1962
January- February
Australia: A Maroczy Memorial Tournament was held in Sydney towards the end of the year 1961 and was won by R. Pikler with 7,5 points ahead of L.S. Fell with 7 points and B. Berger with 6,5. The first-prize winner is an ex-Hungarian.
Bulgaria: The Bulgarian Championship was won by Padevsky with 15 ½ out of 19 followed by Peev with 14 points and Popov and Minev with 12 ½.
Czechoslovakia. – At Klasterec, Vastimil Jansa edged with 5 points Vlastimil Hort and Lubomir Kavalek in the Master tournament which included the best national players.
England. – The World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik won the 37th Hastings Premier tournament ahead of Svetozar Gligoric, after scoring an impressive 8/9.
Holland: The top tournament in the International Congress at Beverwijk seemed to lack interest since too many players were intent on draws. Only 1,5 points separated the first-prize winner from the seventh and the 8th players. The 1st place was taken by GM from YUG Dr. Trifunovic with 6 points the score was made up of 6 draws and 3 wins. The equal seconds were Donner (NED) and Robatsch (AUT) with 5,5 followed by Bisguier (USA) and Kottnauer (ENG) with 5 points.
There were strong entries for the two tournaments ranking below the top one. First prize in Master Section “A” was won in convincing fashion by the Junior World Champion Parma with 7 points, followed by Scafarelli 6 and Barendregt 5,5.
Italy. – Mato Damjanovic (YUG) won in solo the Napoli Open ahead of Bruno Treza (ITA).
At the traditional Reggio Emilia, the local Alberto Giustolisi won the field with 8/11 ahead of Lehmann (GER) and Githescu (ROM).
Israel. At the Israeli Championship, the old veterans of chess emerged the triumphant on the whole. There was a triple tie for the 1st place between Aloni, Domnitz and Porath with 9,5 out of 15. They were followed by Stepak 9 and Harel with 8,5 points.
New Zealand. The New Zealand Championship was won by G.G. Haase, a player from Dunedin. He was the first with 8 points out of 11.
Spain: The 2nd annual international tournament at Torremolinos ended in a triple tie between Parma, F.J. Perez and L. Szabo with 7,5 points each.
Sweden: The World Champion Botvinnik went on to Sweden after his Hastings triumph and there, at Stockholm, he won in even more convincing style with a score of 8,5 out of 9. The second was shared among Flohr and Soderborg with 5,5 followed by Lundin and Olsson with 5 points.
USA. – New York. Without the participation of R. Fischer, Larry Evens won the national championship finishing with 7,5 points ahead of Robert Byrne with 7.
Paul Joseph Brandt won the 74th Manhattan Chess Club ch. and Raymond Allen Weinstein won the 45th Marshall Chess Club ch.
Mars
Denmark. In Copenhagen, Bent Kolvig became the new national champion with 9/11.
Germany (East). The East German Championship was won by Pietzsch for the 3rd time. He scored 11,5 and was followed by Malich with the score 10,5. and then followed Liebert, Mohring and Zinn with 10 points.
Poland. The tie for the Polish Championship between Balcerowski and Doda was resolved by a play-off in the favor of the first named sho won a match against Doda by 4-2. Out of 6 games, he won three, lost one and drew two games.
Romania. A double-round match held in Bucharest (March 28th to 30th) ended in an 11-9 victory for Bulgaria over Romania.
At Bucharest, V. Ciocaltea edged T. Ghitescu at the Cupa Progresul tournament.
Sweden. With no surprise, Rober Fischer won convincely the Interzonal of Stockholm finishing the 22 round tournament with 17,5 (no lost game) ahead of Geller and Petrosian both at 15 and Korchnoi 14.
Yugoslavia. The 17th National Championship was held at Skopje from February 29 to March 18, 1962 and turned out to be one of the weakest at that time. The holder, Dr. Trifunovic, did not defend his title; Gligoric and Bertok were playing in the Interzonal and three players, Puc, Damjanovic and Kozomara, retired through illness. The final scores were: (1-2) Matanovic and Minic with 11 points; (3) Sokolov with 10 points.
April
Argentina. The 25th Intl tournament at Mar del Plata ended in an outstanding success for the Soviet master Polugaievsky, who won the 1st prize with 11½ points out of possible 15. Smyslov and Szabo with 9½ points were the second, and they were followed by D. Byrne, Najdorf and Sanguinetti with 8½ points.
