The 1959 Candidates: Lecture by GM Ben Finegold

This lecture was recorded on April 29, 2024 in Roswell, Georgia. Thank you to Philip Siller for sponsoring this video!
If you're interested in sponsoring a lecture of your choice, email Karen at [e-mail]
10:34 Bobby Fischer vs. Svetozar Gligorić
22:28 Paul Keres vs. Bobby Fischer
29:34 Bobby Fischer vs. Pal Benko
36:07 Mikhail Tal vs. Vasily Smyslov
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[@f.d.3289]

i don't know why but i just love content about these dusty old 1950s-1980s tournaments and players. thank you so much Ben, it's always an enlightening pleasure to listen to you :)

[@MarkWiseTechno]

Mikhail Tal is never dusty

[@f.d.3289]

@@MarkWiseTechno that's right, he always made sure he was well watered 💦😂🍻

[@nuwandalton]

@@f.d.3289 😋

[@nateshsudarshan3743]

I think the overwhelming attitude back then was to try to win with both colors. Lots of kings Indian, najdorf, poisoned pawn, semi slab Merans, sacrificial play. Also opening theory wasn’t as polished leading to a bit more flexibility. Nowadays the style of the era emphasizes few wins and many draws, as that style tends to win more tourneys. We still have a few brawlers out there, Shakh and Nepo often go for the throat, but generally it’s a lot of draw with black push gently with white. It’s… fine :/

[@f.d.3289]

@@nateshsudarshan3743 yeah... it just feels more honest and raw and authentic to me... blood, sweat and tears chess :) also, less hype and BS drama

[@lysanderspooner1865]

Thanks Phil. Thanks Ben "In this Position" Finegold.

[@f.d.3289]

every single chess commenter who ever commented chess had "in this position" as middle name.. although many of the more refined ones are called "in this KIND of position"

[@lukadobo4769]

Nice to hear my country used to host events such as these. Bled is beautiful! Shame this is all in the past and most young people don't know about our rich chess history and since the breakup of Yugoslavia chess is not talked about and deemed less important for some reason. We even had a candidate one time(Milan Vidmar) and he was among the greats of his time. Thank you for another great lesson, hope you will visit Slovenia again!

[@T-Dogg121]

The most important pre-1950s global populariser of chess outside of Capablanca: Boris Kostic. World class competitors: Vidmar, Gligoric, Ivkov. Seminal contributors to opening theory: Velimirovic, Matanovic, Gligoric. Romantic attacking geniuses: Planinc, Ljubojevic, and Velimirovic. Hosted maybe the greatest blitz tournament of all time: Herceg Novi. Lots of other important tournaments. The importance of chess in Tito's Yugoslavia, and the Yugo contribution to 20th century chess is immense, second only to USSR maybe - both socialist states that gave a lot of public backing to the game. It's sad if the people of the individual post-Yugo SSR states can't draw on this shared chess heritage because of nationalism or similar reasons.

[@mokovec]

I thought Pirc was from the same region.

[@Alex-xk6md]

Id watch a video on the history of chess in yugoslavia and its players

[@tomasjimenez185]

9:12 that "Petrosian" pronunciation was very good, go Ben!

[@_nemo171]

These candidates came before Ben was born.

[@MrSupernova111]

Fantastic lesson! Somehow you managed to improve your lessons even more. I knew a couple of the Fischer games but they never get old. Thanks!!

[@unclelarry3207]

Thanks for the lecture Ben. Great job!

[@xwngdrvr]

Go comment! What if I'm interested in sponsoring a lecture on Kramnik and his 'Make Chess Great Again' ideas? Nevermind, I just banned myself.

[@pelicans456]

Oh hell yeah, more Mike Tal content

[@muskyoxes]

Tal has more fun and excitement in that tournament than any other player had in his career

[@user-ow6uj3hc7g]

classic !

[@NelsonBoy2734]

GO BEN!!

[@ThatGuyYouSta1k]

I’d love to see a look at that game one of Tals WC win. Goes in, smashes his opponent with some super secret tech as white in g1? Or some boring squeeze?

[@nuwandalton]

Korchnoi "would have been a bit young" Like 28? 😋

[@Force95042]

Yeah I noticed that too! I could have sworn he was significantly older than Fischer and I was right lol

[@IgorYagolnitser]

@@Force95042yes, older than both Fischer and Tal.

