I record videos for ChessLecture.com, and while researching some possible topics for future videos I was looking at Paul Keres's performance in the 1959 Candidates' tournament. He took second there behind Mikhail Tal, but with a great score that would have easily won the event in 1962. Initially my focus was on his performance at the end of the event, in the last of the four cycles. (The event was a mammoth 28-round tournament, a quadruple round-robin with the eight candidates.) He lost in the last round with the white pieces, and a few rounds earlier lost with White as well. I didn't really think much of it, but then glanced up the list and saw another loss with White, and then another...and finally I did some counting.
With White, Keres, who perhaps played the tournament of his life there, scored only six and a half points out of 14 games. Minus-1, in a tournament where he finished in clear second place, beat the tournament 3-1 in their individual games and was three full points ahead of the third-place finisher. He lost no fewer than six games with the white pieces.
And with Black? Well, since he took second it's obvious he did well, but how well is almost unbelievable: an undefeated 12-2! With Black, he went 2-0 vs. Tal, 1-1 vs. Petrosian, 1.5-.5 vs. Vasily Smyslov and Svetozar Gligoric, and 2-0 vs. Bobby Fischer, Fridrik Olafsson and Pal Benko. If he had even come close to matching this score with White it would have been one of the greatest tournament performances of all time, probably the greatest. Instead, it was "just" another very impressive achievement in his illustrious career, and one of four heartbreaking second-place finishes in a Candidates' tournament for one of the greatest players never to become world champion in the history of chess.