AThe Courier-Journal Louisville, Kentucky Sunday, October 05, 1969 - Page 54
Spassky Holds the Crown, But He Isn't Rated Highest
Who do you think has the highest chess rating in the world?
World champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union? Former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik or Tigran Petrosyan, also of the USSR?
Wrong!
But you're right if you guessed American Grandmaster Bobby Fischer, the genius from Brooklyn. His rating? An incredible 2720. Spassky is second with 2690; Victor Korchnoi, third with 2680 and Botvinnik fourth with 2660.
After Fischer, the only other Americans making the first 33 in the list of 200 international masters reported include Larry Evans, with 2570, and Samuel Reshevsky, 2570.
The report was filed by Arpad E. Elo, rating statistician for the U.S. Chess Federation, and it covers the international rating list for FIDE (International Chess Federation) for the period from January, 1966 through the spring of 1969.
“In most cases,” Elo said, “the game samples approached or exceeded 100 games. Thus the inadvertent omission of results from minor tournaments should not have a significant effect. The ratings must be regarded as evaluations of the average performances of the masters over a three-year period, and nothing more.
Fischer bombs his opponents right off the board with brilliancy in this gamelet. Before playing, study the diagram. Black has just moved 20 P-K5, attacking the White Queen. What is White's deadly response?
Sicilian Defense. *Black's attack on the Queen is brilliantly refuted. If 21… PxQ, 22 P-B6, followed by mate on KR8.
