figure in the chess world—and one of the greatest grand masters—for a quarter-century.
He and Reuben Fine tied for first place in the great 1938 AVRO tournament but Keres was the official winner on a tie-breaking system. Keres was one of the five grand masters who played for the championship of the chess world when Alekhine's death vacated the title.
