Piatigorsky Cup
Encyclopedia
The Piatigorsky Cup was a triennial series of double round-robin
Round-robin tournament
A round-robin tournament is a competition "in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn".-Terminology:...

 grandmaster chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 tournaments held in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in the 1960s. Sponsored by the Piatigorsky Foundation, only two events were held, in 1963 and 1966. The Piatigorsky Cups were the strongest U.S. chess tournaments since New York 1927.

Jacqueline Piatigorsky
Jacqueline Piatigorsky
Jacqueline Rebecca Louise de Rothschild is a French-American chess and tennis champion, author, sculptor and a member of the Rothschild banking family of France. The daughter of the enormously wealthy and influential banker, Édouard Alphonse de Rothschild, and Germaine Alice Halphen, she is the...

 (née Rothschild) was married to cellist Gregor Piatigorsky
Gregor Piatigorsky
Gregor Piatigorsky was a Russian-born American cellist.-Early life:...

. One of the strongest woman chess players in the U.S. and a regular competitor in the U.S. Women's Chess Championship
U.S. Women's Chess Championship
The U.S. Women's Chess Championship tournament is to determine the woman chess champion of the United States.-List of U.S. Women's Chess Champions:*1937 Adele Rivero*1938 Mona May Karff*1940 Adele Rivero*1941 Mona May Karff*1942 Mona May Karff...

, she designed the cup and was the primary organizer of the tournament. The prize funds were among the largest of any chess tournament up to that time. Every player was guaranteed a prize and all traveling and living expenses were paid.

Los Angeles 1963

The First Piatigorsky Cup was held in The Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 in July 1963. The tournament field of eight included players from five countries. The Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 representatives Paul Keres
Paul Keres
Paul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster, and a renowned chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s....

 and World Champion
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....

 Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was a Soviet-Armenian grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his playing style because of his almost impenetrable defence, which emphasised safety above all else...

 finished equal first to share the cup with a score of 8½/14, receiving more than half of the $10,000 prize fund ($3000 for first). Since dollars brought back to the USSR were exchanged by the Soviet government for ruble
Ruble
The ruble or rouble is a unit of currency. Currently, the currency units of Belarus, Russia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria, and, in the past, the currency units of several other countries, notably countries influenced by Russia and the Soviet Union, are named rubles, though they all are...

s at an unfavorable rate, Keres and Petrosian were reported to have bought automobiles (Rambler
Rambler (automobile)
Rambler was an automobile brand name used by the Thomas B. Jeffery Company between 1900 and 1914, then by its successor, Nash Motors from 1950 to 1954, and finally by Nash's successor, American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1969...

s) with their winnings. Keres won the most games in the tournament (six), but lost twice to Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...

. The Cup was Petrosian's first tournament since winning the 1963 World Championship
World Chess Championship 1963
At the World Chess Championship 1963 Tigran Petrosian narrowly qualified to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik for the World Chess Championship, and then won the match to become the ninth World Chess Champion...

 match with Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...

 and was one of two first prizes he shared in his six-year reign as champion. He was the first reigning champion to play in an American tournament since Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...

 at Pasadena
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...

 1932. After losing in the second round to Svetozar Gligorić
Svetozar Gligoric
Svetozar Gligorić is a Serbian chess grandmaster. He won the championship of Yugoslavia a record twelve times, and is considered the best player ever from Serbia...

, Petrosian was never in danger the rest of the tournament.

The remainder of the tournament field included two Americans, Reshevsky and Pal Benko
Pál Benko
Pal Benko is a chess grandmaster, author, and composer of endgame studies and chess problems.- Early life :Benko was born in France but was raised in Hungary. He was Hungarian champion by age 20. He emigrated to the United States in 1958, after defecting following the World Student Team...

, two Argentinians, Oscar Panno
Oscar Panno
Oscar R. Panno is an Argentine chess Grandmaster.Panno won the World Junior Chess Championship in 1953, and also won the championship of Argentina the same year....

 and Miguel Najdorf
Miguel Najdorf
Miguel Najdorf was a Polish-born Argentine chess grandmaster of Jewish origin, famous for his Najdorf Variation....

