We lost a lot of players that year.
One of the leading German players in the 1930s, Ludwid Engels (1905-1967), died in Sao Paulo. The 1933 and 1934 Scottish champion James Creevey (1873-1967) died in Dublin and the 1956 French champion Pierre Rolland (1926-1967) died in a car accident.
The 1957 British champion Dr. Stefan Fazekas (1898-1967) died in England and Swedish GM Gideon Stahlberg (1908-1967) died of liver disease in Leningrad. German master and author Alfred Brinckmann (1891-1967) died in Kiel, Germany. And, finally, the 1928 Hungarian champion Arpad Vajda (1896-1967) died in Budapest as a result of a faulty oven leaking gas.
In April, Bobby Fischer took first place at Monaco. When his trophy was presented to him by Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, being the odious snot that he was, Fischer refused to pose for a photograph with them.
At the Sousse Interzonal in Tunisia in October Yugoslav GM Milan Matulovic took back a losing move against Hungarian GM Istvan Bilek. Matulovic played his move, but then took it back after saying J'adoube, which he should have announced before adjusting the pieces. Bilek protested to the arbiter who allowed the corrected move to stand. The incident earned Matulovic the nickname "J'adoubovic."
Bobby Fischer was playing in the Sousse Interzonal. He had a lot of games to play in succession as a result of the organizers rescheduling his games around his religious holidays and Sabbath. At the time he was a member of the World Wide Church of God
which observed the Jewish holidays and Sabbath.
Because he had so many games to play in a row as a result of the rescheduling, he protested and forfeited his game against Soviet GM Aivars Gipslis. The organizers would not let him replay the forfeited game and so Fischer withdrew.
But, enough of Bobby Fischer! Let's take a look at the international tournament held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia in 1967. The Sarajevo tournaments in the past had a bad reputation because of the large number of draws, but this tournament was different...it was a real battle and until the last move was made it wasn't clear who the winner would be.
Among the GMs was the Soviet Champion Leonid Stein who from the very beginning was in the leading position, but he was closely pursued by Borislav Ivkov, Robert Byrne and Dragoljub Ciric.
In the first half of the tournament Byrne was among the leaders, but he lost to Nikolic in an easily won position and with that loss he dropped out of contention. Ciric also lost an important game against Stein. Ivkov was in the fight when Stein lost to Byrne three rounds before
the end. Stein's loss made it a dramatic race for first.
After his defeat Stein then drew with Tringov and going into the last round it was Ivkov who was leading by half a point.
In the last round Ivkov drew with Ciric while Stein defeated one of the tailenders, Vladimir Kozomara, and so Ivkov and Stein tied for first.
The following game was Byrne's victory over Stein. In order to beat back Byrne's K-side attack, Stein exchanged his Q for two Rs plus a P which theoretically gave him a slight material advantage. However, the lesson to be learned from the game is that in all cases of unbalanced material, positional considerations can nullify a material advantage.
In this game, factors such as black's difficulties in obtaining a safe King position and problems in getting good play for his Rs and minor piece his allowed the white Queen to strut her stuff and show her mobility on the open board. As a result, white won a P and then managed to infiltrate black's position and expose its tactical weakness which culminated with white winning a piece.
Of the two players, Leonid Stein (1934-1973), three time Soviet champion (1963, 1965 and 1966) is better known. He narrowly missed qualifying for the Candidate tournaments in 1962, 1964 and 1967. Tragically, Stein died at the age of 39 of a heart attack in the Rossiya Hotel in Moscow as he prepared to leave for the European championships in Bath, England.
In the late 1960s, college professor Robert Byrne (1928-2013) had become a semi-professional player. He won the 1972 US Championship after tying with Samuel Reshevsky and Lubomir Kavalek and then winning the playoff.
In 1973 he placed third at the Leningrad Interzonal in 1973 and thereby qualified for the Candidates Tournament. He lost his first-round Candidates' match to former world champion Boris Spassky in 1974.
As a 1974 Candidate, Byrne was seeded directly to the 1976 Biel Interzonal where he performed very well, but missed a playoff spot by half a point, sharing 5th-6th places with 11.5-7.5.
