February 1966 'On the Cover'

Fifty years ago, chess photo credits were more haphazard than they are today. I imagine the photo on the left was taken during the 1963 Piatigorsky Cup in Los Angeles.

The issue of Chess Life had only 20 pages with surprisingly little content. Five of the pages showed only crosstables and game scores for non-U.S. tournaments.

Left: World Champion Petrosian
Right: 'WHAT AGAIN! (Photo by Robert Parent)'

Chess Life

Tigran Petrosian, who won the world chess championship by defeating Mikhail Botvinnik in 1963 by a score of 12.5-9.5, will defend his title against Boris Spassky in a 24-game match that will begin on April 11.

Chess Review

Robert J. Fischer stretched his record for winning the United States Championship to seven straight times at the Henry Hudson Hotel in New York city, December 12 to 30, 1965. As this tournament, directed by E.T.McCormick, was also the U.S. Zonal tournament, Fischer, along with Robert Byrne and Samuel Reshevsky who tied for second place, qualified to compete in the Interzonal Tournament later this year...

On my zonal pages, World Chess Championship Zonals, I've adopted the practice of numbering the World Championship cycles. The events mentioned here would have been in cycles no.6 and no.7.