1967 Dundee Centenary Tournament, Marryat Hall, Caird Hall, Dundee, 12-25 July

1967 Dundee Centenary		Title	Fed	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	-	Total
1	Svetozar Gligoric	GM	YUG	&;	½	1	½	½	1	1	1	1	-	6½
2	Fridrik Olafsson	GM	ISL	½	&;	0	½	1	½	1	1	1	-	5½
3	Bent Larsen	GM	DEN	0	1	&;	0	½	1	1	1	1	-	5½
4	Jonathan Penrose	IM	ENG	½	½	1	&;	½	½	½	1	½	-	5
5	Alberic O'Kelly de Galway	GM	BEL	½	0	½	½	&;	1	1	1	½	-	5
6	Cenek Kottnauer	IM	ENG	0	½	0	½	0	&;	½	1	½	(½)	3
7	Alexander M Davie		SCO	0	0	0	½	0	½	&;	0	1	-	2
8	Robert G Wade	IM	ENG	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	&;	1	(1)	2
9	Craig W Pritchett		SCO	0	0	0	½	½	½	0	0	&;	-	1½
-	Arturo Pomar Salamanca	GM	ESP	-	-	-	-	-	(½)	-	(0)	-	&;	-

Pomar withdrew ill after two rounds and his results discounted.

Prizes: 1st £200, 2nd £140, 3rd £100, 4th £70, 5th £50; non-prizewinners received £5 for every won game.

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BCM, September 1967, ppn 261-264

The Dundee Centenary Tournament

By H. GOLOMBEK

A hundred years ago one of the earliest international tournaments in the history of chess was held at Dundee under the auspices of the British Chess Association. To be precise, it was the sixth ever to be held having been preceded in 1867 by a few months by the great international tournament in Paris.

The Dundee Tournament of 1867 contained ten players, six from outside Scotland and four Scots. Though it included the world champion, Steinitz, it was not won by him, but by the German master Neumann who came first with 7½ points ahead of Steinitz 7, the Rev. G. A. MacDonnell and de Vere 6½, Blackburne 6 with the remaining places occupied by Scots players and Hamel of Nottingham.

It was a tournament with a couple of notable firsts; it was the first time a drawn game was counted as a half a point (up till then draws had to be replayed until a definite result was attained) and it was the first occasion on which the Steinitz Gambit was played Steinitz beating Neumann with it in the only game the first prize-winner lost, the opening starting 1 e4 e5 2 Nc3 Nf6 3 f4 exf4 4 d4 Qh4+.

In passing it should be mentioned that no such opening innovation was to be found in the Dundee 1967 Tournament, although at an open air display in a match with huge pieces held on a free day at the foot of the Tay Road Bridge between two local M.P.s one did produce the following novelty: 1 e4 g6 2 g4. No doubt the attention of Robatsch, Pirc, Ufimtsev, Kotov and others will be drawn to this highly original method of treating their defence. I am not sure, however, whether the further course of the game will be much use to the analysts, complicated as it was by an involuntary Queen sacrifice on Black's part which must, all the same, have had some deep intuitive positional basis, since it was Black who eventually won. This game will not appear in the Games Section.

A hundred years after the first Dundee tournament Fairhurst having completed his great Tay Road Bridge, decided to construct a fresh bridge in time and to organise a Centenary Tournament. He put the idea to the City Council and the Lord Provost of Dundee who approved of it in word and deed and invitations were sent out to ten players exactly as in the first event.

Though lacking the world champion and being without the hoped for Russian players (owing to the coincidence of the Spartakiad in the U.S.S.R.), the final list of players compared favourably with that of the preceding tournament. There were five international grandmasters: Gligoric of Yugoslavia, Larsen of Denmark, O'Kelly of Belgium, Olafsson of Iceland and Pomar of Spain. There were also three British international masters: the British Champion, Penrose, and Kottnauer and Wade. The remaining two competitors were Scots, the Scottish champion, A. M. Davie, and the youngest of the Scottish team at Havana, C. W. Pritchett.

Unfortunately, the Spanish grandmaster, Pomar, fell ill and had to withdraw in the third round, which meant that his score in the first two rounds (a loss to Wade and a draw with Kottnauer) had to be cancelled and a bye instituted.

