# Talk:World Chess Championship 1972

The sentence: "But the games in this match proved to be his last public competitive games for several decades."
Has been edited to read: "But the games in this match proved to be his last public competitive games for two decades."
Reason: The Fischer-Spassky rematch was in 1992 (20 years after the original match), and the word "several" implies more than two.
(Sorry if I'm not doing this correctly, I don't often edit Wikipedia.)

I am concerned that this article no longer meets the good article criteria due to uncited statements in the article, some of which have been tagged with "citation needed" since September 2023. Is anyone willing to address this concern, or should this go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 18:48, 22 December 2024 (UTC)


### World Chess Championship 1972
Regarding Benko giving up his ticket to the 1970 Interzonal, we say "A compensation of US$1,500 was paid to Benko", citing Plisetsky & Voronkov (published in 2005).  Benko himself, however, wrote in Chess Life in 1975,

Incidentally, I must point out here that a misconception exists as to how Fischer came to play in the Palma Interzonal in 1970 even though he had not qualified in the previous zonaL It has been widely and erroneously reported in the foreign press that I was paid a certain sum to give up my place in his favor (l had qualified in the 1969 U.S. Championship, which was the zonal and in which Fischer did not play). The idea for me to step down and give Fischer my place was my own: it was made voluntarily and without pressure from any one. I feIt that as one of the world's strongest players he should have the right to participate in that critical interzonal. The U.S. Chess Federation had always treated me well; by my action I hoped to show my gratitude. (The USCF had given me the opportunity to qualify for the interzonal in Amsterdam in 1964 by arranging a match between Bisguier, who had qualified, and me, who had not. And there have been many other things for which I am grateful to the USCF.)
The figure $2,000 is sometimes mentioned as the price I was paid for stepping down. Actually, that fee was paid, but it was for my services as second to Reshevsky and Addison at thnt tournament - and it is the same amount I would have received as an appearance fee had I actually played. The only condition I asked for stepping down was for Fischer to agree not to withdraw from the Interzonal or the ensuing matches should he qUalify for them-and he fulfilled this condition.
We are citing and quoting that Chess Life article in Bobby Fischer (see footnote 253 in that article). I would like to reconcile this contradiction or at least acknowledge it. I don't have a copy of Plisetsky and Voronkov. Can anyone give any clarification? Bruce leverett (talk) 16:39, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Plisetsky and Vorkonov (2005), p. 166: "It seemed Fischer would have to miss another world championship cycle, but to his aid came Benko, who for one and a half thousand dollars agreed to give him his place in the Interzonal Tournament."  That's all the book says.  Russians versus Fischer is an excellent book, but it isn't written as a scholarly work and it doesn't cite its sources so we can't easily verify its claims.  I think Benko's first person account is probably more persuasive on this detail.  I think also that aside from the difference in the dollar amount the two claims aren't necessarily contradictory.  Quale (talk) 05:06, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

I'll say at this point that I'm very much in favour of spinning the Interzonal and the Candidates matches out into separate articles. I wrote Interzonal tournament, Saltsjöbaden 1948 in the hope that similar articles would be created but this hasn't happened. Interzonals are major tournaments in their own right just as like Corus, Dortmund, AVRO etc and deserve their own articles. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 05:41, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree that separate articles for the Interzonal and the Candidates matches would be good, but at this point there isn't enough material to spin out.  Currently this article contains the bare minimum on the Interzonal and Candidates and to remove anything would make it deficient.  (Actually the Interzonal crosstable could be spun out to a discreate Interzonal article, but then it would be mandatory that this page say a lot more about the Interzonal than "The top six players of the interzonal (shown in bold in the table below) qualified for the Candidates matches.")  If we write more we could create Interzonal and Candidates articles, but there wouldn't be much spinning out.  Quale (talk) 08:30, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

@SandSyR: The source you have cited for including the reference from The Blacklist is not good. For one thing, it shows only episodes up through 10 for season 2.
Also, it is not a reliable source, but just publicity material prepared by Netflix. It can't establish the notability of anything about the show, such as any reference the show may be making to the 1972 chess match.  For such a reference to be worth mentioning in this article, it should be mentionied by, for example, serious critics or other published sources. See WP:IPCV for more about this. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:47, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Hey--thanks for catching this! After looking at those articles you linked, my inclusion definitely isn't notable enough to be in the section--my fault entirely. It's a little bit of a shame that this can't be added on my end, but I extremely appreciate you catching me on my mistake and keeping this article of high quality. I'll undo my undo right after I post this. Apologies and thanks for your trouble, and cheers! SandSyR (talk) 06:33, 11 June 2025 (UTC)