Bisguier Suffers Shingles – Slaughtered by Szabo

     The 1955 Buenos Aires tournament, held at the Argentina Chess Club, was another in a string of successes for the twenty-two year old Borislav Ivkov. All he needed was a draw in the last round to clinch first which he duly obtained.
     Fellow Yugoslav Svetozar Gligorich came a close second while third place finisher Herman Pilnik of Argentina was in remarkably good form. He started by defeating U.S. Champion Arthur Bisguier in the first round and stayed near or at the top all the way. 
     A youthful Oscar Panno, age 20, must have been disappointed, though he did make a plus score.  Panno had won the World Junior Championship in 1953, finishing ahead of such future strong GMs as Borislav Ivkov, Bent Larsen and Fridrik Olafsson. He also won the championship of Argentina in 1953. 
     Bisguier’s showing was disappointing, but he had come down with a case of shingles. The rash itched horribly and made it impossible for him to sleep at night. His first round loss was indicative of what was to come.  In the first half of the tournament he didn't win a single game, but he did pull up from a three point deficit to finish with a respectable score by defeating Gligorich in round 8, Sanguinetti in round 11, Reinhardt in round 13 and Donner in round 14. 
     Szabo's defeat of Bisguier was an instructive game. Bisguier repeated the passive defense that he had played earlier against Trifunovic. In that game Trifunovic had, himself, also played passively. Bisguier repeated the same line against Szabo who was not as peaceably inclined as Trifunovic had been. The result was a quick, smashing attack that sent Bisguier down in just a few more moves. 

1) Borislav Ivkov 13.0 
2) Svetozar Gligorich 12.5 
3) Herman Pilnik 12.0 
4) Laszlo Szabo 11.5 
5-7) Ludek Pachman, Hector Rossetto and Arthur Bisguier 10.0 
8) Oscar Panno 9.5 
9) Jan Hein Donner 9.0 
10-13) Petar Trifunovic, Pedro Martin, Carlos Guimard and Roman Toran 8.0 
14) Raul Sanguinetti 7.5 
15) Alfredo Esposito 7.0 
16) Leonardo Lipiniks 4.0 
17) Enrique Reinhardt 3.0 
18) Francisco Benko 2.0