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Chess Notebook 19 Jul 1959, Sun The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) Newspapers.com
Chess Notebook By Lyman Burgess
The chess career of Bobby Fischer should reach some sort cf climax in Yugoslavia soon.
Bobby, born in 1943, started chess tournament play seriously in 1955. He played in the 1955 U.S. Junior championship at Lincoln and made an even score (5-5), tied for tenth.
In 1956 he won the U.S. Junior championship at Philadelphia. There followed a creditable 4th-7th in the U.S. Open at Oklahoma City and a 7-3 score in the 88-man Canadian Open at Montreal.
The 1956 Rosenwald tournament was Bobby's first major round-robin (all play all) event. There were no soft touches and Fischer posted a minus as Reshevsky won.
At San Francisco in 1957 he renewed his lease on the Junior title and followed that with a smashing win in the 1957 U.S. Open.
Thus Fischer's winning the U.S. championship in January 1958 was not a shock, but his qualifying for the 1959 candidates tournament at the Portoroz interzonal did shock most of the chess world; Bobby tied for fifth with Olafsson. Fischer defended his U.S. crown successfully last January. Mar del Plata's donnybrook saw Fischer equal with Ivkov behind Najdorf and Pachman. A little later Bobby finished fourth at Santiago. Finally (for now) we come to the 10½-4½ tie for third with Keres at Zurich.
Here is Fischer's final round draw with Tal from the Zurich tournament Bobby has not yet lost to a Russian; unique these days.
Mikhail Tal vs Robert James Fischer
Zurich (1959), Zurich SUI, rd 15, Jun-07
Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation. Main Line (B99) 1/2-1/2