Bosnia The 5th Sarajevo International Tournament was won by Gligoric and Portisch with 8 points, followed by Dr. Trifunovic with 6 ½.
England. At the 10th Bognor Regis tournament, Karaklarjic (YUG) 10/11, Lehmann (WGR 8.5 and Marivic (YUG) were the top 3.
Hungary. There was a tie for this year’s Hungarian championship between Lengyel and Portisch with 13 points. Followed by Szabo with 11 and Bilek and Kluger with 10,5.
Iceland. The Icelandic Championship was won very easily by Fridrick Olafsson with 10 out of 11. then followed B. Thorsteinsson (8) and I. Asmundsson (7).
Romania. An International tournament was held in April at Bucharest with two representatives of the Soviet Union who occupied the top two places. Kholmov was the 1st with 11,5 points and Shiyanovsky scored 10,5 points.
Sweden. The results of the Interzonal play-off were: the 1st place L.Stein (3), the 2nd place P. Benko (2 ½) and the third place S. Gligoric with ½.
Switzerland. The 9th Clare Benedict Team Tournament took place at Gurten-Kulm near Bern (April 21 to 25, 1962). It was won by West Germany (Unzicker 3; Darga 3,5 and L. Schmid 3).
USSR A match at Leningrad between Leningrad and Budapest ended in a victory for the home side with the score 25,5-22,5. On the top board for Leningrad Tolush was beaten 1-3 by Barcza. Later the Budapest team went to Belarus and was defeated by 13,5-8,5, Barcza drawing twice on top board with Suetin.
An international tournament finished at the Central Chess Club in Moscow with the success of Y. Averbakh and E. Vasjiukov with 10/15. The first Western player was B. Larsen who finished 11th with 7.5/15.
Yugoslavia. In Niksic, R. Maric won an international tournament with 9/13 ahead of V. Sokolov and D. Minic.
May
Cuba. The Capablanca Memorial Tournament was held at Havana. The first three winners are: Najdorf with 16,5; Polugaievsky and Spassky with 16 and Gligoric and Smyslov with 15, 5 points.
Czechoslovakia. International tournament at Marianske Lazne was won by the Soviet Grandmaster Taimanov who scored 8 points followed by Durasevic (YUG) and Tringov (BUL) with 7 ½.
France: The Paris Championship was won by Molnar with 7,5 out of 9, ahead of Boutteville with 7 points and Huguet with 5,5.
South Africa. The 1st South African Open Championship took place in the Wilderness Hotel, Cape Province from April 29 to May 12 and resulted in a tie for the 1st place between two visitors from overseas, O’Kelly de Galway and H. Golombek. They scored 10 out of a possible 11.
USA. Benko came first in the New York State Championship, which was also held on the Swiss System with 34 players and nine rounds. He scored 8,5 points and Sandrin was second with 6,5 points. Five players tied with 6 points-Kaufman, Brandts, Valvo, Dr. Mengarini, and Marks.
June
Curacao. The FIDE Candidates Tournament was a real Soviet triumph. Petrosian 17,5, Geller 17 and Keres 17 took the top threes place and Fischer will come only fourth with 14. After the tournament, Fischer publicly alleged that the Soviets had colluded to prevent him from winning. H accused that Petrosian, Geller and Keres had pre-arranged to draw all their games and that Korchnoi had been instructed to lose to them.
Finland. The Finnish Championship was won by Ojannen with the score 9,5 out of 11 ahead of Raisa with 8,5 and Book, Niemela and Rantanen with 8 points.
Western Germany. A match between Germany and Holland at Oberhausen was held in June and ended in a draw 11-11. The teams consisted of 10 men and one woman player and in the first round Germany led by 6,5-4,5.
Hungary. The team of the Romanian Chess Federation won Hungary in a double-round match in June with the score 13,5-10,5.
Italy. An International tournament held at Gargnano on the Swiss System with 9 rounds between 22 players and ended in a tie for the first place among the three Yugoslavs: Lukic, Minic and Sofrensky. They all scored 6,5 points.
Switzerland: A very interesting Veterans’ tournament took place at Zurich from Jun 26th until July 6th. The baby of the event was the fifty-eight-year-old Grob, who tied fort he first place with Kostich with 6 points followed by Hans Mueller and Zimmerman with 5 ½.; and Dr. Steitz on the third place with 4 ½.
