1957

 

January

Australia: The strongest ever tournament in the country was held in Melbourne. The Olympic tourney also counting as the 24th Australian championship was won by O. Sarapu (NZL) 11 ahead of K. Ozols (AUS), F. Lazare (AUS) and F. Campomanes (PHI).
England: At the traditional 42nd Hastings Chess Festival, S. Gligoric (YUG) and B. Larsen (DEN) shared first place with 6,5/9. A. O’Kelly (BEL) and F. Olafsson (ISL) followed with 6/9.
Belgium: A. O’Kelly won a small tournament in Ghent ahead of E. Dimer (GER).
France: H. Pilnik (ARG) won the Xmas tournament of Paris.
Germany: The team of Hamburg defeated Stockholm 5,5-4.5.
Holland: The annual Beverwijk tournament was won by A. Matanovic (YUG) with 6,5/9 ahead of G. Stahlberg (SWE) 6. A. O’Kelly (BEL) drew all his games!
Mme Chaude de Silans and Hemskerk shared first at the Amsterdam Women’s Congress.
New Zeeland: A. Feneridis won the 64th national title.
Norway: In a friendly match Denmark beat Norway 11-8.
USA: S. Reshevsky had an easy victory at the Rosenwald Tournament in New York with 9/11. Second was A. Bisguier 7/11. It was one of the first appearances  in a strong tournament of the young R. Fischer (13) who beat D. Byrne  and Seidman and finished with 5,5/11.

Orbituary: 
Czechoslovakia. GM Duras died in Prague. He was one of the strongest experts of the game during the period on 1904 and 1914.
FIDE awarded him the title of International Grandmaster in 1950, when the title was first introduced, in recognition of his achievements in the early twentieth century.

February

Poland. K. Plater won the national championship
Sweden. The famous correspondence player H. Malmgren died in Uppsala.
USA. The University of Chicago won the US Intercollegiate Championship.
USSR. In Moscow, M. Tal won its first USSR championship with 14 points and a margin of half point ahead of P. Keres and D. Bronstein
For the third time, K. Zworikina won the USSR Women Championship.

March

Germany. The club of Hamburg won the W. German Team Championship.
USSR. Moscow. On March 3rd  was the opening ceremony of the World Championship Match Final between M. Botvinnik and V. Smyslov. The first game was played on March 5th at the Tchaikowsky Concert Hall. Botvinnik played with white and adjourned his game after he played his 41st moves…with a lost position.

April

Austria. Dittman AUT won a small tournament in Vienna ahead of V. Pirc YUG.
Brazil. T. Mangini won the national Championship.
Czechoslovakia. Without the top players, it was Alster who won the national championship.
Romania. Troianescu won for the third time the national championship.
Yugoslavia. S. Gligoric collected another national title by winning the 22 rounds(!) championship with 15,5/22. Trifunovic, N. Karaklajic and B. Ivkov ended with 14.
USSR. After a struggle of 2 months, V. Smyslov became the new World Champion by wining the final game against M. Botvinnik 12,5-9,5.

May

Argentina. Soviet victory at the traditional Mar del Plata tournament. P. Keres won the field with 15/18 (4 draws only!) ahead of M. Najdorf 14.  
Belgium:V. Soultanbeieff won the federation championship ahead of Jef Boey. 
Bulgaria: O. Neikirch won the 11th national championship.
Italy. Nedeljkovic YUG won the West European Zonal Tournament with 8,5 ahead of Pritchard (ENG) and Lazarevic (YUG) with 7,5. They all qualified for the final of Moscow.
England: S. Gligoric was the main guest at the Bognor Regis tournament. Of course, he won the event scoring 8/10 ahead of B. Andersson 7.
Iceland: F. Olafsson won the 43rd championship ahead of F. Torbergsson with 8/9.
USA. M. Euwe NED won an exhibition match against the young R. Fischer USA 1,5-0,5.