[@mattmolzan3992]

They all went to old school

[@northshores7319]

One good thing that comes out of the Candidate matches is that they give the eventual challenger match experience before he has to play in the Championship Match. It is quite hard to adjust to match play from tournament play. Good show about a historically famous tournament.

[@muskyoxes]

It doesn't seem like it should be that hard to adjust, because you get months of preparation with a team helping you

[@northshores7319]

@@muskyoxes There is Tournament Chess and there is Match Chess Play and they are as different as Night is to Day. You only learn how to play in either by...well...simply by playing. There is no amount of help others can give you to make you do well prior to playing. Just ask Kasparov about how hard it was for him when he played Karpov in their first match even tho' he had prior match experience. Playing up a level is always harder.

[@lemat579]

20:00 illegal move instantly loose a game in blitz tournament? I am interested, as in a month time I will play my first blitz tournament...

[@GraemeCree]

The drought actually lasted 44 years. Between the 1934 match and the 1978 match, Petrosian is the only world champion to have won a match. The war reduced the number of matches, but there were still 13 matches during that drought, including the abortive Karpov-Fischer match in which the challenger took the title yet again.

[@stevelavalette6898]

Who was on Fisher's team ?

[@paulgottlieb]

Two notes on the Fischer -Gligorich game (game 1) in My 60 Memorable Games Fischer says of 13.Qe2!? "13.Bxc4 Rxc4 14.g4 was the usual, and good. procedure." And on 32. Qh7+ he says "Again a mistake! 32.Bxe6+ mates more quickly"

[@comeforthwithclips]

10:04 in 1959 Korchoi was 28 years old, not too young

[@hey-sq6km]

29:01

[@shakingdavid]

I would have thought Philip was the main way of spelling Philip.

[@mrigankjain1817]

At 40:07 why cant black after QA1+,KD2 take the rook on D1 and then after rook takes back, take the Queen?

[@boyanmihaylov3009]

Becaus when black takes the queen knoght f7 is fork

[@Vinterfader]

In the final game, why didnt Smyslov play Qxd1+ before picking up the queen? Dont you get an extra rook?

[@salmarwow]

In that variation white takes on d1, black takes on f7 and white's knight takes on f7 with a fork. Meaning that bishop on d8 will be lost and white is up a piece. In game white is up an exchange, which is slightly better for black.

[@Vinterfader]

@@salmarwow thanks! I found a lichess study of the game and found that as well.

[@XVRMEDIA]

Lubalanja should be Ljubljana 😂😂😂

[@zainquadri1206]

@12:40 "He's trying to play the dragon sicilian" Trying is the first step to failure...?

[@IgorYagolnitser]

Korchnoi was too young to play? He was 28 and older than both Fischer and Tal.

[@douglaslarosa8782]

Go, candidates! But play more decisive games 👹

[@paparatzz7531]

When Ben does an accent it just sounds like a word he can't pronounce

[@ashutoshpattnaik5446]

Always second

[@PaulThronson]

I predict never again will someone successfully defend the world chess championship. Magnus will be the GOAT.

[@WhizzerdSupreme]

Always comment first!

[@sacundim]

Given that Tal was from Latvia which the Soviets invaded and annexed in 1940, and russified thereafter until independence was restored in 1991, it is entirely possible that your comment that there was a rule that he had to be called Mikhail has some sliver of truth. Wikipedia gives his Latvian name as Mihails Tāls and his birth in 1936. Though from what I understand he was very russified, even did his university degree in Russian literature

[@T-Dogg121]

Tal was more culturally Jewish and Soviet than he was Latvian, though he was proud to represent the Latvin SR in chess.

[@user-ys3eg2dm7e]

I might argue, Pillsbury is the best player to never become world champion. Hastings 1895 was impressive, winning against a field consisting of 7 world champions, future world champions and world champion challengers, and at only 22 years old. Too bad he got Syphilis.

[@AboveAvgMan]

At least he didn't catch no damn aids

[@fundhund62]

Pretty confident that honour should go to Rubinstein. No doubt he was the best player in the world for some time between 1909 and 1912.

[@danielfuchs7065]

This is a video every chess player must watch!

[@GraemeCree]

This lecture should have been called "Fischer's First Candidates", because the lecture is not really about the tournament.

[@eudesgeoffroy8416]

Tons of factual mistakes about the WCCs. Hopefully the Chess Notes guy does not watch those vids. Red thumb.

[@ragnorak56]

Tal's calculation is over-rated. I have it on good authority that he calculated 2 + 2 as 5.