AThe Sunday News Ridgewood, New Jersey Sunday, June 07, 1959
Big 4 May Stalemate, But Brooklyn Aims at Checkmate
Chess devotees are chortling with glee over the exploits of 17-year-old Bobby Fischer, the Brooklyn genius tied for first place with Mikhail Tal of Russia in the world tournament being held in Zurich.
It is somehow wrong to speak of chess players chortling with glee. Undoubtedly, that is not what they do.
But young Fischer is certainly a genius at the game, which has been called the “highest intellectual struggle”. At 17, he is competing on equal terms with the Russian masters.
Thirteen rounds (or games) have been played and Fischer, always at or near the top of the scoring, has pulled even. It is a remarkable feat, no matter how the final standings emerge.
In the first place, playing this kind of chess requires a uniquely analytical mind. And secondly, playing with the Russians, abroad, calls for poise that youths of Fischer's age rarely possess.
Chess is by no means a “spectator” sport. Those who have observed important matches say they are conducted in what can only be called a deathly hush.
The rules are strict and on mistake or the loss of a pawn usually means defeat when the opponent is an “international grandmaster.” That's the title Fischer has earned during his brief chess career.
This boy is in effect representing the U.S. in the tournament, although, as I understand it, the funds allowing him to make the trip were contributed by private sources.
I don't imagine the same is true of the two Russians playing in the tourney. Probably the Soviet government is paying for their trip. Many of the greatest players in the world are Russians, and generally speaking, the game there is more popular than anywhere else in the world.
It is also possible that the Russian players are accompanied by “analysts,” expert chess players who study adjourned games and advise the player in his successive combination of moves.
Fischer's eminence in the heady world of chess may well put the U.S. back into the forefront of the game, which at various times has been dominated by a Cuban, a Frenchman, the Russians and others.
One of the best American players, Sammy Reshevsky, is not competing in the tournament. He has played in other years but always at the same disadvantage: paying his own way, lacking analysts, and so forth.
Reshevsky, a chess genius at nine years of age, toured the U.S. in 1920-21, playing 10, 15, or 20 opponents simultaneously and winning 90 per cent of the games. He played 15 simultaneous games in Paterson, winning 14 and drawing one.
The greatest American player, in many minds, was Paul Morphy, who lived in New Orleans and became world champion at the time of the Civil War. Some experts on the game consider Morphy the greatest player who ever lived, which is saying a lot in a few words since it is an ancient pastime thought to have originated in India.
In any event, Bobby Fischer, the Brooklyn school boy, has the kind of mind that goes with playing rarified championship chess. Maybe the Russians will change their school system.
