The series of tournaments continued almost without a break in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. Fortunately, this event was more of an opportunity for me to recover than a major exertion, since the local players, lacking international experience, were not yet able to put up serious resistance to the grandmasters.

August 20 is celebrated every year in Asunción as a public holiday, commemorating the founding of the city. On this occasion the 423rd anniversary tournament was held. Although the event was dedicated to the memory of the city's foundation, the real driving force behind the undertaking was the development of Paraguayan chess and, in connection with this, the opening of the new premises of the Club de Ajedrez Par de Alfiles, which had succeeded in obtaining some state support for its activities.

Asunción, in terms of population, is almost twenty-five times smaller than Buenos Aires, and chess activity here was correspondingly much more modest than in the Argentine capital. The newspapers nevertheless devoted several columns a day to the tournament, and after every round a printed bulletin was issued, which served as excellent publicity for chess.

The tournament itself produced no particular surprises, except perhaps that Guimard, who had performed excellently in Buenos Aires, did considerably worse this time.

The two European grandmasters proved, as expected, clearly stronger than the rest of the field: Letelier and Szabó. With sharp, sacrificial play they accumulated points one after another, and since they also had to face each other, both had to make sure from the outset that they remained among the leaders.

The Paraguayans had not expected much success against the international field, but they nevertheless managed to take a few points from the visitors. The best Paraguayan, Iván de los Ríos, even defeated Guimard.

The tournament originally began with fourteen participants, but after four rounds E. Saguier, the youngest Paraguayan player, withdrew because of illness. The half-point he had scored up to that point was annulled in accordance with the regulations.

The organisation and hospitality at the tournament were impeccable in every respect. Admittedly, in the great Argentine metropolis the organisers had more opportunities outside the tournament itself to entertain the invited guests than in Santa Fe or Asunción, but this was only natural, since smaller events have to make do with more modest means.

Nevertheless, my stay in Paraguay was particularly successful in this respect. I not only made new chess friends there, but also met people whose way of thinking seemed very exotic to us and who until then had known little about our way of life—or, if they knew anything at all, usually imagined it rather differently from how things actually were.

Apart from the chess success, I believe that this too was an important achievement of the second part of my South American tour.

/ László Szabó, Magyar Sakkélet 9/1960 /