World Chess Championship 1966


The 1966 World Chess Championship was played between Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky in Moscow from April 9 to June 9, 1966. Petrosian won.

1964 Interzonal Tournament

An interzonal tournament was held in Amsterdam in the Netherlands in May and June 1964. Six spots in the Candidates tournament were on the line.
Since FIDE rules only allowed a maximum of three players from the same nation to qualify from the interzonal, Stein and Bronstein were ineligible. Instead Ivkov qualified. The sixth and final place in the Candidates Tournament was decided in a 3-game playoff in which Portisch beat Reshevsky 2½–½.
Bobby Fischer, the winner of the previous Interzonal in 1962, declined his invitation, despite qualifying by winning the 1963-64 US Championship.

1965 Candidates matches

After the controversy surrounding the previous Candidates tournament, the 1965 tournament was the first to be played as a knock-out series of matches.
Two players were seeded directly into the tournament: Mikhail Botvinnik and Paul Keres. Botvinnik declined, and his place was taken by Efim Geller, who finished 3rd in the 1962 Candidates.
Spassky won, earning the right to challenge champion Petrosian for the title.
Larsen and Geller played a third place playoff in Copenhagen, Denmark in March 1966. Larsen won 5–4.

1966 Championship match

The match was played as best of 24 games, with the champion retaining the title in the event of a 12–12 tie.
While Petrosian retained the title with a 12–10 lead after Game 22, he and Spassky decided to play the final two games anyway.
123456789101112131415161718192021222324Points
½½½½½½1½½1½½0½½½½½01½10½12½
½½½½½½0½½0½½1½½½½½10½01½11½