Byrne was known as a cagey, patient player who favored flank attacks and solid structural defense, avoided Pawn weaknesses and was especially strong in the endgame
He died of Parkinson's disease, a progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement.
I had an opportunity to meet Byrne at the 1975 US Championship and found him to be quiet, reserved and quite pleasant.
Robert Byrne–Leonid Stein1–0B35SarajevoSarajevo YUG1967Stockfish 14.1
Sicilian: Accelerated Dragon 1.e4 c5 2.f3 g6 Unlike in the normal Dragon,
black delays playing the move ...d6 for as long as possible, prioritizing
piece development instead. This can have significant ramifications. 3.d4 g7 4.c3 cxd4 5.xd4 c6 6.e3 f6 7.c4 Stein played the Accelerated Dragon
several times in this tournament and white tried several different methods of
overcoming it, but none were successful. Byrne commented that although this
was only game Stein lost with the variation the position after the opening is
too unclear to justify any claim of opening advantage and no method of
obtaining the advantage against it was known. 0-0 8.b3 Necessary to guard
against ...Nxe4 and ...d5 a5 Black usually plays 8...d6 or 8...a5 here. One
of the principal points of the Accelerated Dragon is that after this move
white cannot now prepare Q-side castling by 9. f3 without allowing black easy
equality. 9.0-0 9.f3 d5 10.exd5 b4 11.d2 bxd5 12.xd5 xd2+ 13.xd2 xd5 14.xd5 xd4 15.0-0-0 Black has equalized. 9...d6 10.h3 d7 11.f4 ac8 12.f3 In round 5, Janosevic tried 12. P-B5 against Stein but got no
advantage. h5 13.f2 13.xc6 is a satisfactory alternative, but it has
to be followed up correctly xc6 14.g4 Safer is 14.Nd5 a5 15.ad1 b5 16.g5 d7 17.f5 Black has the upper hand, but in th egame he erred and lost.
Kamsky,G (2695)-Anand,V (2720)/Sanghi Nagar 1994 13.g4 is a serious
mistake. xg4 After this white cannot guard against both the threat of mate
and loss of material. 14.hxg4 xg4 15.h1 xh1+ 16.xh1 xd4 17.xd4 xd4 13...b5 A surprise and a great improvement over 13....Nxd4. The threat of
course is ...b4 and ...Nxe4. Note that 14.a3 is no help for white because of
14...a5 13...xd4 14.xd4 xc3 15.bxc3 xe4 16.e3 c6 17.ae1 a6 18.xg7 xg7 19.d4+ e5 20.fxe5 dxe5 21.b6 d2 22.f2 g5 23.e3 e4 24.fe2 g3 25.f2 e4 Draw. Ponizil,C (2432)-Rosko,L (2350)/Frydek Mistek 2013 14.dxb5 14.a3 a5 15.de2 b4 16.axb4 axb4 17.g3 h4 18.ce2 e6 19.xe6 fxe6 Black has the initiative. Cooke,E (2266)-Xu,H (2420)/Budapest 2000 14...xe4 15.xe4 xb5 As he was successful in doing in all his games with
the Acclerated Dragon in this tournament, Stein has overcome all opening
difficulties. As far as long term prospects go, black has a fine target for
attack in white's Q-side Ps, two of which are backward on half-open files. It
will take some preparation, but he can also threaten the advance of his center
Ps. As Jeremy Silman emphasized in his book Reassess Your Chess, white, who is
at a strategical disadvantage, must use any temporary imbalance that is in his
favore or lose it. In this case, the temporary imbalance is the excellent
placement of white's pieces which are poised for an immediate attack on
black's King. 16.g3 Taking the a-Pawn would only result in further
