There were other surprising reactions. The English philosopher Michael Dummett wrote a bad and incoherent piece in the Telegraph (the incoherence might have been sub-editing) attacking Rushdie.

Petrosian: +1-0=6
Portisch: +1-1=6
Tal: +0-1=6

Each player plays 4 games against each other. Petrosian had beaten Portisch in their first game. The last two had been drawn in 11 and 13 moves. Portisch was ignoring Petrosian to focus on Tal, whom he succeeded in beating in their third game.

If Tal had won this game, then all three players would have finished at +1-1=6. From Korchnoi's comments that one of the Russians had to drop out, we can infer that in the event of a tie, the spot in the Candidates would have been decided by tiebreak points. From Korchnoi's claim that Tal had something to play for in this game, we can assume that Petrosian would have been the one eliminated on tiebreak, had Tal won this game.

Or at least we can assume that that's Korchnoi's claim. I don't see it, personally. The Sonnenborn tiebreaks from the Interzonal were Petrosian: 110.75, Portisch: 108.25, Tal: 107.50. So if they were using Sonnenborn points, as they usually do, Tal would have still been eliminated <even if he had won this game>. If they were using some other tiebreak system, what was it? Korchnoi never said, and Chess Life & Review's otherwise pretty good coverage, never mentioned it either.

He was until he got turned.

<(Technically that COULD be true, and that's all we need to state it as a fact, right?)>

Reminds me of a joke from Get Smart, Again. Something like "We had a mole in their organziation until he got turned." "Into what??"

<It depends, sometimes we can make it up as we go along. If we did that it would be no different than some posters in these parts.>

Here's a .pdf if you want to see it again:

http://www.academicchess.org/images...

Maybe Korchnoi wasn't too far off base, Petrosian was a big man in Soviet chess politics until he lost to Korchnoi in their 1977 match. Then he got canned as editor of "64". It was one thing I guess to lose when Korchnoi was still playing for the USSR but bad business when VK was a non person.>

That's all crap chess players just play the board. The Soviets didn't ever interfere with chess games. You may as well say the US never actually did get to the moon...I'm pretty sure the US engineered 9/11 for political reasons (more likely than the "evil USSR" manipulated chess players) but the Soviet weren't interested in the results of chess games!!

Here he wrote that Black was better or something like that>

I think “he joked” black was better because Fischer liked counterplay and this position led to “his” openings.

If white goes e4, black plays c5 and a Closed Sicilian.

If white goes e4, black plays c5 and a Closed Sicilian...>

Here's an example of that type of Closed line with c3 instead of Nc3, Fischer didn't play well in the middle game but had no problems getting equality before his misstep.

V Ciocaltea vs Fischer, 1962

<...If white goes c4, black plays e5 and Fischer has a Kings Indian vs. the English. (a “mild” d3 English)>

<One of the outstanding events of 1963, the Piatigorsky Cup tournament, not least from the viewpoint of creative chess thought, [Fischer] boycotted when his unwarranted financial demands had been rejected by the committee. In Chess Life he informed us bluntly that almost all the games played by him in the little Western Open were better than any of the games in the Piatigorsky Cup Tourney with the exception of Najdorf's win over Keres. Comment is superfluous!...

About his fellow grandmasters, likewise, Bobby has hardly altered his opinions since 1962. He repeatedly writes that Petrosian and Botvinnik have little idea of chess. After 1. P-K4, P-K4; 2. N-KB3, N-QB3; 3. B-B4, N-B3; 4. N-N5, P-Q4; 5. PxP, N-QR4; 6. P-Q3, P-KR3; 7. N-KB3, P-K5 he seriously believed that Bronstein, in continuing 8. PxP did not sacrifice a piece but blundered it away.

In commenting on the move 10. P-K5 in the Reinhard-Fischer game, he writes "Nine out of ten grandmasters, including Petrosian, Botvinnik, Keres, and Smyslov would have played this move, yet it loses by force." Or, about his fifteenth move as Black in the game Oster-Fischer: "Once again, nine out of ten grandmasters would have continued with 15... N-Q2." These instances could be multiplied.

With such a mentality he can hardly be surprised if, in his next serious attempt at the highest honors, he again falls short of complete success.

Bronstein vs E Rojahn, 1956

Here are the others:

A Reinhard vs Fischer, 1963

The game appears in Chernev's "The Golden Dozen". In Fischer's maybe partial defense, Chernev writes that Rojahn had thought it was a blunder, so at least Fischer isn't the only one to have made that mistake.