USSR: The Match between the USSR and Yugoslavia at Lvov ended in a victory for the Soviet team by 37-23. The Soviet Team of 10 players (six adults, two juniors and two women) won the first 3 rounds by 8-2, 6 ½-3 ½ and 6 ½-3 ½; drew the 4th round 5-5, lost the 5th round 4 ½-5 ½ .
July
Belgium. Van Seters and Willaert shared first at the Belgium Chess Championship.
Czechoslovakia: The USSR team became a convincing winner at the Student’s International Team Championship, at Marianske Lazne. It consisted of Spassky, Gufeld, Bagirov, Savon, Tomson and Khodos. The team came with 24 points without losing a single match. The second was the team from Yugoslavia with 20 points and the third was Czechoslovakia with 19.
East Germany: An International tournament in the memory of Emanuel Lasker was held in East Berlin from July 8th to 25th. The 1st prize was won by Vasiukov with 11 ½ points; the 2nd by Stein and Udovcic with 10 ½ points and the 3rd was won by O’Kelly with 9 points.
Finland: A team representing Estonia played a double-round match against Finland at Helsinki on July 21st and 22nd. The Estonians won easily enough by 15 to 7. Finland had a catastrophic defeat in the 1st round by 9,5-1,5, however, did much better in the second round where the score was 5,5-5,5.
Greece. Kokkoris won the 13th Greek championship.
Holland: There was a double-round robin match of the Soviet Team against a Dutch team at Hague on July 3rd and 4th. The Soviet Team won overwhelmingly by 5-1 on the first day and scored a victory by 3 ½ -2 ½ in the second round.
Hungary: The Asztalos Memorial Tournament was played at Kecskemet and ended in a victory for the Soviet player Cholmov, who scored 11 points out of 15 possible. Equal second were Portisch and Szabo from Hungary with 10 ½ points.
Italy: At the International Tournament at the annual festival of San Benedetto del Tronto there was a tie for the first place between Florian (HUN) and Todorcevic (YUG) with 9 points each. They came first ahead of Bozic from YUG with 8, 5 points and Szollosi from HUN with 7,5 points.
Sweden: The Swedish Championship was played in the northern town named Ornskoldsvik from July 13 to 22. The title was won by the fifty -year-old math teacher B. Ekenberg. He scored 8 ½ out of 11 ahead of Olsson and with 7 points and Skold and Buskenstrom with 6 ½.
Switzerland: The Swiss Championship, which was held at ST. Gallen was won by Kupper with 7,5 points ahead of Keller with 7 and Castanga with 6,5 points.
The Coupe Suisse, the Swiss Knock-out championship, went to the former Hungarian Master Gereben, who beat Kupper in the final by 1,5-0,5.
USA: A hard-fought match of ten games between Larry Evans and Lombardy ended in a narrow victory for the former by 5,5-4,5.
Immediately after playing in the Candidate’s Tournament at Curacao, Benko took part in the Eastern Open Championship in Washington D.C. and was the first with 9,5 points out of 10. K. Burger, who drew with Benko, came the second with 8,5 points.
The Western Open Championship at Milwaukee was won by Robert Byrne for the second year in the succession with 8 points out of 9, Curt Brasket came second having scored 7,5 points.
USSR. The Match between Yugoslavia and USSR took place at Lvov. The Soviet team started off in an overwhelming style by winning the first round by 8-2 and were also successful in the second round by 6,5-3,5. Amongst the players of the USSR team were the following players Bronstein, Kholmov and Taimanov. Among the leading Yugoslavian players were the following people: Gligoric, Matanovic and Ivkov.
August
Argentine. The National Championship held in Buenos Aires from July 17th to August 16th was won by Sanguineti with 13,5 out of 17 possible. He lost only one game to Bielicki , the 1959 Junior World Champion.
Bulgaria. An International Tournament at Sofia in August, which was intended to be held as a training tournament for the Bulgarian Olympic Team, ended in a tie between the Bulgarian Champion Padevsky and Ciocaltea from Romania with 7,5 points each. Equal third were Damjanovic from YUG and Tringov from BUL with 7 points followed by Dr. Lehmann from West Germany, Lilienthal and Mikenas from USSR with 6 points.
Canada. The Canadian Open Championship Tournament was held at Ottawa. The first place was taken by the Montreal Champion Laszlo Witt with 9 points out of 9 possible. Equal second and third were Fuster and Theodorovic with 7 points each, Fuster gaining the second place on the tie-breaking system.
Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak Championship was won my Kavalek with 12,5 points out of 17 ahead of Blatny and Hort who scored 11 and Trapl who scored 10,5 points.
