IBM Amsterdam 1971

The eleventh IBM international was won by a former World Champion in his fiftieth year. Vasily Smyslov went through all fifteen rounds without a single loss and finished a point clear of three players tied behind him, showing that his positional skill was as sharp as ever.

◇A champion's calm

Amsterdam's IBM tournament opened for the eleventh time in July 1971 — a sixteen-player single round-robin of fifteen rounds, again directed by Constant Orbaan, and opened by the Netherlands' own former World Champion Max Euwe. Fourteen years after he had held the world title himself, fifty-year-old Vasily Smyslov proved the class of the field.

Smyslov won five games and drew ten, without a loss, to finish on 10/15. He was the only player in the event not to lose a game, and he finished a full point ahead of a crowded group behind him.

◇Three share second

Behind Smyslov the field bunched tightly. Lajos Portisch, Paul Keres and the young Australian-American Walter Browne all finished on 9, sharing second. Borislav Ivkov, Svetozar Gligoric and Hans Ree followed a half-point back on 8½, with the American Larry Evans on 8.

The tournament also gave a first-class stage to a local teenager: nineteen-year-old Jan Timman, still years from his rise to the world's top ten, held his own among grandmasters four times his experience. Smyslov's win here marked one of the strong late-career results that kept him a formidable presence into the 1980s.