The World Junior Championship is open to players younger than 20 on January 1 of the year in which the tournament is played. The first World Junior was held in 1951, and it was held biennially thereafter. The 1957 event, played in Toronto, Canada, was the fourth. Since 1973 the tournament has been held annually. See Wikipedia article: World Junior Chess Championship. Four World Junior Champions (Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, and Viswanathan Anand) have gone on to become World Champions.

The 1957 tournament included 12 players from 11 countries (Canada, Egypt, Finland, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, South Africa, Sweden, USA, USSR, and West Germany). Canada, as the host country, was allowed two representatives. The players from the Soviet Union, the Philippines, and Mexico were accompanied by seconds: Grandmaster Igor Bondarevsky, future FIDE President Florencio Campomanes, and Dr. R. Sernas, respectively.

The participants were a varied lot. The tournament book reflects that William Lombardy of the United States was studying biochemistry at CCNY and would enter medicine in two years. (In fact, he entered the priesthood.) He had already had considerable success as a player, including winning the 1954 New York State Championship, tying for first at the 1956 Canadian Open, and narrowly losing a 1956 match to Samuel Reshevsky. Mathias Gerusel of West Germany was studying mathematics. Dutchman Alexander Jongsma was a first-class table tennis player, who also played lawn tennis, swam, played the piano, and participated in ballroom dancing. The Soviet, Vladimir Selimanov, was the stepson of reigning World Champion Vasily Smyslov and planned to study literature and philosophy in college. Rodolfo Tan Cardoso had played for the Philippines in the 1956 Chess Olympiad, winning the silver medal on fourth board. The month after this tournament, he played the Fischer - Cardoso (1957) match against American wunderkind Bobby Fischer. Ralph Hallerod of Sweden was in his last year of high school and planned to study engineering at university. Canadian Francois Jobin had completed his first year of university and planned to become a physician. The Mexican representative, Jorge Aldrete Lobo, had just learned the game in 1953, but had won the Mexican Junior Championship in 1955 and 1957. He was an avid sportsman and planned to study chemical engineering. Timo O Makelainen of Finland planned to enter the University of Helsinki next year. Bernard Rabinowitz of South Africa had competed in the 1955 Johannesburg International Tournament, drawing his game against former World Champion Max Euwe. An actuary student, on the sea voyage to Canada "he put his actuarial knowledge to good account each evening by a careful and remunerative calculation of the odds on the 'horse races'!" Ibrahim M Bahgat of Egypt, a pharmacy student at the University of Texas, was an avid stamp collector and weightlifter. Having bench-pressed 250 pounds, "Undoubtedly he was the strongest player in the tournament." The second Canadian, Peter Bates, intended to study mathematics in college.

Shortly before the tournament began, the tournament organizer, Bernard Freedman, received word that Selimanov would arrive a day late because of a delay in getting his Canadian visa. Freedman decided to permit him to play; the tournament book reflects that this decision "was favourably received by practically every contestant." Selimanov's game against Lombardy, scheduled for Round 1, was played on the rest day between rounds 4 and 5. Lombardy won, giving him a 4-0 score and a one-point lead over Gerusel, whom he had routed in 18 moves in Round 3. M Gerusel vs Lombardy, 1957.

No one could stop Lombardy, who won game after game. After six rounds, his lead had increased to two points over Gerusel and at least 2½ over everyone else. Gerusel won his remaining five games, but that was not enough, as Lombardy did the same. That gave Lombardy a perfect 11-0 score and the title of World Junior Champion. Gerusel was second at 9-2, and Jongsma took the bronze with 8½ points. Cardoso won the brilliancy prize for his game R Cardoso vs M Gerusel, 1957.

Perfect scores are very rarely seen in any significant chess tournament or match. See Wikipedia article: List of world records in chess#Perfect tournament and match scores. Lombardy's perfect score has never been matched in any World Junior Championship before or since, as everyone else has ceded at least two draws. The closest approaches have been by Karpov in 1969 (10/11 in the finals, 90.9%); Spassky in 1955 (8/9 in the finals, 88.9%); and Kiril Georgiev in 1983 (11.5/13, 88.5%).

                          August 3-17, 1957  

                          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 
 1 William James Lombardy * 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11.0
 2 Mathias Gerusel        0 * 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  9.0
 3 Alexander Jongsma      0 0 * ½ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  8.5
 4 Vladimir Selimanov     0 0 ½ * 1 ½ 1 1 1 1 1 1  8.0
 5 Rodolfo Tan Cardoso    0 1 0 0 * 0 1 1 1 ½ 1 1  6.5
 6 Ralph Hallerod         0 0 0 ½ 1 * ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½  5.0
 7 Francois Jobin         0 0 0 0 0 ½ * 0 1 1 1 1  4.5
 8 Jorge Aldrete Lobo     0 0 0 0 0 0 1 * 0 1 1 1  4.0
 9 Timo O Makelainen      0 0 0 0 0 ½ 0 1 * ½ ½ 1  3.5
10 Bernard Rabinowitz     0 0 0 0 ½ ½ 0 0 ½ * ½ ½  2.5
11 Ibrahim M Bahgat       0 0 0 0 0 ½ 0 0 ½ ½ * ½  2.0
12 Peter Bates            0 0 0 0 0 ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ *  1.5

                  Progressive Scores:  

                  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 
 1 Lombardy       1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11
 2 Gerusel        1  2  2  3  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
 3 Jongsma        1  2  2½ 2½ 2½ 3½ 4½ 5½ 6½ 7½ 8½
 4 Selimanov      0  0  ½  1½ 2½ 3½ 4  5  6  7  8 
 5 Cardoso        1  1½ 2½ 2½ 3½ 3½ 3½ 4½ 5½ 5½ 6½
 6 Hallerod       ½  ½  1  2  2½ 3  3½ 3½ 3½ 4½ 5
 7 Jobin          1  2  2½ 2½ 2½ 3½ 4½ 4½ 4½ 4½ 4½
 8 Aldrete Lobo   0  1  2  2  3  3  4  4  4  4  4
 9 Makelainen     0  0  0  1  1½ 2  2  3  3½ 3½ 3½
10 Rabinowitz     0  ½  1  1½ 2  2  2  2  2½ 2½ 2½
11 Bahgat         ½  ½  ½  1  1½ 1½ 1½ 1½ 1½ 2  2
12 Bates          0  0  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  1  1½

                Prizes:  

First Prize:    William Lombardy    $200 and trophy
Second Prize:   Mathias Gerusel     $100
Third Prize:    Alexander Jongsma   $50
Fourth Prize:   Vladimir Selimanov  $40
Fifth Prize:    Rodolfo Tan Cardoso $30
Sixth Prize:    Ralph Hallerod      $15  
Seventh Prize:  Francois Jobin      $10