Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was a Soviet Armenian Grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his almost-impenetrable defensive playing style, which emphasized safety above all else. Petrosian is often credited with popularizing chess in Armenia.
Mikhail Nekhemyevich Tal was a Soviet Latvian chess player and the eighth World Chess Champion. He is considered a creative genius within the game of chess and one of its best ever players. Tal played in an attacking and daring combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability. It has been said that "Every game for him was as inimitable and invaluable as a poem". His nickname was "Misha", a diminutive for Mikhail, and he earned the nickname "The Magician from Riga". Both The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games and Modern Chess Brilliancies include more games by Tal than any other player. He also held the record for the longest unbeaten streak in competitive chess history with 95 games between 23 October 1973 and 16 October 1974, until Ding Liren's streak of 100 games between 9 August 2017 and 11 November 2018. In addition, Tal was a highly regarded chess writer.
Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster, who was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship on eight occasions. Smyslov twice tied for first place at the Soviet Championships, and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won is an all-time record. In five European Team Championships, Smyslov won ten gold medals.
Paul Keres was an Estonian and Soviet chess grandmaster and chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, and narrowly missed a chance at a world championship match on five occasions.
Leonid Zakharovich Stein was a Soviet chess Grandmaster from Ukraine. He won three USSR Chess Championships in the 1960s, and was among the world's top ten players during that era.
Jørgen Bent Larsen was a Danish chess grandmaster and author. Known for his imaginative and unorthodox style of play, he was the second strongest non-Soviet player, behind Bobby Fischer, for much of the 1960s and 1970s. He is considered to be the strongest player born in Denmark and the strongest from Scandinavia until the emergence of Magnus Carlsen.
Efim Petrovich Geller was a Soviet and Russian chess player and world-class grandmaster at his peak. He won the Soviet Championship twice and was a Candidate for the World Championship on six occasions. He won four Ukrainian SSR Championship titles and shared first in the 1991 World Seniors' Championship, winning the title outright in 1992.
Lajos Portisch is a Hungarian chess Grandmaster, whose positional style earned him the nickname, the "Hungarian Botvinnik". One of the strongest non-Soviet players from the early 1960s into the late 1980s, he participated in twelve consecutive Interzonals from 1962 through 1993, qualifying for the World Chess Championship Candidates Cycle a total of eight times. Portisch set several all-time records in Chess Olympiads. In Hungarian Chess Championships, he either shared the title or won it outright a total of eight times. He won many strong international tournaments during his career. In 2004, Portisch was awarded the title of 'Nemzet Sportolója', Hungary's highest national sports achievement award.
Svetozar Gligorić was a Serbian and Yugoslav chess grandmaster and musician. He won the championship of Yugoslavia a record twelve times, and is considered the best player ever from Serbia. In 1958, he was declared the best athlete of Yugoslavia.
Borislav Ivkov was a Serbian chess Grandmaster. He was a World championship candidate in 1965, and played in four more Interzonal tournaments, in 1967, 1970, 1973, and 1979.
Igor Zakharovich Bondarevsky was a Soviet Russian chess player, trainer, and chess author. He held the title of Grandmaster in both over-the-board and correspondence chess. Bondarevsky shared the 1940 Soviet title, and later coached World Champion Boris Spassky.
At the World Chess Championship 1963, Tigran Petrosian narrowly qualified to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik for the World Chess Championship, and then won the match to become the ninth World Chess Champion. The cycle is particularly remembered for the controversy surrounding the Candidates' Tournament at Curaçao in 1962, which resulted in FIDE changing the format of the Candidates Tournament to a series of knockout matches.
The 1966 World Chess Championship was played between Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky in Moscow from April 9 to June 9, 1966. Petrosian won.
