Chicago Tribune Chicago, Illinois Tuesday, January 04, 1972 - Page 19
Belgrade Tops Chess Site Bids by Joseph Zullo
New York, Jan. 3—The United States Chess Federation disclosed today that Belgrade has entered the highest bid for the world championship chess match next June between Bobby Fischer, 28, the American champion, and Boris Spassky, 34, of the Soviet Union.
Fischer said tonight he would have to “wait and see” before deciding whether to accept the $152,000 offered in prize money by the Yugoslavian city.
Will “Wait and See”
Fischer said he would first confer with Col. E.B. Edmondson, head of the United States Chess Federation, on details of the bids made by various countries to stage the world match.
Earlier in the day Edmondson said bids opened in Amsterdam for the privilege of staging the world match showed that Belgrade's bid was the highest. Other high bids reported by Edmondson, who said they were unprecedented, were $150,000 by Buenos Aires, $125,000 by Iceland and $120,000 by Yugoslavia.
In Buenos Aires, however, Carlos Gomez, secretary general, of the Argentina Chess Federation, disputed the announcement that Buenos Aires was second in the bidding with $150,000. His federation offered $100,000, he said, and “I myself sent the cable offering this figure.”
The Chicago Convention Bureau offered $100,000.
Fischer, reached in the Park-Sheraton Hotel, said that among the considerations he would take up with Edmondson are “other factors, such as subsidiary benefits.” He refused to elaborate until he had spoken to Edmondson.
Under established rules, the winner of the match will get 62.5 per cent of the purse and the loser 37.5 per cent. If the $152,000 bid is accepted, the winner would get $95,000 the loser $57,000.
Both the U.S. Chess Federation and its Soviet counterpart must agree to the match site, but presumably the highest bidder will get the match. The deadline for agreement is Feb. 1.
Fischer, who was born in Chicago and reared in Brooklyn, won the right to challenge Spassky, who has held the world championship since 1969, by defeating Tigran Petrosian of the Soviet Union in Buenos Aires last fall. Petrosian is a former champion.
Confident of Victory
Fischer is on record as saying he would play Spassky “regardless of the site,” adding that although he wants the money, he wants “the title even more.”
Should Fischer win the 24-game match, he would become the first American chess champion. He is the first American challenger since the championships were instituted in 1866 when Wilhelm Steinitz of Austria defeated Adolf Andersen of Germany. Since 1951 all the champions and challengers have been Soviet players.
