ADeseret News and Salt Lake Telegram Salt Lake City, Utah Thursday, September 18, 1958
Fischer Wins Highest Rating
Bobby Fischer of Brooklyn, the 15-year-old United States champion, has become an international chess grandmaster. He is the youngest player ever to hold that exalted chess title.
Bobby tied for fifth place in the Interzone Tournament in Portoroz, Yugoslavia, that ended last week end. The tournament was played in a framework of world championship competition.
Bobby thus received the title of international grandmaster.
This remarkable result of tying for fifth place marked a brilliant success for Bobby, who was competing in his first international tournament.
He qualified with the five other leaders for next year's tournament of candidates.
The winner of that event will meet the world champion, Mikhail Botvinnik of the Soviet Union, in 1960 for the title.
The young Brooklyn high school student played successfully in the Interzone Tournament—to put it even mildly.
He drew against every Soviet grandmaster represented:
From 20 possible points, he collected 12.
A Hungarian refugee, Paul Benko, a member of the United States Chess Federation (USCF), shared third place with a Soviet grandmaster, Tigran Petrosian. Benko also became an international grandmaster.
First place in the tournament was taken by Mikhail Tal, current and two-time winner of the USSR championship tournament.
Svetozar Gligoric of Yugoslavia was runner-up.
Fridrik Olafsson of Iceland tied with Fischer for fifth place.
Certainly one of the most interesting results of the tournament was that Bobby was defeated by the two players, Olafsson and Gligoric, that Bobby's American companion, James Sherwin, defeated.
As an international grandmaster, now Fischer belongs to the most exclusive chess fraternity in the world.
There are only about 40 international grandmasters now playing.
If a chess player distinguishes himself in American tournaments, he becomes “a master.”
If he continues to win in tournaments of masters, then he becomes a “grandmaster.” Before Bobby left for Europe, he was rated a grandmaster.
To go any higher in the echelons of chess reputation, a grandmaster must excel among the grandmasters of the world.
When Bobby did this last week, he was named by the game's international body—the International Chess Federation in Stockholm (referred to as “Federation Internationale des Echecs” — FIDE)— as an international grandmaster.
One striking point of the final standings, as printed below, is that Bobby Fischer finished ahead of David Bronstein, former world champion who lost his title earlier this year to Botvinnik.
