Candidates Tournament 1962 Poster

The Candidates Tournament was played as an eight-player, quadruple round-robin tournament in Curaçao in 1962. The field was largely the same as at the 1959 Candidates Tournament in Yugoslavia, with Mikhail Tal (USSR), Paul Keres (USSR), Tigran Petrosian (USSR), Bobby Fischer (USA), and Pal Benko (USA) as the five returning players. The three new players were Efim Geller (USSR), Miroslav Filip (Czechoslovakia), and Viktor Korchnoi (USSR), in place of former champion Vasily Smyslov (USSR), Svetozar Gligorić (Yugoslavia), and Friðrik Ólafsson (Iceland). Only Korchnoi was really new to this level of competition, as Geller was a candidate in Zürich in 1953 and Filip in Amsterdam in 1956. The tournament was won by Tigran Petrosian (USSR) with 17.5/27, a half point ahead of Paul Keres (USSR) and Efim Geller (USSR) who tied for 2nd–3rd. Bobby Fischer (USA) finished fourth. The victory made Petrosian the challenger in the 1963 World Championship against Mikhail Botvinnik (USSR).