The Vancouver Sun Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Monday, January 19, 1959
Chess Isn't Everything
The picture which emerges of Bobby Fischer, 15-year-old American hopeful for the world chess championship, is a sad one.
Here in his mid-teens is a young man with one interest—the game of chess. He lives it. He talks about it, writes about it. The youngest grand master of the game in the world, but he says, “the title doesn't make me play better chess.” Girls? “Girls don't play chess.”
On a visit to Russia, where chess is almost the national game, the Russians were amazed. “We have to throw him out of the chess club once a day to get some sunshine.”
Perhaps this single-minded devotion to the grand game is necessary to make him the master he is. And since it would be nice “to beat the Russians at their own game,” we in the West wish him well.
But we can't help thinking of fishing trips and skiing down the lonely mountainside. Even high-but-not-highest school marks don't make up for football, or movies or, yes, rock 'n' roll.
Or, for that matter, girls. Chess isn't everything.
Every accusation is a confession.
The Soviets are only ones with reason to feel “sad” that a competent challenger arose on the horizon.
See the news article from 1958, 'Batman Comic book' on the bed, a fan of Elvis Presley (Rock and Roll) and Dodgers Baseball, so on. So what is the author talking about?!
