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| Aug-06-10 | | BISHOP TAL: Larsen 6-0 Taimanov 6-0 Petrosian about a 2 to 1 margin, Spassky about a 2-1 margin, seems to me alot of players were vulnerable cuase Fischer made um that way.Fischer doesnt leave chess till he gets the championship.If not in 72, then 75 Fischer wasnt paranoid of players he was paranoid of mother Russia he new he had the ability to topple the russian supremecy in chess and so did the russians. |
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| Nov-09-10 | | Jim Bartle: Nice double sacrifice for Benko to defeat Inei in 1949:
click for larger viewWhite to play. |
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| Apr-13-11 | | ooda: "Bobby was afraid that if he had defended against Karpov in 1975, the Russians would have had him murdered." Pal Benko. Maybe Fischer believed that or maybe not but I really doubt the Russians would have done this because Fischer's murder would be way worse for Soviet Propaganda than there being an American Chess Champion I think. I suppose they could make it look like an accident but even this would be damaging. |
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Apr-13-11
 | | Caissanist: QOTD from Benko: <Bobby was afraid that if he had defended against Karpov in 1975, the Russians would have had him murdered.> Anyone know the source for this? |
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| Apr-13-11 | | Akavall: This just shows that Pal Benko should not be taken seriously when it comes to chess history. |
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Apr-13-11
 | | FSR: <tentsewang: Its because of Pal Benko that Fischer lived to become a world Champion. Thank you Benko!! He gave up his seat to Fischer so he could move along the ladder to face Spassky and eventually he did. Hail the best of the best!!!> A belated amen to that. Benko deserves a medal - and a handsome monetary award. |
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Apr-13-11
 | | talisman: that is a fact.....(said the same many years ago but that's ok) ! |
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Apr-14-11
 | | Shams: Weren't there eight players who had to step aside? Presumably none were of Benko's stature, but history should duly record all eight names anyway. It's doubtful Fischer ever thanked any of them. |
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| Apr-14-11 | | HeMateMe: ? the USA closed was its own zonal, top 3 get to go to the next round. where do you get the number 8? Benko decided to do what was best for chess, and gave up his place. Not sure who the other two finishers were. Probably Robert Byrne, maybe Bill Lombardy. Its possible one other player might have offered his seat, but given Fischer's history of walking out of tournaments, why bother? |
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Apr-14-11
| | Shams: I read it years ago, not sure where and I could easily have it wrong. I'm sure someone will set me straight soon enough. |
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Apr-14-11
| | Caissanist: Reshevsky won the 1969 US championship, Addison was second and Benko third. Benko agreed to give up the place which would ordinarily have gone to him, but the spot could not be offered to Fischer unless the other nine participants agreed to step aside as well. Graeme Cree's website on the USA and USSR championships is back online, after being gone for several years. This page has the crosstable, plus some additional details on how the USCF was able to get Fischer into the interzonal: http://graeme.50webs.com/chesschamp.... |
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| Apr-14-11 | | HeMateMe: Thats interesting. So, the whole field, all the players at the '69 championship had to agree (in writing I would think) to allow a non participant, or lesser finisher, to grab the 3rd zonal spot? I suppose that was just a no brainer, no harm in it. Still, what if one of those people really hated Fischer for some reason, and blocked his asendency? Good thing Bob was such a charmer, and was on good terms with all the other fellas. Maybe he sent them all a Care Bear, or a souvenir Reykjavik volcano paper weight? Thats the least he could have done. |
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Apr-14-11
| | Shams: On further reflection I suppose Benko's stepping aside was conditional on players 4-12 also stepping aside. Plus, they would look pretty bad if they refused, given that they had tried and failed to book their own tickets. I wonder if Benko thought: why step aside when Fischer is sure to throw a fit at some point and bow out of the process anyway? |
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Apr-14-11
| | Shams: <"The only condition I asked for stepping down was for Fischer to agree not to withdraw from the Interzonal or the ensuing matches should he qualify for them - and he fulfilled this condition."> Benko in 1975 Chess Life interview, from <Petrosianic>'s page that <Caissanist> linked to. |
