World Chess Championship 1969

The 1969 World Chess Championship was played between Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky in Moscow from April 14 to June 17, 1969. Spassky won.

Qualification

The 1967 Interzonal Tournament was played in Sousse, Tunisia. Robert Fischer was leading the tournament with seven wins and three draws in ten rounds, however he abandoned the event over a dispute with the organisers. Because Fischer withdrew before he had played half his games, the results of his games were not included in his opponents' totals. Bent Larsen went on to win ahead of Viktor Korchnoi, Efim Geller, and Svetozar Gligorić, who shared second place.

Boris Spassky and Mikhail Tal were seeded into the Candidates matches and the top six finishers in the Interzonal would join them. Larsen, Korchnoi, Geller, Gligorić, and Lajos Portisch took the top five places. There was a three-way tie for sixth place among Sammy Reshevsky, Vlastimil Hort, and Leonid Stein, who played a three-way match to determine the final place in the Candidates matches, which eventually went to Reshevsky. Spassky won the Candidates Matches to challenge Petrosian for the World Championship, which he did successfully. (Spassky had unsuccessfully challenged Petrosian in 1966.)

The World Championship Match

The match was played as best of 24 games. If it ended 12-12, Petrosian, the title holder, would retain the Championship.

Spassky won.

External links

• 1969 World Chess Championship at the Internet Archive record of Graeme Cree's Chess Pages