1959

January

England: The East German player W. Uhlmann won this year the Hastings Congress with 8-1 ahead of  L. Portisch (HUN) 7,  E. Gereben (SUI) 6 and K. Draga (FRG) and A. Dueckstein (AUT) 5.
Netherlands. At the 21st Beverwijk tournament, F. Olafsson (ISL) won the event after conceding only 2 draws.
New Zealand. F. Fould and B. Menzies shared first at the national championship with 8 points/11.
Portugal. J. Durao won another national title at the 15th championship.
Sweden. In Jonkoping, A. Kotov (USSR) and O. Barda were co-winners of the international tournament.
USA. R. Fischer won his 2nd US championship with 8.5/11 ahead of S. Reshevsky 7.5.
Italy. O. Marthaler (SUI) won the first international tournament of Reggio Emilia.
Australia. The old L. Steiner won the 28th Australian championship with 12;5/16.
Denmark. In Copenhagen, the national team of Denmark beat Norway 12-8.
Holland: JH. Donner won the national championship with 9-1; followed by Cortlever 7,5 and T. Van Scheltinga 6,5 points.

February

Belgium: The Colle chess club of Brussels won the national league championship. Anderlecht won the Promotion Group.
Miss Leoffler is the national women champion.
Hungary: Barcza, Portisch and Szabo  are sharing the nationa championship with 12,5. A play-off should follow.
East Germany. W. Uhlmann scored 11,5 to get the title of national champion.
Obituary: A. Rueb died in Den Hague on February 2nd. Born in 1882, he was a good chess player but without international record. In 1924 at Paris during the foundation of FIDE, he was elected the first President of FIDE.

March

Czechoslovakia: L. Pachman won the national with 12,5-4,5. The  young star V. Hort only 15 years old 11,5-5,5  finished second together with F. Blatny and M. Ujtelky.
Denmark. No opposition to B. Larsen at the Danish championship, he won the title with 10/11.
Finland. T. Salo collected another national title at the 6th Finnish championship.
Hungary. L. Portisch became the 14th national champion after beating L. Szabo and G. Barcza in a play-off tournament.
Poland. S. Witkowski and J. Gromek shqred the first place at the 16th Polish championship.
USSR The 26th USSR Championship held in Tbilissi has been won by the Armenian T. Petrosian with 13,5-5,5. B. Spassky and M. Tal shared the second place with 12,5. M. Taimanov and R. Kholmov followed with 12.

April

Belgium. F. Van Seters  9,5-1,5 upsets A. O’ Kelly 9-2 , the favorite, and won the federation championship.
Bulgaria. V. Popov with 11,5 /14 won the national chmpionship organized in Sofia. M. Bobotsov is second with 9,5.
Iceland. Without F. Olafsson, it is I. Jonhannsson who won the title this year with 10/11.
Israel. The Israeli first international tournament at Haifa and Tel Aviv was won by S. Reshevsky (USA) with 10,5 points, ahead of L. Szabo (HUN) with 10, Persitz (ISR) with 8, Aloni (ISR) and Wade (ENG) with 7,5, Dunkelblum (BEL), Porath (ISR) and van der Berg (NED) with 6,5, Czerniak (ISR) with 6, Branicki (POL) with 5,5….
Switzerland: For the third time, the team of West German won the Clare Benedict tournament.
Yugoslavia: In a friendly match with ten board players held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia beat Hungary 11.5-8.5.
USSR. Soviet Grandmaster V. Ragozin scored 11 points out of 14 and won the World Correspondence Championship ahead of Endzelis AUT and L. Schmid GER with 10,5.
Obituary. On the 15 of  April, at the age of 71, passed away Edmond Lancel, a strong Belgian player and a competent chess writer, the founder of L ‘Echiquier, the author of many books on chess.