Holland. An International tournament held in the latter half of August at Amsterdam (known as the IBM tournament named after the firm, the Industrial Business Machines, that financed the event) ended in a tie between Czerniak from Israel and Tan from Indonesia with 8 points each. Donner from Holland followed them with 7 and Kieninger from the Western Germany with 6,5 points.
USA. The former Spanish Master, Medina, who changed her federation for Venezuela, won the United States Open Championship which was held in San Antonio, Texas from August 13th to 25th. There were 144 players and 12 rounds were played in a Swiss system. Medina was first with 10 points ahead of Benko and Lombardy with 9,5 points. The third were Bisguier, R. Byrne and Harrow with 9 points.
USSR. After the tie for the second place between Geller and Keres at the Candidates’ Tournament at Curacao, they were due to play a match to determine which of them had the right to play in the next Candidates’ event. This duly-tournament between Keres and Geller took place in Moscow in August and was won by Keres by 4,5-3,5.
West Germany. An International junior tournament took place at Bamberg in August. All the players except for the Yugoslav players Parma and the Dutch Master Langeweg were German. Parma came first as expected with 7,5 points and Bialas was the second with 7 points and Clemens and Hecht with 6,5 came third.
September
France: The annual French Championship was held in Paris on the Swiss System with 24 player and 11 rounds. The player Thiellement won the title with 9 points ahead of Rolland with 7,5 and Ferry, Huguet and Nora with 7 points.
Italy: The Italian Championship held at Forte dei Marmi in the first half of September was won by the Roman player, 24 years old, named Tatai, who went through the event unbeaten and scored 9,5 points.
USSR. Shofman was the champion of Moldovia, L. Stein was the champion of Ukraine, J. Klovans won the Latvian championship, N. Dzhalolov won the championship of Tajikistan, I Nei won the championship of Estonia, A. Buslalev won the Georgian championship, Kudriashov won the Turkmenistan championship.
October
Bulgaria. The USSR won another Olympic title at Varna where the 15th Olympiad was organized. The team which included few of the best player of the world with Botvinnik, Petrosian, Spassky, Keres, Geller and Tal conceded one surprising draw with Romania and won all the rest of the games. Yugoslavia finished second and Argentina third.
England. The Belgian GM Alberic O’Kelly was imperial at the 10th Eastbourne chess festival finishing the competition with 11,5/12.
Holland. The Danlon Intl Women’s Tournament was held from 17 to 24 October in Amsterdam. The winner was the Dutch Lady Champion, C. Vreeken with 5,5 points. Equal second and third were Chaude de Slians from France and K. Jovanovic from Yugoslavia with 4,5 points.
Poland. On its way to Varna, the US team stopped in Poland for a warm up match vs. the national team of Poland. The final score was 3-2 for the Americans. On board one, Fischer beat Sliwa.
Spain. The finals of the Spanish National Club Championship was held at Saragossa in October and once again Real Madrid came first with the Barcelona club, C.A. Espanol, a good second, and C.A. Tarrasa third.
USSR. The Women’s World Championship title has been won by the twenty-one-year-old Georgian Nona Gaprindashvili. She overwhelmingly defeated the title-holder, Elizaveta Bykova, by 9-2 in a match at Moscow in October. The new champion was at that time a student of English at a language institute and started playing from the age of five. Her trainer, Shishkov, compared her with Vera Menchik.
Venezuela. Manuel Belmonte won the first Venezuelan championship.
Yugoslavia: A big international lightning tournament was held in Belgrade among twenty players, ten of them from YUG and the remainder consisting of players who were returning from the Olympiad in Bulgaria. Gligoric was the first with 16, 5 out of 19 possible, followed by D.Byrne from the USA 16; R. Byrne (USA) with 13,5 points; Benko (USA)13;
November-December
Brazil. O. Gadia is the new Brazilian champion with 14/17 points.
Yugoslavia. S. Gligoric add a new national title by winning the Yugoslav championship in Vrnjacka Banja ahead of A. Matanovic and M. Damjanovic.
USSR. In Leningrad, the team of Leningrad lead by B. Spassky won the USSR Team Championship ahead of RSFSR and Moscow.
The traditional match between the teams of Leningrad and Moscow was organized this year in Leningrad. After two days of competition, Leningrad emerged with a narrow victory of 40,5-39,5. On the top board, Spassky drew his two games against Smyslov.
