Author: Isaac Kashdan (1905-1985) signed by Bobby Fischer, Tigran Petrosian, Jan Hein Donner, Borislav Ikov, Miguel Najdorf, Lajos Portisch, Samuel Reshevsky, Bent Larsen and Boris Spassy
Year: 1966
Publisher: Piatigorsky Cup Committee
Place: Santa Monica
Description:
16 unpaginated pages with facsimiles, photographs. Octavo (8 1/2" x 5 3/4") bound in original publisher's spiral spine with red wrappers and cup in silver and black to cover. Signed by all participants, but Unzicker, next to their photograph in the program along with a short biography of each contestant. From the library of David DeLucia. (Not listed in Betts) First edition.
After the success of the First Piatigorsky Cup (1963), the second was organized by Gregor and Jacqueline Piatigorsky in Santa Monica, California at the Miramar Hotel from July 17-August 15, 1966, with Isaac Kashdan directing. The stellar field included the current and next two World Champions plus a slew of Candidates-level grandmasters in a double-round robin event: Jan Hein Donner, Robert James Fischer, Borislav Ivkov, Bent Larsen, Miguel Najdorf, Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian, Lajos Portisch, Samuel Reshevsky, Boris Spassky, Wolfgang Unzicker. The Piatigorskys invited both Reshevsky and Fischer in spite of the Fischer - Reshevsky (1961) match fiasco.
The 1966 Piatigorsky Cup tournament ranks as on of the strongest chess competitions ever held on American soil. It is on a short list that includes New York 1924, New York 1927, and the Sinquefield Cups. Held during the Cold War, when tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were high, the Piatigorsky Cup represented a triumph of diplomacy.
The tournament was a double-robin competition in which all participants played each other twice. The Piatigorskys produced an elegant trophy for the event that featured a "love cup" designed by Tiffany & Company as it centerpiece. With Bobby Fischer participating in the event, ensured that the top American talent of the period was represented in the competition. It also meant that the field of ten players contained one World Champion (Petrosian) as well as two future ones (Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky). After a strong start followed by a disastrous performance mid-tournament Fischer mounted an amazing comeback to tie with the tournament leader Spassky, in the standings. Their game in the penultimate round attracted a record 900 spectators and served as a preview of the excitement the two would generate six years later in their epic 1972 World Chess Championship match in Reykjavik, Iceland. The two played a hard fought draw. Spassky then won his last game against Jan Hein Donner, who was at the bottom of the standings, while Fisher's game against Petrosian ended in a draw. Spassky achieved a narrow victory over Fischer, winning $5000.
David DeLucia's chess library contains 7,000 to 8,000 chess books, a similar number of autographs (letters, score sheets, manuscripts), and about 1,000 items of "ephemera". DeLucia's library contains such items as "a 15th-century Lucena manuscript, score-sheets ranging from Fischer's Game of the Century against Donald Byrne to all the games of the 1927 New York tournament, eight letters by Morphy, over a hundred Lasker manuscripts, Capablanca's gold pocket watch, [and] the contract of the 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort world championship match".
Condition:
DeLucia book plate to front wrapper verso. Gift inscription to title page. Some of the combs in the spiral binder chipped off else very good.