A Brief History

In 1959, the chess world’s best of the best arrived in Yugoslavia to participate in what was known as a “Candidates Tournament”, which was basically one big semi-final to determine who would challenge then-World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik for his title. In a quadruple round-robin match that ran from September 6 through October 31, 1959, French-born/ Hungarian-raised Pal Benko, young (just 16 years old) American Robert James (“Bobby”) Fischer, Yugoslavian Svetogar Gligoric, Estonian Paul Keres, Icelander Fridrik Olaffson, Armenian Tigran Petrosian, Muscovite Vassily Smyslov and Riga-born Mikhail Tal locked horns in the cities of Bled, Zagreb and Belgrade. In the end, Mikhail Tal prevailed and went on to defeat Botvinnik in the World Championship match of 1960.

The set shown here is a House of Staunton-produced reproduction of the set used in that Candidates Tournament.

Details about the Zagreb ’59 Chess Set

The Kings are 3.875” tall, with a 1.75” base. My particular set is rosewood and boxwood, although an ebonized (stained black) version is available. The set is quite nicely weighted, and is comes in a nice “leatherette” (I believe that is the term used) box. Two things make this set distinct from other Staunton-esque sets. First, and possibly most notable are the Knights, which I believe speak for themselves and are known commonly as a “Russian Knight”. While the House of Staunton sells this as the “Zagreb ’59 Series” (to commemorate the Candidate’s Tournament), you can find other vendors who sell a similar set based on the “Russian Knight” style. The other significant difference in this set can be found in the finials (the very top portion of the pieces) on the Kings, Queens and Bishops. They are opposite-colored to the respective pieces themselves. So the White boxwood King has a rosewood finial, and vice-versa. It’s a very nice stylistic touch, and is not found in all Russian Knight sets. One last distinction is the Bishop’s miter, which in this set is not shown to have a cut or division in it as others set traditionally do (see my Collector Set for a more extreme example of a Bishop’s miter cut).