13th Chess Olympiad — Munich 1958

◇The Olympiad's two-stage machine

Thirty-six nations were drawn into four preliminary groups of nine, each a round-robin. The top three teams from every group advanced to the twelve-team Championship Final (Final A), the next three to Final B, and the remainder to Final C. Because the standings shown here are the totals within each section, a strong team's Final A number is not directly comparable to a lower group's — the medals were settled inside Final A.

The Soviet Union arrived with a formidable line-up built around world champion Botvinnik and, on the lower boards, some of the sharpest attacking talent in the game. They controlled Final A from the front and finished on 34½ board points to secure their fourth straight Olympiad title.

◇Gold, silver, bronze

Behind the Soviets, Yugoslavia took silver on 29 points and Argentina bronze on 25½, with the United States (24) and a tie between Czechoslovakia and East Germany (22 each) rounding out the upper table. On board one, Yugoslavia's Svetozar Gligorić won the individual gold with 80.0%, while the Soviet fourth board David Bronstein scored 79.2%.

Munich also produced a quiet subplot between the divided host nation: West and East Germany finished level on both game and match points, but the East Germans had won their head-to-head encounter.

◇The Tal debut

The standout performance came from the Soviet first reserve. Mikhail Tal, not yet world champion but already the most dangerous attacker in the game, scored 13½/15, 90.0% in his Olympiad debut. Within two years he had won the world title.