The tournament opened quietly, with no surprises, unless of course one likes to consider Pornar's blundering away a piece against Wade as such. O'Kelly and Larsen had a hard-fought draw and Olafsson and Penrose a much quicker one, whilst Gligoric gave early notice of being in good form by winning the following game against the Scottish champion. [Davie-Gligoric]

Further pointers as to who was and was not in good form came in the second round when O'Kelly, most unusually for him, failed to defend a difficult position correctly and lost an instructive ending to Olafsson. Gligoric outdid his first round quick win with an even briefer victory over the other Scots player. [Gligoric-Pritchett]

With Gligoric and Larsen getting the byes in the next two rounds, Olafsson was temporarily in the lead with 3½ points, followed by Gligoric 3 and Larsen 2½, these last two having played a game less. In Round Four Davie had the ill-luck to choose a quite lost line in the opening that O'Kelly had already won in a game against a South African in the South African Open Championship in 1962. Against Salverda on that occasion O'Kelly won in 13 moves; this time he won in 12 and I suppose that this proves the Belgian grandmaster has become a move stronger (in such positions at any rate) in the last five years. [O'Kelly-Davie]

By means of a hard-fought victory over Kottnauer in Round Five, Gligoric again came into the lead, it being Olafsson's turn to have the bye. Though he was held to a draw by Penrose in Round Six, Gligoric won a vital game against Larsen in the next round, a game which, as it turned out, proved to be decisive for settling the destination of the first prize. Apart from its intrinsic interest the game is also remarkable in that Larsen had won the preceding five of their individual encounters! [Gligoric-Larsen]

This loss must have unsettled Larsen since he followed it up by an even severer defeat at the hands of Penrose in the next round. Gligoric drew with Olafsson in this round and by the time the last round had been reached the position at the head of the table was Gligoric 6, Olafsson 5½, Penrose 5, and Larsen and O'Kelly 4½. Penrose, having the bye, had to watch the other players deciding what prize he should get. Only Olafsson could catch, or even pass, Gligoric, and he was due to meet Larsen.

Quite early it became clear that Gligoric was content to draw with O'Kelly, leaving the onus upon Olafsson to strive for first place. The Icelandic grandmaster got off to a bad start by failing to read the programme and the hours of play stated therein. The last round started in the morning, unlike the others which commenced at three in the afternoon. After a half hour had elapsed someone went to the hotel to see what had happened to Olafsson and he eventually turned up, within ten minutes of forfeiting the game.

Handicapped by this loss of fifty minutes Olafsson, after obtaining the better of the opening, got into time trouble and lost the exchange. His position, after the first five hours play, looked lost. The game was adjourned to allow the players to have lunch and on resumption Olafsson proceeded to outplay his formidable opponent in no uncertain manner. After another 20 moves, in fact, it was Larsen who looked quite lost. But the Dane is always at his most dangerous when other players would be despairing and he began to produce a number of his resourceful moves just when both players were again getting into time trouble. Olafsson seemed to lose the thread of the game and then committed a blunder that lost out of hand. Despite the mistakes, this was a thrilling struggle with some moments of magnificent chess. [Larsen-Olafsson]

So Gligoric won first prize alone, a position he well merited for his consistently fine play. Olafsson was a little unlucky not to have gained second prize outright. His Scandinavian rival seemed not quite in his best form but still, of course, produced some of the extraordinary chess that is, as it were, stamped with the name of Larsen nowadays, O'Kelly, too, was not quite his usual faultless self over the board, that is; but, considering the lack of international practice our champion has nowadays, Penrose's results at Dundee must be deemed very good indeed.

Kottnauer was very disappointing and only a shade of the great player who had obtained such fine achievements at Leysin in the Clare Benedict only a few weeks earlier. Both the Scots players seemed to handicap themselves by insufficient opening knowledge. But both are young, especially Pritchett, and revealed considerable promise in such testing company. Had Wade started off by playing the two Scots instead of finishing up with them he might well have had a much better tournament. As it was he seemed to fall into a rut of sacrificing material for insufficient compensation against the masters and grandmasters.

Perhaps, as controller of the tournament, I can take this opportunity of extending my thanks to all those who made my task so delightfully easy: to Mrs. [Nancy] Elder, who not only concerned herself with the organization, but also saw to it that we all received tea and coffee at the appropriate times; and above all to Mr. W. P. McColl, a tower of helpful strength with whom it was a pleasure to work.

Dundee 1967 - Chess Scotland (Alan McGowan)

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File Updated

Date	Notes
31 August 1997	Original upload of 38 games as a zipped PGN
22 September 2025	Added dates to the games, plus a crosstable and magazine report.