World Championship Candidates' Tournament, 1953 at Neuhausen and Zurich
World Championship Candidates' Tournament, 1953 at Neuhausen and Zurich
World Championship Candidates' Tournament, 1953 at Neuhausen and Zurich
World Championship Candidates' Tournament, 1953 at Neuhausen and Zurich
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World Championship Candidates' Tournament, 1953 at Neuhausen and Zurich

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Author: William Winter (1897-1955) and David Vincent Hooper

Year: 1968

Publisher: Chess Player

Place: Nottingham

Description:

[4]=96 pages in type script with table and index. Royal octavo (9 3/4" x 8") bound in original publisher's wrappers. Annotations b D Hooper and W Winter. (Betts 25-121) Chess Player number 77 first published by Ken Whyld in 1953.

The Swiss Chess Federation spent 100,000 Swiss francs in order to stage the event, which was one of the reasons they insisted that host countries pay the travel expenses for their respective players. Prize money for first place was 5,000 Swiss francs. Alois Nagler was tournament director.  All contestants brought a second except for Bronstein and Reshevsky: Petar Trifunovic (Gligoric), Salomon Flohr (Taimanov), Julio Bolbochan (Najdorf), Andre Lilienthal (Petrosian), Mikhail Beilin (Averbakh), Carel Benjamin van den Berg (Euwe), Kristian Skold (Stahlberg), Tibor Florian (Szabó), Alexey Sokolsky (Boleslavsky), Viktor Moiseev (Kotov), Igor Bondarevsky (Geller), Vladimir Simagin (Smyslov), and Alexander Tolush (Keres). 

The opening banquet featured speeches by FIDE President Folke Rogard, Mark Taimanov, and Miguel Najdorf. Smyslov sang an aria from Italian opera and Taimanov played piano compositions by Tchaikovsky and Chopin.  The players and their seconds stayed at the Bellevue Hotel in the beautiful resort town of Neuhausen am Rheinfall.  Play began on Sunday 30 August in the spacious Kirchgemeindehaus (Parish Hall), which would host the first eight rounds. A local factory had pledged a gold watch to whoever led after Round 7, which turned out to be both Smyslov and Reshevsky. Both got a watch. 

In Round 9 play began in the Kongresshaus (Salon of Music in the House of Parliament) in Zürich, which would host the rest of the tournament. 7, 8, 9 From rounds 9-11 Reshevsky led, only to be overtaken by Smyslov in round 12. At the conclusion of the first half of the tournament, Smyslov was the only undefeated player, leading Reshevsky and Bronstein by a point. The American kept pace with Smyslov, sharing the lead by Round 21. The stage was set for a showdown in Round 25, with Reshevsky just a half point behind Smyslov and facing him in their second meeting of the tournament- 

Zurich 1953 was a chess tournament won by Vasily Smyslov. It was a Candidates Tournament for the 1954 World Chess Championship, which led to the match between Smyslov and Mikhail Botvinnik. The tournament is famous for the strength of the players, the high quality of the games, and books on the tournament by David Bronstein and Miguel Najdorf that are regarded as among the best tournament books ever written. In May 2022 Yuri Averbakh died at the age of 100, having been the last living player to have played in the tournament.

Condition: 

Light edge wear, corners bumped else very good. 

SOLD 2023