Thursday 22 December 2011

Is this an official game?

I've always assumed that games played under tournament conditions constituted an 'official game', even if a player subsequently withdrew from the event. These days it is pretty clear cut, as such games are submitted for ratings under most circumstances. In the days before ratings it may not be so clear.
The reason I'm wondering about this is that I had some difficulty finding the Fischer v Stein game from the 1967 Interzonal. It is a famous game, and Fischer included it in his '60 Memorable Games'. But a couple of obvious database searches came up empty. I eventually did find it, but the fact that Fischer withdrew from the event may have contributed to my difficulty. Is it the case that a decision was made to expunge Fischer's games from the 'official' record? Without the requirement to rate it would certainly be an easy decision to make, but I've never seen any documentation on this.

Fischer,Robert James - Stein,L [C92]
Sousse izt (7), 1967


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A great game. One of the first I'd played through. You are a man of good taste!