Piatigorsky Cup 1966

For the Second Piatigorsky Cup, Jacqueline Piatigorsky enlarged the field to ten players from eight countries and doubled the purse. Boris Spassky won it by half a point — the only undefeated player — but the tournament is remembered for Bobby Fischer, who climbed out of a disastrous first half to run Spassky to the wire.

◇A bigger, richer sequel

Three years after the first Cup, Jacqueline Piatigorsky staged a second at the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica — ten players in a double round-robin of eighteen rounds, 90 games in all, with the prize fund doubled to $20,000 and $5,000 for first. Every invited player accepted, Fischer among them, and the Soviet Chess Federation sent both World Champion Tigran Petrosian and his challenger Boris Spassky.

The result was, by common reckoning, the strongest chess tournament ever held in the United States — the peak of the two Piatigorsky Cups, which stood as the country's strongest events since New York 1927. Spectator interest was extraordinary for American chess, with hundreds attending most sessions.

◇Fischer's comeback, Spassky's nerve

Fischer began miserably, losing three games in a row in the second week and standing on just 3½/9 at the halfway mark. Then he caught fire: four straight wins, a draw, and two more wins hauled him level with Spassky near the end. Their 17th-round encounter drew over 900 spectators, with many turned away at the door.

The two leaders went into the final round tied on 10½ points. There Spassky beat Jan Hein Donner while Fischer could only draw with Petrosian — so Spassky finished first on 11½, half a point clear of Fischer on 11, and the only player to go through the event unbeaten. Bent Larsen took third on 10, ahead of Portisch and Unzicker on 9½.

◇A book, and a prelude

The tournament book, Second Piatigorsky Cup, was edited by tournament director Isaac Kashdan and, unusually, carried notes by most of the players themselves. Spassky and Fischer finished half a point apart at Santa Monica; six years later they played for the world title in Reykjavík.

It proved the last of the Piatigorsky Cups; no third edition followed, leaving the 1963 and 1966 events as a brief, brilliant high point of American tournament chess.