ANew York Times, New York, New York, Tuesday, October 27, 1959
Fischer And Tal Adjourn In Chess
Belgrade Game Halts After 41 Moves—Keres Holds Advantage Over Gligoric
With all four of the games adjourned in the twenty-seventh and semi-final round of the chess challengers' tournament last night, no changes took place in the standing, according to a report from Belgrade. The games will be played off today.
The fourth encounter between Bobby Fischer, the United States champion, and Mikhail Tal of the Soviet Union was dramatic and closely watched throughout the five-hour session.
The enthusiastic crowd of 2,000 was about evenly divided in sympathy between these opponents. It was up to the 16-year-old Brooklyn student to stop the Latvian, who was leading by a full point over Paul Keres of the Soviet Union.
Fischer had lost three straight to Tal. This time, he was equal to the occasion and put on a great show. He attacked courageously against the Sicilian defense set up by Tal and sacrificed a pawn and a piece to get the black king out into the middle of the board.
Certain defeat appeared to be in store for Tal, but he obtained respite when a move of the queen, instead of a rook, provided a chance to equalize. Once out of danger, Tal improve his prospects and was thought to have winning chances when play stopped after forty-one moves.
Meanwhile, Keres, contested a Nimzo-Indian defense with Svetozar Gligoric of Yugoslavia, who unnecessarily sacrificed a pawn at an early stage. The Estonian clung to his advantage and, after forty-one moves, had the better of a rook-and-pawn ending.
Clock trouble bothered both Paul Benko of New York and Tigran Petrosian of the Soviet Union in a queen's gambit, but they were on even terms after forty-three moves.
Vassily Smyslov of the Soviet Union, playing black in an English opening with Fridrik Olafsson of Iceland, had slightly the better of the ending after forty-one moves.
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Following are specimens of Fischer's play in the tournament:
