AThe Guardian London, Greater London, England Monday, October 17, 1960
The World Chess Team Championships
From our Chess Correspondent
Leipzig, October 16.
England face a formidable task in their preliminary group of the world chess team championships which begin here tomorrow. There is a record entry of 40, and the teams in Group 3 in order of the draw are Tunisia, Greece, Mongolia, Sweden, Bolivia, Hungary, England, Czechoslovakia, Iceland, and Denmark.
Hungary and Czechoslovakia, with two grandmasters' each, appear certain qualifiers for the final, although it should be remembered that Hungary were eliminated in the preliminaries two years ago. There should be a tight struggle for third place in the final between England and Sweden.
As Olafsson in not competing for Iceland and Denmark are without Larsen, the remaining teams should offer little challenge for a place in the final group of 12. The luck of the draw has given England their most vital encounter, the match against Sweden in the very first round. If this ends decisively either way it could well decide which team enters the final. The teams in the other groups, in order of the draw, are as follows: Group 1—Yugoslavia, Indonesia, France, Malta, Albania, Finland, East Germany, Norway, Israel, and Bulgaria. Group 2—India, Russia, Philippines, Austria, Italy, Argentina, Poland, Portugal, Monaco, and Holland. Group 4—West Germany, Rumania, Ecuador, Cuba, Ireland, Belgium, Lebanon, Spain, United States, and Chile.
The Russian team of Tal, Botvinnik, Keres, Korchnoi, Smyslov, and Petrosian should win their section with plenty to spare, and the first round match with Monaco will be the equivalent of a sledge hammer crushing a nut. Tal, the world champion, was recently involved in a motor accident and has not yet recovered, but he is expected to arrive in Leipzig and to play.
The United States team has also had difficulties. They reached Leipzig after last-minute efforts to raise the necessary funds and had only just succeeded and Bobby Fischer's mother had conducted a one-woman protest parade outside the White House. Reshevsky is not playing, apparently because he was unwilling to take the buffet to his prestige involved in playing second board below Fischer. The American team is still a strong one, with Fischer, Lombardy, Robert Byrne, Bisguier, Rossolimo, and Weinstein, and could finish third to Russia and Yugoslavia.
