Press and Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, New York, Monday, January 05, 1959
Teenager Repeats World Chess Title: Old Men Stubborn … but Kid's Got It
New York—(AP)—An air of expectancy filled the arena and yet it was still.
The spectators sized up the opponents.
Their faces almost told their thoughts.
Could he repeat, they wondered. Could this youngster beat out the old master for the national championship?
Yes, a national title was at stake and the spectators were tense—the kind of tenseness that can grip only a national championship.
The youngster was only 15. His hair was mussed and he was wearing a striped sport shirt—just a boy trying to do a man's job. He was on the brink of the title.
He studied his opponent and the play started.
On and on, the test of nerves and brains went. The youngster used every trick at his command.
★ ★ ★
NOW HE WAS on the verge of winning.
But he called a half and offered his opponent a draw.
The opponent shook his head and scowled. He was not going to give up at this stage. He was going all out for the victory.
The teenager's eyes hardened.
Young as he was, he had been through this sort of thing before. Now he was expanding every last wile.
Two more hours went by and the battle continued.
Abruptly, his adversary called a halt. He was on the ropes. The shoe, indeed, was on the other foot.
“Will you settle for a draw?” he asked.
“Draw,” murmured the youngster, hardly raising his eyebrows.
The crowd grinned, but didn't make a sound.
★ ★ ★
NOT FAR AWAY, the older man—now 47 but himself once a child ace at his chosen game—sighed heavily.
The handwriting was on the wall. He couldn't win now.
“Will you settle for a draw?” he whispered to his opponent.
“Draw,” said the opponent
The older man had lost only one match in the weeklong championship tournament. But that was a fatal one. He had been beaten by the teenager after being drawn into a trap that even the spectators recognized.
It was, he reflected, one of the biggest mistakes of his long and glorious career.
He looked at the scoreboard. The youngster finished with a mark of 8½-2½. He had 7½-3½.
And that's how Bobby Fischer, 15-year-old Brooklyn high school student, won his second consecutive United States chess championship yesterday. And that's how Grand Master Samuel Reshevsky, five times former champion, lost it.
Fischer's final-match draw was with Robert Byrne of Indianapolis in 28 moves. Reshevsky drew with Paul Benko, a Hungarian refugee, in 14 moves.
Robert Byrne vs Robert James Fischer
United States Championship (1958/59), New York, NY USA, rd 11, Jan-04
King's Indian Defense: Fianchetto Variation. Uhlmann-Szabo System (E62) 1/2-1/2
