Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, Florida, Sunday, August 09, 1959
Chess Genius Without Pin Money, Says Mom
New York (HTNS) — From a letter to the editor this department learned its favorite athlete, Bobby Fischer, the chess genius, is still over in Yugoslavia and that his mother, Mrs. Regina Fischer, a nurse living in Brooklyn, is much concerned over the alleged refusal of the local chess authorities to kick through with proper walking-around money, etc.
It seems that each big chess player — and Bobby is the United States champion at the age of 16 — has a person designated as his “second.” This adjunct does not function like a Whitey Biemstein, patching cuts and exhorting to a new violence with the left-right-left. The chess “second” goes over gambits and Fanchet-to openings like the kings indian, and tries to keep his boy on the qui vive, so to speak.
Well, Mrs. Fischer says that the chess poobahs have been giving Bobby the brushoff. He and she, she says, have been putting up the boodle out of nursing and prize money. Unless something fiscal and immediate is done, she claims, Bobby will lose his place in the challengers' tournament for the world championship currently held by Mikhail Botvinnik, a Russian.
WRONG NUMBER
Local chess buffs did not seem to think that the champ's dam was telling the whole story. Nonetheless it was hard to pin down a story which was more convincing. It was suggested that we call a Morris J. Kasper, who was described as treasurer of the American Chess Foundation.
The number provided turned out to be the Lenox Hill Republican Club and the volunteer who answered had never heard of Mr. Kasper. He may even be a Democrat.
Other chess buffs, among them Hermann Helms, venerable and sprightly advocate of the Ruy Lopez opening, asserted that the foundation had agreed to contribute $2000 toward a “second” and other needed assets for Bobby but his mother wouldn't accept unless she were vouchsafed a look at the book.
A TICKET HOME
“Young Fischer has a ticket home which was given him by that television show (‘I've Got a Secret’), but his mother won't let him come back,” said Helms. “He could come back here and play for $1,200 in the New Jersey log cabin tournament which is sponsored by the U.S. Chess Federation. But that isn't what his mother wants.”
The material we gathered indicated that the absent Bobby is a non-participating junior at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn.
He has been away from this country since March. He played in Argentina and Chile, then moved to Europe. He has played no official chess since Chile but he is eligible as U.S. champion to play in the challenge tournament, involving eight masters which will be played in three Yugoslav cities — Bled, Zagreb and Belgrade — from Sept. 6 to Oct 29.