May

Argentina: M. Najdorf had to share the first prize with L. Pachman (CSR) 10,5-3,5 at the important international tournament of Mar del Plata.  The young Fischer (USA) and B. Ivkov (YUG) finished third with 10-4. It was the 8th victory of the Argentine champion.
England: Fifty-six players participated to the Stevenson Memorial. E. Gereben and Mardle with 8-2 were the winners. N. Karaklaric was third with 7,5-2,5.
Luxembourg. Third team festival of Mondorf. 1^st Rive Gauche of Paris 7,5; 2^nd Saarebruck 7,5; 3 Echiquier de Turenne, club E. Colle and Mayance 7.
Peru. In Lima, one of the first international events in Peru saw B. Ivkov (YUG) and L. Pachman (CSR) shared the first place.
USSR: Former World Champion V. Smyslov, D. Bronstein and B. Spassky  all with 7 points shared together the first place of the Chigorin Memorial held in Moscow. L. Portisch (HUN) , M. Filip (CSR) and E. Vasiukov followed with 6 points
The friendly match between the teams of Leningrad and Budapest finished with a Soviet success 26,5-17,5.
The traditional match between the teams of Moscow and Leningrad finished with a draw 10-10. On  board one V. Smyslov beat B. Spassky 2-1.
Yugoslavia: Eighteen participants this year for the Yugoslavian championship organized in Kragujevac. S. Gligoric continued to show his supremacy taking another national title with 11,5-5,5. A. Matanovic finished second with 11-6.
B. Parma won the Slovenian championship.

June

Bulgaria: At the Women’s Candidates Tournament organized in Plovdiv, the victory went to Mrs. K. Zvorikina (USSR) who became the challenger for the Women World Championship final match. She won the tournament with 11,5-3,5; followed by V. Nedjelkovic (Yug) 10.5, L. Volpert (USSR) 9.5, S. Rootarre (USSR) and E. Kehler-Herman (DDR).
Chili: The Czechoslovakian player L. Pachman continued his South American travel with another success in Santiago. This time he shared the first place with B. Ivkov (YUG) ahead of H. Pilnik (ARG) and C. Saguineti (ARG).
Czechoslovakia: The young Soviet L. Polugaevski won the traditional tournament of Marianska- Lazne with 11,5. Szabo from Hungary finished second with 11.
West Germany: At Munich, Hungary won the Railway Olympiad ahead of West Germany.
K. Draga became the champion of West Berlin.
Hungary. In Balatonfured, R. Kholmov (USSR) won the 2nd Asztalos Memorial ahead of W. Uhlmann (GDR) and I. Bilek (HUN).
Spain: Spanish success with Pomar and Perez at the international tournament of Madrid with 7-2.
Sweden: After winning the Norwegian championship few weeks early, S. Johannessen won the 25th Nordic championship held in Orebro ahead of the Grandmaster G. Stahlberg.
Switzerland. Ten foreign players including 8 grandmasters took part in the international tournament devoted to the 150^th anniversary of the Zurich Chess Club. The World Candidate M. Tal (USSR) came the first having scored 11,5 points, which proved that he became one of the strongest players of the tournament, while the beginning was not too promising for him – he was playing White and lost to E. Bhend, but then there was a row of wins 4, which put him into the leading players group including Fischer, Keres, and Barcza, who draw the next round and retained the leadership. Gligoric (YUG) came the second with 11 points, Robert Fischer (USA) with Keres (USSR) shared the 3-4 places with 10,5 points, and this is a very successful performance for 16-year-old Bobby and while P. Keres seemed to be disappointed but showed in any way his beautiful play. B. Larsen (DEN) and W. Unzicker (FRG) reached good results and scored 9,5 points, followed by L. Barcza (HUN) with 8,5 points, F. Olafsson (ISL) with 8 points…
USSR. A. Muratov won the Kazakhstan ch., V. Zhilin won the Azeri ch., E. Geller won the Ukraine ch., G. Ustinov won the Kyrgyzstan ch., B. Spassky won the Leningrad ch., A. Suetin won the Belarus ch., K. Klasups won the Latvian ch., G. Barenboim won the Uzbekistan ch., A. Lutikov won the RSFSR ch and V. Korchnoi won the Armenian ch.

