CURACAO 1962: The Battle of Minds that Shook the Chess World

Author: Jan Timman

New In Chess (2005)

224 pages

$24.95

Reviewed by John Watson

Jan Timman’s CURACAO 1962, The Battle of Minds that Shook the Chess World is a rarity: a serious tournament book annotated by a leading player. And what a battle: Keres, Petrosian, Fischer, Tal, Korchnoi, Geller, Benko, and Filip facing off in what turned out to be one of the most consequential events in chess history. All the games of the 28-round Candidates tournament are included, and Timman picks out many of them (perhaps about half?) to annotate. He does so for the most part in a wordy and friendly style that suits the needs of casual skimmers (me, for the time being) as well as dedicated readers.

For many contests Timman is content to talk about the context and idiosyncrasies of games, and to give a general outline of their course. In other games that could have been subjected to pages and pages of analysis, Timman limits himself to examining the most critical variations, a refreshing practice these days. In this respect the book reminds me of the classic ZURICH 1953 Candidates book by Bronstein. I haven’t tested the accuracy of Timman’s analytical notes, but he is one of the most trustworthy and knowledgeable authors around. The real treat for most readers will be the drama of the competition and the anecdotes that Timman has picked in the course of his reading and research.

Not surprisingly, Timman discusses at some length the tournament collaboration of Geller, Petrosian, and Keres, which consisted of taking prearranged draws with each other. Fischer famously called this “cheating.” He also included Korchnoi in the group, and said that the “Russians” were conspiring to gain an advantage against him by conserving energy while he had to play tiring (real) games. Of course, an agreement to draw games and conserve energy wasn’t necessarily a conspiracy to stop Fischer, who had just shown his ability to rack up win after win in Stockholm. Anyway, a Preface by Alex Roose and a chapter by Timman supply both background and surrounding material to explain the nuances of the situation. His take seems to be that eight days of relative rest are indeed a helpful factor, but that the accusations against Korchnoi (including throwing a game) are at best unproven. Actually, over the last thirty years, the clear majority of American Swiss System tournaments with the participation of strong players would have had different results if top players hadn’t taken prearranged draws in some games. All the more so for invitationals. Whether ethical or not, it’s natural for friends to do so and I suspect that the practice is common worldwide. Incidentally, the only player of the three to comment upon the charge later, Keres, suggested that this was a policy that would only benefit players in the bottom half of the crosstable! That’s objectively true; nevertheless, the evidence is very strong that he indeed took part. As for the idea that this scheme would cause Fischer to use up more energy then the others, no one seems to mention the fact that the younger man had his best result in the fourth and last quarter of the tournament, leading the pack with a +2 score out of six games! His poor finish (3.5 points behind the winner) was surely not the result of exhaustion.

The book contains thirty-eight photographs, most of which I haven’t seen before, and includes a very well written capsule portrait of each participant. Timman points out that Fischer and Tal were considered the favorites to win Curacao. Tal fell ill early on and dropped out, whereas Fischer fell short of expectations, but not excuses. Ultimately Petrosian won the tournament and qualified for his championship match versus Botvinnik. After winning that match and becoming World Champion, Petrosian went on to defeat Spassky to hold the title for two consecutive terms. For those who place Petrosian on a lower level than other champions, the events from the time of Capablanca forward indicate how difficult his accomplishment was. Furthermore, as this book shows, qualifying was itself a great feat.

I’ve wandered from the subject and this has been an inadequate description of Timman’s effort. But I feel that, like Bronstein’s ZURICH 1953, his CURACAO 1962 will be enjoyed by lovers of the game for years to come, and never grow old.

Click to buy (or get more information about) CURACAO 1962.

Click to buy (or get more information about) ZURICH INTERNATIONAL 1953.