, and two Europeans, Gligorić (Yugoslavia) and Friðrik Ólafsson
Friðrik Ólafsson
Friðrik Ólafsson is an Icelandic chess Grandmaster and former president of FIDE.Friðrik was born in Reykjavík, Iceland. A first-time winner of the Icelandic Championship in 1952 and of the Scandinavian Championship a year later, he rapidly became recognised as the strongest Icelandic player of his...

 (Iceland). U.S. Champion
U.S. Chess Championship
The U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational tournament held to determine the national chess champion of the United States. Since 1936, it has been held under the auspices of the U.S. Chess Federation. Until 1999, the event consisted of a round-robin tournament of varying size...

 Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...

 declined an invitation after his demand for a $2000 appearance fee was refused by the tournament organizers.

Gligorić led halfway through the tournament with 4½/7, but he scored only three draws in the last seven games and finished fifth behind Najdorf and Ólafsson. Petrosian finished the strongest, with 5/7 in the second half. Before the last round, Petrosian led with 8 points, followed by Keres with 7½ and Najdorf and Ólafsson with 7. Both Petrosian and Keres had Black in the final round. Petrosian drew his game against Reshevsky, but Keres beat Gligorić to result in a tie for first place with 8½ points each.

Isaac Kashdan
Isaac Kashdan
Isaac Kashdan was an American chess grandmaster and chess writer. Kashdan was one of the world's best players in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was twice U.S. Open champion...

 served as tournament director and edited a tournament book published in 1965, with the annotations mostly by Reshevsky.

Crosstable

Los Angeles (1st Piatigorsky Cup) 2–27 July 1963
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Total
1 ½ ½ ½ 0 1 1 0 0 ½ 1 1 1 ½ 1
2 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 1 1 1 ½ 1
3 ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ 0 1 ½ ½ ½ 0 ½ 1 ½
4 0 0 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ 1 1 0 ½ ½
5 1 1 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ 0 ½ 7
6 ½ 0 1 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 1 ½ 6
7 0 0 0 0 1 ½ 0 1 0 ½ ½ 1 1 0
8 ½ 0 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 0 ½ 0 1

Santa Monica 1966

The second and final tournament in the series was held July to August 1966 at the Mirimar Hotel, Santa Monica
Santa Mônica
Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...

. The field was increased from eight players to ten and the prize fund was doubled to $20,000 (first prize: $5000, second: $3000, third: $2500, fourth: $2000, fifth: $1750, sixth: $1500, seventh: $1300, eighth: $1150, ninth: $1050, tenth: $1000). This time all invited players accepted, including Fischer. With the increased tournament field, eight countries were represented. Although Soviet-U.S. tension over the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

 seemed to threaten Soviet participation in the event, the Soviet Chess Federation sent World Champion Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was a Soviet-Armenian grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his playing style because of his almost impenetrable defence, which emphasised safety above all else...

 and challenger Boris Spassky
Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky is a Soviet-French chess grandmaster. He was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from late 1969 to 1972...

. Petrosian and Spassky had just finished a World Championship match earlier in the spring in which Petrosian retained his title. The remainder of the field included Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...

 (U.S.A), Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...

 (U.S.A), Bent Larsen
Bent Larsen
Jørgen Bent Larsen was a Danish chess Grandmaster and author. Larsen was known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play and he was the first western player to pose a serious challenge to the Soviet Union's dominance of chess...

 (Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

), Lajos Portisch
Lajos Portisch
Lajos Portisch is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster, whose positional style earned him the nickname, the "Hungarian Botvinnik"...

 (Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

), Wolfgang Unzicker
Wolfgang Unzicker
Wolfgang Unzicker was one of the strongest German chess Grandmasters from 1945 to about 1970.He decided against making chess his profession, choosing law instead....

 (West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

), Miguel Najdorf
Miguel Najdorf
Miguel Najdorf was a Polish-born Argentine chess grandmaster of Jewish origin, famous for his Najdorf Variation....

 (Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

), Borislav Ivkov
Borislav Ivkov
Borislav Ivkov is a Serbian chess Grandmaster. He was the first ever World Junior Champion in 1951. He won the Yugoslav Championship in 1958 , 1963 and 1972. He was a World championship candidate in 1965, and played in four more Interzonal tournaments, in 1967, 1970, 1973, and 1979...

 (Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

), and Jan Hein Donner
Jan Hein Donner
Johannes Hendrikus Donner was a Dutch chess grandmaster and writer. Donner was born in The Hague and won the Dutch Championship in 1954, 1957, and 1958. FIDE, the World Chess Federation, awarded him the GM title in 1959. He played 11 times for the Netherlands in the Chess Olympiads...

