Sunday Gazette-Mail Charleston, West Virginia Sunday, October 22, 1961
A summary of wins with the white and black pieces at the recent international tournament in Bled, Yugoslavia, appeared in last Sunday's New York Times. It showed the white pieces scoring 106½ points to black's 83½.
Mikhail Tal, the winner, scored just about as well with one as the other: 7½ with white and 7 with black. Bobby Fischer's record was almost the same: 7½, white and 6, black. However, grandmasters as good as those two do just about as well with one side of the board as the other.
This Bled tournament showed Fischer gaining in strength as compared with the world's best grandmasters. (And we would say that they were just about all there, with the notable exceptions of Botvinnik and Reshevsky and Dr. Euwe.) For instance, at the challengers' tourney a couple of years ago, Petrosian and Keres both finished ahead of Fischer; but at Bled Bobby topped them. And Petrosian is the current Soviet champion!