June

Czechoslovakia. J. Kosma won the international tournament of Bratislava ahead of M. Filip.
Denmark. P. Ravn won the national title
Holland: JH. Donner won the national title with 9 points ahead of H . Bouwmeester, C. Van den Berg and F. Roessel 7.
Hungary. GM G. Barcza won the championship with a margin of 1,5 point. The favorite L. Szabo didn’t participate.
Switzerland. In Bern, the team of W. Germany won the 4th Claire Benedict Tournament with 16/20. Second was Holland 13,5. W. Unzicker and M. Euwe made the best score with 4,5/5.
Uruguay. A. Olivera won the 27th national championship.
USA: S. Bernstein has won the Marshall CC Championship with a score of 10,5/13.

July

Belgium. Despite an amazing loss in 18 moves against H. Winants, A. O’Kelly won the Belgian Championship with 7,5/9 followed by Dunkelblum 6,5, H. Winants  and J. Boey 6.
Bulgaria. M. Filip (CZE) ended clear first at the European Zonal in Sofia with 9,5/14. He topped B. Sliwa (POL), O. Nieikirch (BUL) and A. Matanovic (YUG) 8,5/14 who will have to play a tiebreak match.
Denmark. In a friendly match, the team of East Germany beat Denmark finish with 11,5-8,5.
Ireland. The Czech Pachman (CSR) won the European Zonal in Dublin with 14,5/18. Gligoric (YUG) and P. Benko (HUN) finished second with 13/18. All three are qualified for the Interzonal.
Roumania: I. Balanel won the International Tournament of Ploesti with 10,5/12.
Scotland. J. Aitken made the news by winning the Scottish championship with 8/8!
USA. An unofficial match for the US title was organized in New York between S. Reshevsky and A. Bisguier (title holder). S. Reshevsky won the event with 6-4.
R. Fischer (14) won the US Junior Championship with an astonishing 8,5/9
D. Byrne won on tiebreak the strong New Western Open Championship ahead of 132 players.
In Cleveland, R. Fischer (14) became the youngest winner of the US Open. He tied the first place with A. Bisguier with 10/12.
USSR: E. Vasiukov won the Kazakh ch., S. Zukhovitsky won the Azerbaijani ch., J. Yukhtman won the Kyrgyzstan ch., A. Blagidze won the Georgian ch, K. Pitksaar won the Estonian ch., R. Kholmov won the Lithuanian ch., A. Gipslis won the Latvian ch., V. Korchnoi and S. Furman share the first place at the Leningrad ch.

August

Austria: The teams of USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and West Germany qualified for the European Team Championship Final organized in Vienna. The Soviet squad was just too strong and without any opposition they won the title with 41 points ahead of Yugoslavia 34, Czechoslovakia 24,5 and W. Germany 20,5.
England: Dr. S. Fazekas with 8/11 won the 44th British Championship organized in Plymouth. J. Penrose, R. Wade and P.H. Clarke finished with 7,5.
Finland: Ojanen won the national title.
France: V. Bergaser won the 32nd French championship ahead of C. Boutteville.
Germany. In Dortmund, W. Germany won a friendly match against Holland 12-8. At board 1 Euwe NED drew twice with Unzicker FRG.
In Dresden, East Germany team won against Austria 14-6. On board 1 Duckstein AUT drew with Uhlmann  DRG.
Holland. Holland won the Junior International Team Championship of Den Hague.
Sweden. Nilsson won the playoff and the title of national champion.
Switzerland. E. Bhend won the national Cup.
USA. 131 entries at the US Amateur Chess Championship, H. Lyman won the event.