 (Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

).

Interest in the tournament was unusually high for a chess event in the United States, with over 500 spectators attending most sessions. The 17th round game between tournament leaders Spassky and Fischer drew over 900 spectators, with many turned away. Positions of the games in progress were displayed to the crowds using a novel projection system devised by Jacqueline Piatigorsky rather than the usual wall boards.

Spassky jumped out to an early lead with wins over Unzicker, Ivkov, and Fischer. At the halfway point he was tied with Larsen for first with 6/9.
Petrosian fell out of contention early, after a loss in the third round to Portisch and another loss in the seventh round after Larsen made a queen sacrifice
Queen sacrifice
In chess, a queen sacrifice is a move giving up a queen in return for tactical or positional compensation.-Queen sacrifice: real versus sham:...

.
Fischer lost three games in a row in the second week of play (rounds 6, 7, and 8) and was next to last with 3½/9 at the halfway point. Fischer then won four straight games (all before adjournment), drew one, and then won two more to catch up to Spassky with two rounds remaining. Spassky had defeated Fischer in the eighth round, but they met for the second time in the penultimate round. Although Fischer had the advantage of the white pieces, Spassky used the Marshall Defense to the Ruy Lopez
Ruy Lopez
The Ruy Lopez, also called the Spanish Opening or Spanish Game, is a chess opening characterised by the moves:-History:The opening is named after the 16th century Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura, who made a systematic study of this and other openings in the 150-page book on chess Libro del...

 to draw easily in 37 moves. In the final round tied with 10½ points each, Spassky defeated Donner while Fischer was fortunate to draw with Petrosian, making Spassky the tournament winner by half a point. Spassky was the only player to not lose a game, and his steady performance won the tournament. Fischer and Larsen won the most games (seven each), but Fischer could not make up for his slow start. Larsen had an excellent start and was tied for the lead as late as round 11, but although he defeated Petrosian in both their games his four losses (including three in rounds 12 to 15) dropped him to third place. Sharing the fourth and fifth prizes, Portisch and Unzicker were the only other players with a plus score. World Champion Petrosian's sixth place finish was a disappointment, but he may have still been feeling the strain of his recent World Championship match with Spassky, who was eight years his junior.

The tournament book Second Piatigorsky Cup (1968) edited by the tournament director Isaac Kashdan
Isaac Kashdan
Isaac Kashdan was an American chess grandmaster and chess writer. Kashdan was one of the world's best players in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was twice U.S. Open champion...

 was unusual in that it featured notes by most of the participants. Seven players annotated all of their games, Fischer provided notes for one of his games (against Najdorf).

Crosstable and cumulative scores

Santa Monica (2nd Piatigorsky Cup) 17 July – 15 August 1966
Cumulative Scores by Round
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
½ 2 3 6 7 9 10 10½ 11½
½ 1 2 3 3 3 3 8 9 10 10½ 11
0 ½ 1 5 6 6 7 7 7 10
½ 1 2 3 4 5 5 6 9
½ ½ 1 2 3 5 6 7 9
½ 1 1 2 4 5 7 9
½ 1 2 4 5 5 6 7 9
½ 2 3 4 4 5 7 8 8 8 8
1 1 1 2 3 3 3 4 5 6
½ 1 2 3 4 6 6 6 6

Santa Monica (2nd Piatigorsky Cup) 17 July – 15 August 1966
Crosstable
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total
1 1 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 11½
2 0 ½ 0 1 ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 0 1 1 1 ½ 1 11
3 ½ 0 1 0 1 ½ ½ 0 1 1 ½ 1 1 ½ 0 1 ½ 0 10
4 ½ ½ ½ 0 0 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1
5 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½
6 ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 9
7 ½ ½ ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 ½ 9
8 ½ ½ 1 0 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 0 ½ 0 1 ½ ½ 1 8
9 0 ½ 0 0 1 0 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 1
10 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ 1 ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ 0 6

External links

  • Games of the Second Piatigorsky Cup, 1966, at chessgames.com
    Chessgames.com
    ChessGames.com is a large chess community on the Internet, with over 156,000 members. The site maintains a large database of historical chess games where every game has a distinct message board for comments and analysis. Basic membership is free and the site is open to players at all levels of...

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