July

Belgium. The young J. Boey and A. O’ Kelly shared the first prize at the Belgian championship organized in Blankenberghe.
Brazil. With 11 poinst O. Gadia won the 26th Brazilian championship.
Greece: A. Angos won the 10th Greek championship.
Hungary. Big surprise at Budapest at the World Student Championship where the team od Bulgaria topped Soviet Union.
Ireland. England won the 12th Glorney Cup.
Netherlands. In Amersfoort, the team of West Germany beat Netherlands 11,5-9,5.
Spain. Another national title for A. Pomar at the 24th Spanish chess championship.
Sweden. K. Skold won the 43rd national title ahead of B. Horberg.
USSR.

August

Canada. D. Yanofsky made an oustanding performence at the 55 Canadian championship by winning all the games and scoring 11/11!
France. In Reims, C. Boutteville won the 34th national championship.
Italy. V. Castaldi won the national title with 9/11.
Switzerland. Without Soviet representatives, C. Bielicki (ARG) surprised the favorite B. Parma (YUG) to win the World Junior Championship in Muenchenstein.
USA. A. Bisguier with 10/12 won the 60th US Open championship ahead of P. Benko and R. Weinstein with 9.5 points.

September

Malta. The German H. G. Lehmann won the probably first IT tournament of Malta with a perfect 11/11.
USSR. The team of Moscow won the USSR Team Championship ahead of Leningrad and Ukraine.

October

Hungary. In Budapest for the 1/2 final of the 2nd European Team Championship, Hungary beat Bulgaria 13-7.
West Germany. W. Unzicker with 11.5/16 edged L. Schmid with 11/16 at the 5th FRG championship
Switzerland. P. Lob and W. Baumgartner shared first at the 60th Swiss championship at Biel.
Yugoslavia. The 4th Candidates’ chess tournament was held in the Yugoslav cities of Bled, Zagreb, and Belgrade. Eight of the world’s strongest chess players contested for the right to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik (USSR) for the title of World Chess Champion. It was a long contest of 28 rounds, each competitor facing the others four times over the two months. M. Tal (USSR) won the Candidates Tournament with the score of 20 out of 28 (16 wins, 4 losses, and 8 draws). P. Keres (USSR) scored 18.5, T. Petrosian (USSR) scored 15.5, V. Smyslov (USSR) scored 15, S. Gligoric (YUG) and R. Fischer (USA) scored 12.5, F. Olafsson (ISL) scored 10, and P. Benko (USA) scored 8 points.

November

Argentina. B. Wexler became the Argentine champion ahead of A. Fogelman.
Romania. In Bucharest, G. Mititelu won the 23rd championship ahead of V. Ciocaltea.
East Germany. The 2 Soviet players E. Geller and M. Taimanov took the first places at the Dresden IT with 11/15 ahead of B. Ivkov 10.
Israel. In Tel Aviv, Y Porath won another national title.
Netherlands. A double-round match between Holland and Belgium was won 14-6 by the Dutch team who played without Euwe, Donner and Prins. On top boards Van Steenis-Dunkelblum 1-1; Bouwmeester-Van Seters 1,5-0,5; Cortlever- Boey 0,5-1,5.
Poland. V. Korchnoi (USSR) won the IT of Krakow with 8.5/11  ahead of M. Bertok (HUN) 7 points.

December

England. Netherlands beat Great Britain 12.5-7.5.
India. M. Arun won the 3rd Indian championship.
USSR. In very good shape, B; Spassky won a strong tournament in Riga ahead of V. Mikenas. M. Tal finished only 4th.
V. Simagin 12-3 has won the championship of Moscow 1959. V. Liberzon came second with 10,5; 3^rd D. Bronstein 10. All three players are qualified for USSR championship final later this year. In Tallinn for the semi-final of the USSR championship, B. Spassky and Suetin shared first placed with 11,5-3,5. I. Nei and L. Stein were third equal with 11-4.

GAME OF THE YEAR
(Beauty prize at the USSR Championship)