Bled/Zagreb/Belgrade 1959 Candidates Tournament

The 1959 Candidates ran for nearly two months across three Yugoslav cities, an eight-player quadruple round-robin to find Botvinnik's next challenger. The 23-year-old Mikhail Tal won it with irresistible attacking chess, finishing clear of Paul Keres — and a 16-year-old Bobby Fischer, the youngest Candidate in history to that point, played too.

◇Bled, Zagreb, Belgrade

Eight players met each other four times over twenty-eight rounds, a marathon that toured Yugoslavia: two cycles in Bled, then one each in Zagreb and Belgrade. The field was Mikhail Tal, Paul Keres, Tigran Petrosian, Vasily Smyslov, Bobby Fischer, Svetozar Gligorić, Friðrik Ólafsson and Pal Benko. Smyslov qualified as the loser of the 1958 title rematch and Keres on the strength of his second place at Amsterdam 1956; the rest had come through the 1958 Portorož Interzonal. Harry Golombek was the arbiter.

Tal had had his appendix out less than two weeks before the start, yet he attacked from the first round with the energy that made his reputation.

◇Tal breaks clear

Keres set the early pace — leading on 10/14 as the players left Bled for Zagreb, half a point ahead of Tal. But through the closing cycles Tal opened a lead of a point and a half and never surrendered it, finishing on 20/28 to Keres's 18½. Petrosian and Smyslov followed on 15½ and 15.

Tal's play captivated the reporters. He would rise the moment he had found what he thought was a winning move and prowl the stage, a habit the arbiter Harry Golombek captured memorably.

“It is an impressive sight to see him get up after he has made what he obviously thinks is a winning move and pace around the table like a man-eating tiger.”

◇Fischer's debut and Tal's title

In his first Candidates, the 16-year-old Bobby Fischer tied for fifth and sixth place with Gligorić on 12½. Against Tal he could find no answer at all: the champion-to-be beat him in all four of their games, a 4–0 sweep that formed a large part of his winning margin. It was the opening act of one of the great rivalries in chess.

Winning the Candidates made Tal the challenger, and in 1960 he defeated Botvinnik to become World Champion — at 23, the youngest to hold the title up to that time. Botvinnik would win it back in the 1961 rematch, but Tal's ascent through Yugoslavia 1959 remains one of the sport's most celebrated.