AThe Guardian, London, Greater London, England, Thursday, August 07, 1958
Interzonal Prospects
The most eagerly awaited chess event of the year has begun this week in Portoroz, Yugoslavia. This is the world championship interzonal tournament, consisting of 21 players, of whom five will join Keres and Smyslov next year in a competition to find a challenger to Botvinnik in 1960. Owing to the rule that not more than four of the challengers can be from any one country, two of the great Russian masters Averbakh, Bronstein, Petrosian and Tal must be eliminated.
There should be a tremendous battle for the five qualifying places, with in addition to the Russians, Gligoric, Larsen, Olafsson, Panno, and Szabo having the best chances. A touch of drama will be provided by the first meeting ever between the 22-year-old Mikhail Tal, Russian champion for two years running, and Bobby Fischer, American champion at only 15. One cannot see Fischer doing really well on his first appearance in Europe, but he clearly has a great future.
Both Tal and Fischer have been preparing intensively for Portoroz in the last month. Tal was unbeaten in helping Russia to retain the world students' championship, and Fischer has been playing training games in Yugoslavia. Here is one recent game by each of them, a convincing attack by the Russian and a deep queen sacrifice (spoiled by time pressure) by the American.
