Rio de Janeiro Interzonal Tournament Chess Set, Brazil, 1979
Rio de Janeiro Interzonal Tournament Chess Set, Brazil, 1979
From September 22nd to October 21st, 1979, two Interzonal Tournaments, one for male contestants, one for female contestants, were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is surprising that despite well-known and reputable participants, such as Robert Huebner, Lajos Portisch, Tigran Petrosian and Jan Timman, among others, very little footage of the event is known. Pictures from the tournament are very rare, and so is the chess set used for that event. Modern reproductions were made available later, mainly from Indian manufacturers. But original, contemporary sets from 1979 are hard to be found. Here is one of those sets. The king size is 4.55" / 11.6 cm. The pieces are turned from wood, one side lacquered brown, the other side black. All pieces are moderately weighted.
Some of the pictures below, on which a similar set can be seen "in action", are from the match between Portisch and Petrosian.