The 18th

Chess Olympiad The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in FIDE Onli ...

(), organized by

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

and comprising an openAlthough commonly referred to as the ''men's division'', this section is open to both male and female players. team tournament, as well as several other events designed to promote the game of

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

, took place between October 17 and November 7, 1968, in

Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. The Soviet team with six GMs, led by world champion Petrosian, lived up to expectations and won their ninth consecutive gold medals, with Yugoslavia and Bulgaria taking the silver and bronze, respectively.

Results

Preliminaries

A total of 53 teams entered the competition and were divided into seven preliminary groups of seven or eight teams each. The top two from each group advanced to Final A, the teams placed third-fourth to Final B, no. 5-6 to Final C, and the rest to Final D. Preliminary head-to-head results were carried over to the finals, so no teams met more than once. All preliminary groups and finals were played as

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...

s. The results were as follows: * Group 1: * Group 2: * Group 3: * Group 4: * Group 5: * Group 6: * Group 7:

Final

: : : :

Final «A»

* Matches played in semi-finals are italicized.

Final «B»

* Matches played in semi-finals are italicized.

Final «C»

* Matches played in semi-finals are italicized.

Final «D»

* Matches played in semi-finals are italicized.

Individual medals

* Board 1:

Tigran Petrosian Tigran Vardani Petrosian (; ; 17 June 1929 – 13 August 1984) was a Soviet-Armenian chess grandmaster and the ninth World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his almost-impenetrable defensive playing s ...

10½ / 12 = 87.5% * Board 2: Georgi Tringov 11 / 14 = 78.6% * Board 3:

Viktor Korchnoi Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi (, ; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. He is considered one of the strongest players never to have become World Chess Champion. Bor ...

11 / 13 = 84.6% * Board 4: Shimon Kagan 10½ / 13 = 80.8% * 1st reserve: Glicerio Badilles 11½ / 14 = 82.1% * 2nd reserve: Vassily Smyslov 11 / 12 = 91.7%

References

18th Chess Olympiad: Lugano 1968
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