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Let's Play Chess Fri, Jan 28, 1972 – 40 · Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah) · Newspapers.com
Let's Play Chess: Fischer Wins ‘Oscar’ by Harold Lundstrom
For the second consecutive year Robert (Bobby) Fischer has been awarded the “Chess Oscar” as the outstanding player of 1971. The deserved honor was voted by the International Association of Chess Journalists.
The result was hardly in doubt though the American ace played only 21 games all year, without entering a single tournament. He still set records that may never again be equaled.
First came the match with Mark Taimanov, USSR. Fischer won by 6-0, the first such result between grand masters in the modern era.
Then came Bent Larsen of Denmark, who had won the Chess Oscar in 1968, and who for years was considered Fischer's chief rival in the Western World. This would be a real battle.
It was, with some exciting games of chess, but the result was the same, 6-0.
Including seven previous games, that made 19 straight victories for Fischer without allowing a single draw, and all against first-class competition.
The final match of the series was against Tigran Petrosian, USSR, fighting for a chance to regain the world title. Here was the great defensive genius of chess, a man who rarely lost.
Fischer started with a win, for game 20 on the streak. But that was it.
Petrosian won the second game in brilliant style. The next three were draws.
[The final result, Fischer, 6½ to Petrosian's 2½. On to the battle to claim the world title.]
