The 1959 Candidates: Lecture by GM Ben Finegold

[@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

[@baoboumusic]

I don't think you can say Vidmar was a "Candidate" although he was undoubtedly a strong player. But you can claim Beliavsky for Slovenia, as he now has a Slovenian passport and did qualify for the candidates in the past :)

[@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!!

[@ferretinaberet]

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

[@tomasjimenez185]

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

[@unclelarry3207]

Thanks for the lecture Ben. Great job!

[@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.

[@pelicans456]

Oh hell yeah, more Mike Tal content

[@_nemo171]

These candidates came before Ben was born.

[@garycook5071]

that's not the arbiter in the first photo, it's the person who manually moved the pieces on the giant board

[@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.

[@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...

[@garycook5071]

The cycle started slightly earlier with the various zonals to qualify for the interzonal

[@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

[@MusingsOAM]

That book Ben recommended was written by an Arbiter for the tournament, which could very well be the guy in the photo?

[@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?

[@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"

[@leonardobaracchi7040]

Fischer Gligoric ended like that for.qh7 is mate in two, be6 takes three moves instead

[@leonardobaracchi7040]

Korchnoj wasnt young in 1959, he just reached his peak later... And the rule you have to be mikhail tonplay for.the championship...well...it applied only in 1960, for neither smyslov nor petrosian were named mikhail

[@Lodabar-1]

GO BEN!!

[@muskyoxes]

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

[@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.

[@zainquadri1206]

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

[@brianerpelding]

I was born under a wandering star and I love Fillis Diller and DeanMartin in❤

[@andrewmacintosh1388]

I thought I was doubting tal but noooo homeboy crushed it. Damn. He was a true monster.

[@stevelavalette6898]

Who was on Fisher's team ?

[@mattmolzan3992]

They all went to old school

[@leonardobaracchi7040]

So we had tal keres petrosian smyslov fischer gligoric benko and olafsson but this lecture is mainly on bobby...such a shame! Even if you politely anticipated it...

[@IgorYagolnitser]

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

[@KeithDonovan-cd3eo]

Victor Korchnoi was 28 in 1959 ,to young Ben !

[@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.

[@hey-sq6km]

29:01

[@shakingdavid]

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

[@RainerErhart-nd5xf]

Now the young Faustino crushes the Magnus in 30 seconds 😂

[@user-ow6uj3hc7g]

classic !

[@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.

[@RainerErhart-nd5xf]

Just wanted to comment Fisher sacrifice the rook then the Fisher did ❤

[@XVRMEDIA]

Lubalanja should be Ljubljana 😂😂😂

[@andrewmacintosh1388]

Yes yes yes

[@douglaslarosa8782]

Go, candidates! But play more decisive games 👹

[@danielfuchs7065]

This is a video every chess player must watch!

[@paparatzz7531]

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

[@GraemeCree]

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

[@haimkichik]

Love and fries for you : )

[@PaulThronson]

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

[@nicolaskidwell]

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.

[@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.

[@WhizzerdSupreme]

Always comment first!

[@ragnorak56]

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

[@ashutoshpattnaik5446]

Always second

[@eudesgeoffroy8416]

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