Editing FIDE (section)

====Bobby Fischer controversies====
FIDE found itself embroiled in some controversies relating to the American player [[Bobby Fischer]]. The first controversy took place when Fischer alleged that, at the 1962 [[Candidates Tournament]] in [[Curaçao]], the Soviet players [[Tigran Petrosian]], [[Paul Keres]] and [[Efim Geller]] had pre-arranged draws in their games played amongst themselves, and that [[Viktor Korchnoi]], another Soviet player, had been instructed to lose to them (Fischer had [[World Chess Championship 1963|placed 4th]], well behind Petrosian, Keres and Geller). Grandmaster [[Yuri Averbakh]], a member of the Soviet delegation at the tournament, confirmed in 2002 that Petrosian, Keres and Geller privately agreed to draw their games.<ref name="Kingston2002AverbakhInterview2">{{cite web
 | url=http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles183.pdf
 | title=Yuri Averbakh, An Interview with History, Part 2
 | author=Kingston, T.
 | publisher=chesscafe.com
 | year=2002
 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040330072504/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles183.pdf
 | archive-date=March 30, 2004
 | url-status=live}}</ref> FIDE responded by changing the format of Candidates Tournaments from a multi-round round-robin to a series of elimination matches, initially 10–12 games in duration; however, by the 1970s, the Candidates final would be as long as 24 games.

Then, in 1969, Fischer refused to play in the [[U.S. Chess Championship|U.S. Championship]] because of disagreements about the tournament's format and prize fund. Since that event was being treated as a [[Interzonal|Zonal tournament]], Fischer forfeited his right to compete for the right to challenge World Champion [[Boris Spassky]] in 1972. Grandmaster [[Pal Benko]] agreed to relinquish his qualifying place at the Interzonal in Fischer's favor, and the other participants waived their right to claim the spot. FIDE president Max Euwe interpreted the rules very flexibly to allow Fischer to play in the 1970 Interzonal at [[Palma de Mallorca]], which he won convincingly. Fischer then crushed [[Mark Taimanov]], [[Bent Larsen]] (both 6–0) and Tigran Petrosian in the 1971 Candidates
Tournament and won the title match with Spassky to become world champion.<ref name="Sosonko2001RememberingEuwePart1">{{cite web
 | url=http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles167.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040727125358/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles167.pdf |archive-date=2004-07-27 |url-status=live
 | title=Remembering Max Euwe Part 1
 | author=[[Gennadi Sosonko]]
 | year=2001
 | publisher=The Chess Cafe
}}</ref>

After winning the world championship, Fischer criticized the existing championship match format (24 games; the champion retained the title if the match was tied) on the grounds that it encouraged whoever got an early lead to play for draws. While this dispute was going on, [[Anatoly Karpov]] won the right to challenge in 1975. Fischer refused to accept any match format other than the one he proposed. Among Fischer's demands was a requirement that the challenger must beat him by at least two games in order to take his title (Fischer proposed a match format in which the first player to win 10 games wins, with draws not counting, but if the result is 9–9 it is considered a tie). The FIDE argued that it was unfair for a challenger to be able to beat the world champion, yet not take his title. Fischer would not back down, and eventually FIDE awarded the title to Karpov by default.<ref name="WeeksFischerForfeitsToKarpov">{{cite web
 | url=http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/7375$wix.htm
 |title=World Chess Championship 1975 – Fischer forfeits to Karpov
 | author=Weeks, M.
 | publisher=Mark Weeks
}}</ref> Some commentators have questioned whether FIDE president Max Euwe did as much as he could have to prevent Fischer from forfeiting his world title.<ref name="Sosonko2001RememberingEuwePart1" />