weakening of white's Q-side. a5 16...xb2 would be a grave error. 17.ab1 loses the B on account of the threat Bxf7+ a5 18.xb2 c4 17.a4 b4 18.f5 h8 While not as bad as on the previous move, taking the b-Pawn is still
not a good idea because white's K-side attack gains momentum. 19.ad1 h4
Black can probably get away with taking the b-Pawn, but in over the board play
the complications stemming would be difficult to fathom. 19...xb2 20.fxg6 hxg6 20...fxg6 loses. 21.xf8+ xf8 22.xf8+ g7 23.f7+ h8 24.h6 b8 24...d4+ 25.h1 g7 26.xg7+ g8 27.h6 mates 25.df1 f6 26.1xf6 exf6 27.e4 White's pieces swarming on the K-side deliver mate in 8 moves. g8 28.xd7 e5 29.c7 d5 30.xf6 c4 31.xc4 dxc4 32.xg8 xg8 33.c3 g5 34.g4 h8 35.c8# 21.e2 e4 21...f6 22.d4 b7 23.h4+ mate next
move. 22.d5 f5 23.h4+ h5 24.xh5+ gxh5 25.xf7 e5 26.b3 xf1+ 27.xf1 c4 28.g5 This position is very complicated, but in Shootouts white
scored +4 -0 =1 in endings that were long and quite tricky. 20.d3 b8
Stein still wisely avoids ...Bxb2 20...e5 21.f4 gxf5 22.d2 xf4 23.xf4-+ 21.e1 xf5 22.f4 xf4 The resulting position is difficult for
black to play, but it's evaluated at 0.00 by Stockfish while Komodo 14 thinks
black is better by about a Pawn. 22...f6 This is probably his best move. 23.d5 b4 24.f1 e6 24...xb2 25.xf5 gxf5 26.dxf5 e4 27.xf7 xf7 28.xf7 xe3 29.f1 h5 30.f8+ xf8 31.xf8+ h7 32.f5+ draws. 25.xf5 xb3 26.b5 26.cxb3 xd5 black is winning. 26...xe3 27.xe3 d4
Black is slightly better, but in Shootouts all the games were drawn. 23.xf4 xd3 The result of black's little demonstration is that he has two Rs plus a
P for his Q. The position is evaluated at 0.00, but from the human perspective,
as Byrne wrote, despite superficial appearances, black's K is still not safe
and his Rs are a long way from developing any activity. 24.d2 a6 25.h6 xh6 26.xh6 f6 White was threatening Ne4-g5 27.h4 d4 This turns out to
be a serious error. He could have stayed in the game with 27...Ne5 27...e5 28.h5 g5 29.f5 g8 30.xg8 xg8 31.xe7 g4 32.g6+ xg6 33.f8+ g8
and a draw seems to be a reasonable outcome. 28.d5 e6 29.e3 xc2
The alternatives were no better. 29...exd5 30.xd4 b4 31.xd5 b7 32.xd6 g7 33.h5 xb2 34.h6+ g8 35.e6+ f7 36.e4 xe4 37.xe4 and
white's Q should prevail. 30.xe6 White's K-side demonstration has
resulted in the breaking up of black's Ps so that black's position is loose on
both sodes of the board. Stockfish gives white a clear winning evaluation in
this position. b4 31.f3 d5 32.h5 g7 33.e7+ f7 34.h6+ g8 35.c5 f5
Stein hopes to advance his d-Pawn and doesn't want to yield e4 to white's N. 36.xa5 Now the Ps are even but white still has an enormous advantage In
mobility. d3 37.c5 White is not interested in taking the d-Pawn because
it would permit an exchange which would ease black's problems. 37.xd5 xd5 38.xd5 e4 39.xe4 fxe4 40.xe4 xb2 41.e8+ f8 42.e7 f7 White has a
tedious win. 37...d7 38.e2 e4 39.d4 f7 40.e2 Threatening 41.Bb5 d3 41.c6 bb7 42.e6+ f8 Realizing that white wins a piece, Stein
resigned. 42...f8 43.xd3 xd3 44.f6+ e8 45.e6 Threatening 46.Qf8
mate e7 46.c5 e1+ 47.h2 f7 48.h8+ e7 49.xd3 1–0
Robert Byrne was an occasional visitor to Chicago tournaments in the 1960s. He looked exactly like the Philosophy teacher he was, and lent an air of class to every event.
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