The Berkshire Eagle's Sunday Sampler Pittsfield, Massachusetts Sunday, January 02, 1972 - Page 4
Chess Talk by Arthur B. Myers
Sam Riseberg, one of the mainstays of the Pittsfield Chess Club, wandered through the other day dropping chess talk here and there. No chess player worthy of the name can talk to you 30 seconds without dropping the name of Bobby Fischer, the world's greatest chess player, and Sam did. Well, Sam met Fischer when he was playing in a tournament in New York at which Fischer was also a contestant. They weren't playing each other, but they were at nearby tables. Sam has a habit of humming when he plays and Fischer, a testy one, got up, came over, and asked Sam for blankety-blank sakes stop that humming! That's brushing up against greatness for you.
Which reminds me of the time I was doing an article for American Girl, the Girl Scout magazine, on Cecilia Rock of Dalton. This was a few years ago, when Cecilia was 16 and national women's chess champion. She was playing in a big tournament in New York at the time, and she mentioned that her hero was Bobby Fischer, although she'd never met him. A few days later she told me a terrible thing had happened. She had excused herself to go to the ladies' room, and during this brief period the great Bobby had come in, viewed the tournament, and went, without her seeing the great man.
