The 4th Capablanca Memorial was held in Havana at the Habana Libre hotel from August 25 to September 26, 1965 under the patronage of Che Guevara who was the director of the Cuban National Bank and Minister of Industry.
It was the first international tournament in which Bobby Fischer would be participating since the Curacao Candidates in 1962. Fischer agreed to attend for a $3,000 appearance fee. Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba were still severely strained, though communications were easing and at first it seemed Fischer would have no trouble traveling there because the State Department often permitted newsmen and correspondents access to Cuba and other off limits countries even if ordinary citizens were denied visits. But the State Department wouldn’t fall for the line that Fischer was a legitimate columnist and therefore denied him a visa.
As a result, Fischer ended up playing by telex from the Manhattan Chess Club which ended up costing the organizers over $10,000 which is a whopping $85,000 in today’s dollars.
This tournament would mark the first time Fischer would be facing a number of the strongest Soviet players after he had hurled accusations against them for conspiring to keep him from winning the Candidates Tournament to challenge Botvinnik in 1963.
The surprise of the tournament turned out to be Yugoslavia’s Borislav Ivkov who was on a roll...he had recently finished tied first with Wolfgang Uhlmann and a full point ahead of Petrosian at Zageb.
Earlier in this tournament Ivkov had defeated both Smyslov and Fischer and after 17 rounds Ivkov and Smyslov were tied for the lead a full point ahead of Geller and a point and a half ahead of Fischer.
In round 18, Ivkov won, Smyslov drew, Geller won, Fischer lost. That put Ivkov half a point ahead of Smyslov and one ahead of Geller.
Then in round 19, Ivkov and Geller drew their games while Smyslov lost to one of the tailenders, Eleazar Jimenez.
With two rounds to play Ivkov was a point ahead of Smyslov and Geller and 2 ahead of Fischer and Kholmov. In round 20 Smyslov and Geller met and played the inevitable draw, while Ivkov was facing one of the hapless last place finishers Gilberto Garcia whom he was absolutely crushing...until he got into severe time pressure, blundered and lost.
Ivkov’s surprising loss left the door open in the last round for Geller and Smyslov. Geller only got a draw, but Smyslov won and as a result took first place. And Ivkov? He lost in the last round to Karl Robatsch. However, Ivkov did manage to win the Capa Memorial 20 years later, in 1985. Chess,com has a nice article on Ivkov HERE.
1) Smyslov 15.5
2-4) Ivkov, Geller and Fischer 15.0
5) Kholmov 14.5
6) Pachman 13.0
7) Robatsch 12.5
8) Donner 12.0
9) Bilek 11.5
10) Parma 11.0
11-12) Szabo and Pietzsch 10.5
13-14) O'Kelly and Tringov 10.0
15) Jimenez 9.5
16) Ciocaltea 9.0
17) Doda 8.0
18-19) Lehmann and Wade 7.5
20) Cobo Arteaga 5.5
21-22) Perez and Garcia 4.0
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