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Apr-14-11
| | FSR: <Shams: <"The only condition I asked for stepping down was for Fischer to agree not to withdraw from the Interzonal or the ensuing matches should he qualify for them - and he fulfilled this condition.">> Barely. If not for Slater agreeing to double the prize fund and Spassky agreeing to play the third game offstage in a separate room, Fischer would have been out of there. I'm also sure that if Ed Edmondson of the USCF hadn't gone to extraordinary lengths to placate Fischer and act as intermediary that Fischer would have forfeited. It was a bit of a miracle that the match finally came off and proceeded to a normal conclusion. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlasti.... |
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| Apr-14-11 | | HeMateMe: A lot of people stepped up to help Fischer. It makes him look bad, when you take a look at the whole thing, from a distance. |
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Apr-14-11
| | Shams: I find it strange when people lament Fischer not defending his title in '75. Don't they realize just how unlikely it was that he played in '72 to begin with? Asking for more is just unreasonable. We're lucky that he got it together to play, and that so many people loved the game enough to bend over backwards in accomodating him. What was it Shaw said about unreasonable men? |
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Apr-15-11
| | FSR: <Shams> <HeMateMe> Exactly right. Most people don't realize or appreciate the extraordinary lengths people (Benko, the other U.S. championship participants, Edmondson, Slater, Euwe, Schmid, Spassky, the Icelandic Chess Federation people, even Henry Kissinger) went to in order to get this man-child to play. If you read Donner's book "The King" you'll see that he called it in a column right after the match - he said that it was a miracle that the match had come off, and that there was no way it would happen again. |
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May-25-11
 | | jessicafischerqueen: <Pál Benkő>
Correct pronunciation of his name-
Audio/visual file: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgul... |
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Oct-09-11
 | | wordfunph: this Pal Benko's story made me smile :)
<"Another memory I have of Bad Gastein was meeting a very beautiful young
woman during the tournament. She was wonderful, and we spent a lot of time
together and became pretty close. As was so typical of those times, we somehow lost track of each other.Twenty years went by and, by then, I was living in the United States. One day a letter arrived. Amazingly, it turned out to be from her! She told me that she owned a hotel in Switzerland and she invited me to visit. I was polite and sent her a postcard, but a second letter followed where she admitted that she now had four children and was twice her previous size ! Again I replied and politely
refused her invitation. Sometimes it's best to leave the past alone."> - GM Pal Benko (from the book Pal Benko: Life, Games and Compositions by Benko & Silman) |
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Oct-13-11
 | | whiteshark: Quote of the Day
< Kibitzer's don't play, they kibitz; they always know what you should have played, and they will tell you without being asked... < it's almost impossible to shut them up. >> -- Benko |
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Oct-24-11
| | wordfunph: "super-powered pawn" :-)
<I played Evans at a 1960 blitz tournament in Argentina. He had promoted his pawn but he didn't replace it with a Queen, so the "super-powered pawn" was jumping all over the board. We were both very low on time and I tried to stop the clock and give him a Queen in
exchange for his leaping pawn (there's nothing worse than having a supposed pawn fly across the board at you!). He didn't know why I was trying to stop the clock and he hit my hand. I said, "Be careful!" and came close to striking him. Seeing the look in my eyes, he replied,
"Yes, you'll be famous for beating all the best players in the world...physically!"> - GM Pal Benko (from the book Pal Benko: Life, Games and Compositions by Benko & Silman) |
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Feb-08-12
 | | Penguincw: Quote of the Day
< "Bobby was afraid that if he had defended against Karpov in 1975, the Russians would have had him murdered." > --- Pal Benko
Hmm. Maybe that's why. Or it could be that FIDE failed to meet all his requests. |
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| Feb-08-12 | | HeMateMe: Or, what if Bob was just a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic? |
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| Apr-22-12 | | HeMateMe: check out Pal, with his coal black hair, at age 84. He really is holding up well. May you reach 100, Mr. B, and keep playing!
<http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp...> |
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