ANew York Times, New York, New York, Sunday, December 20, 1959
Chess
The spotlight in the year's chess activities was monopolized largely by Bobby Fischer, a 16-year-old student at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn.
Fischer started 1959 by retaining the United States championship and the Lessing J. Rosenwald Challenge Trophy. He again outranked Samuel Reshevsky, five-time holder of the title, and Arthur B. Bisguier, an ex-champion.
A South American trip took Fischer to Argentina and Chile. At Mar del Plata, Argentina, he tied for third place with Boris Ivkov of Yugoslavia, half a point below Miguel Najdorf of Argentina and Ludek Pachman of Czechoslovakia.
At Santiago, where Pachman and Ivkov were co-winners, Fischer tied for third with Herman Pilnik and Raul Sanguinetti of Argentina.
Fischer's next effort—in the Jubilee tournament at Zurich—once more resulted in a third-place tie, this time with Paul Keres of Estonia. Mikhail Tal of Latvia was first and Svetozar Gligoric of Yugoslavia second.
In the eight-week world challengers' tournament in Yugoslavia, the eight qualifiers played twenty-eight rounds at Bled, Zagreb and Belgrade. Tal won and will meet Mikhail Botvinnik for the world championship next year. Fischer and Gligoric tied for fifth and sixth places, below four Soviet grandmasters.
