World Chess Championship 1966
| Portraits |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Tigran Petrosian | Boris Spassky | |
| nation |
.svg){kind=small}
|
|
| status | Defending champion | challenger |
| Age | 36 years | 29 years |
At the 1966 World Chess Championship , World Champion Tigran Petrosian successfully defended his title against Boris Spassky .
prehistory
Petrosyan had become world champion in the previous chess world championship in 1963 in a match against Mikhail Botvinnik . Spasski had already taken part in the Candidates' tournament in Amsterdam in 1956 and had a 3rd-7th place. Reached place. In the following cycles for the 1960 and 1963 World Cups , he missed qualifying for the interzonal tournament by one point . For the 1966 World Cup, he finally managed to join the group of World Cup candidates.
qualification
mode
In 1962, FIDE reformed the rules for the world championship: Until then, the challenger to the world champion had been determined in a candidates' tournament . After the Candidates' tournament in Curacao in 1962, Bobby Fischer had raised the charge that the Soviet players had played mutually agreed draws in order to save their strength for the fight against him. In order to make such manipulations impossible, the mode was changed: The World Cup candidates determined the challenger through match fights in the knockout system .
Of the eight candidates, six were chosen in the Amsterdam interzonal tournament . A special regulation stipulated that no chess association was allowed to present more than three of these candidates. The first four places went to Vasily Smyslow , Bent Larsen , Boris Spasski and Michail Tal . Since Smyslow, Spassky and Tal came from the Soviet chess federation, Leonid Stein and David Bronstein , who reached places 5 and 6, received nothing; for them the Yugoslav Borislav Ivkov and the Hungarian Lajos Portisch moved up. The remaining two candidate places went to Paul Keres and Efim Geller , who had occupied places 2 and 3 in the 1962 candidates' tournament. Ex-world champion Mikhail Botvinnik had given up his place.
Candidate competitions
| Quarter finals | Semifinals | final | |||||||||||
| Boris Spassky
|
6th | ||||||||||||
| Paul Keres
|
4th | ||||||||||||
| Boris Spassky
|
5½ | ||||||||||||
| Efim Geller
|
2½ | ||||||||||||
| Efim Geller
|
5½ | ||||||||||||
| Vasily Smyslow
|
2½ | ||||||||||||
| Boris Spassky
|
7th | ||||||||||||
| Mikhail Tal
|
4th | ||||||||||||
| Mikhail Tal
|
5½ | ||||||||||||
 Lajos Portisch
|
2½ | ||||||||||||
| Mikhail Tal
|
5½ | ||||||||||||
 Bent Larsen
|
4½ | ||||||||||||
| Bent Larsen
|
5½ | ||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small} Borislav Ivkov
|
2½ | ||||||||||||
Course of the candidate competitions
- Quarter-finals Geller - Smyslow, April 1965 in Moscow
1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th Points 
Efim Geller
1 ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ 5½ Vasily Smyslow
0 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ 2½
- Quarter-finals Larsen - Ivkov, June / July 1965 in Bled
1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th Points Bent Larsen
1 ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 0 1 5½ 
Borislav Ivkov
0 ½ ½ 0 0 ½ 1 0 2½
- Quarter-finals Spassky - Keres, April 1965 in Riga
1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 10 Points Boris Spassky
0 ½ 1 1 1 ½ ½ 0 ½ 1 6th Paul Keres
1 ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ 0 4th
- Quarter-finals Portisch-Tal, June / July 1965 in Bled
1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th Points 
Lajos Portisch
½ 0 1 0 ½ ½ 0 0 2½ Mikhail Tal
½ 1 0 1 ½ ½ 1 1 5½
- Semi-finals Geller - Spasski, May / June 1965 in Riga
1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th Points Efim Geller
½ 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 ½ 0 2½ Boris Spassky
½ 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 5½
- Semi-finals Larsen - Tal, July / August 1965 in Bled
1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 10 Points Bent Larsen
1 0 ½ ½ 1 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 4½ Mikhail Tal
0 1 ½ ½ 0 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 5½
- Match for 3rd place Larsen - Geller, March 1966 in Copenhagen
1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 Points Bent Larsen
1 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 0 1 5 Efim Geller
0 1 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 0 4th
- Candidate finals Tal - Spassky, November 1965 in Tbilisi
1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 10 11 Points Mikhail Tal
½ 1 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 0 0 4th Boris Spassky
½ 0 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 1 7th
Organization and rules
The competition took place in Moscow . The competition was scheduled for 24 games, with a tie Petrosyan would keep his title.
course
The match started on April 9th. After six draws there was the first victory for the defending champion, after two more draws again. In round 13 Spasski achieved his first win in the match - his first ever win against Petrosian. On lap 19 he was able to force a tie. But then Petrosyan pulled away and had claimed his title at 12:10. Since no one had reached the 12½ point mark, the game continued. Spasski still managed to win, and on June 9, a draw ended. It was the first time since the Alekhine-Bogolyubov World Cup match (1934) that a reigning world chess champion had defeated his challenger. Anatoly Karpov would only succeed in doing this again at the 1978 World Cup .
World Chess Championship 1966 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 10 11 12 13 14th 15th 16 17th 18th 19th 20th 21st 22nd 23 24 Victories Points Petrosian ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 1 ½ 1 0 ½ 4th 12½ Spassky ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 0 ½ 0 1 ½ 3 11½
consequences
In the following World Cup cycle, Spasski qualified again. At the 1969 World Chess Championship , he succeeded in dethroning Petrosian.
literature
- Salo Flohr : Petrosjan remains world champion . Ten Have, Amsterdam 1966.
- Raymund Stolze : Contested Crown - The duels of the world chess champions from Steinitz to Kasparow . Sportverlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-328-00526-9 .
Web links
- Tournament report and games at chessgames.com. Retrieved November 6, 2012 .