September

Argentina. The national championship has been won by Sanguinetti with 11/14.
Austria. Auer won the national championship.
Canada. In Toronto, the American W. Lombardy won the 4th World Junior with 11/11!
Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, O. Panno (ARG) emerged as the winner of the South American Zonal with 13 out of 15. Rossetto (ARG) and Sangunetti (ARG) followed with 11,5 and Najdorf (ARG) 11.
Bulgaria. Bobotsov 9/11 won the International Tournament of Varna. Kluger (HUN) and Robatsch (AUT) finished second.
Malta. J.  Karanjac (YUG) and B. Ivkov (YUG) shared first at the Malta Open.
Iceland. USSR won the World Student Championship without any opposition. The team finished with 43,5 points ahead Bulgaria 37 and Czechoslovakia 36. M. Tal (USSR) and Dr. Filip (CSR) had the best scores on board 1.
USSR. D. Bronstein won the Moscow Championship with 10,5/12.and V. Ragozin won the Burevesnik ch.
The Soviet team won the friendly match (Scheveningen system) against Yugoslavia held in Leningrad. S. Gligoric  YUG and M. Taimanov USSR had the best score with 6/8.
USA. R. Fischer made another outstanding performance by winning the New Jersey Open ch. with 6,5/7.
Yugoslavia. S. Puc won the 1st Sarajevo International tournament ahead of R. Maric and J Szabo.

October-November

Argentina. C. Sanguinetti won the Memorial Portela with 17,5/19 ahead of O. Panno 17 and J. Pelikan 15,5.
Canada: Vaitonis won the Canadian championship
Finland: Sterner (SWE) won the Nothern Countries Championship ahead of G. Stahlberg (SWE) and E. Book (FIN).
East Germany. D. Bronstein USSR had a narrow victory at the International of Gotha ahead of L. Pachman (CSR) and E. Vasiukov (USSR).
G. Malich became the 8th champion of East Germany.
Hungary. In Budapest, Hungary beat Yugoslavia 10,5-9,5.  
Iceland. After the World Student Championship, the young P. Benko, a top Hungarian player, asked  for asylum as a political refugee. He is planning to move later to the USA.
Italy. G. Barcza (HUN) won the San Benedetto tournament.
E. Paoli won the 19th Italian championship.
Netherlands: In Wageningen, L. Szabo (HUN) won the Zonal tournament with 13 points ahead of F. Olafsson 12.5 and B. Larsen 12.
Norway. O. Barda won the national title for the 6th time.
Poland.  E. Geller (USSR) won the International Tournament of Szcawno-Zdroj  with 12,5/15. R. Kholmov (USSR) was second with 11 and L. Szabo (HUN) third with 10.
South Africa. W. Heidenfeld won the  another national championship with 9/12.
Spain. A. Pomar added a new national title by winning the championship with 13/16.
Switzerland. Kupper and Nievergelt are joint winners of the 59th Swiss Championship.
USA. S. Reshevsky has defeated easily D. Byrne in a ten-game match with 7-3. R. Fischer scored two victories in matches, the first against Benninson 3,5-1,5 and the second against R. Cordoso 6-2.
Yugoslavia. S. Janosevic won the championship of Serbia.

December

Argentina. Without M. Najdorf and O. Panno,  C. Sanguineti won easily the national title.
Cuba. Jimenez Zerqura won the 10th national championship.
Czechoslovakia. The national team defeated Italia 13-7
West Germany. P. Troeger (44!) surprised the favorites to win the national championship of West Germany with 11,5 point. W. Unzicker finished second with 10.
East Germany. The national team of East Germany drew 10-10 against Czechoslovakia. On the first  board,  W. Uhlmann beat L. Pachman 2-0.
Iceland. P. Benko won 2 small tournaments always ahead of F. Olafsson (ISL), G. Stahlberg (SWE) and H. Pilnik (ARG).
Spain. K. Draga (GER) won the IT of Madrid ahead of A. Pomar (ESP) and W. Unzicker (GER).
USSR. E. Geller won the 25th Jubilee tournament of Ukraine with 12,5/17…together with S. Flohr who was playing as a guest of honor.
Three matches were scheduled for the visit of Hungary in USSR. Hungary lost against Leningrad (with a victory of B. Spassky board 1 against G. Barcza 1,5-0,5) and a victory against Estonia (with a 2-0 for G. Barcza against P. Keres!).
Venezuela. De Greiff COL won the Zonal Tournament of Central America ahead of M. Cuellar.