AThe Windsor Star Windsor, Ontario, Canada Wednesday, February 16, 1972 - Page 30
Quality is Counting by Jack Dulmage, Sports Editor
THE NEXT EXALTED confrontation between mercenaries of the state and slaves of the dollar is to occur in June between a Russian Boris Spassky, and an American Bobby Fischer.
This isn't quite up to the Cuban crisis, the Berlin Wall or the Vietnam war, but as a bloodless engagement between the forces of communism and capitalism, it should do pretty well.
Max Euwe, president of the International Chess Federation and a onetime world champion, has ruled that the first half of the best of 24 game world championship match will be played in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, the second half or what remains of it in Reykjavik, Iceland.
EUWE SIMPLY DIVIDED the first site preferences of the combatants. Spassky had sought Iceland, Holland, West Germany and France in that order.
Fischer had sought Belgrade, Sarajevo, Buenos Aires and Canada (Montreal) in that order.
There are several reasons why this match will attract more world attention than anything that has previously occurred in chess. And chess goes back a little — more than 1,400 years anyway.
For one, no American has ever been world champion. In fact, no American attained the final challenging round until Fischer knocked off Tigran Petrosian last October.
Paul Morphy, an American, was ranked the best of his time — he was United States champion from 1852 to 1862 — but that was prior to the start of recognition of official world champions which began in 1866 with Wilhelm Steinitz of Austria.
Morphy sort of faded away after his 10-year American reign. Fischer of Brooklyn, son of European born parents, is 28 and was a child genius. He won the U.S. championship at the age of 14. He has held it three different times including the present for a total of nine years.
A DECADE AGO, Fischer was earmarked for climbing the tournament ladder to a world match, but he balked and refused to compete, charging the Russians with collusions in elimination tournament play.
The Russians have been very powerful in chess since the end of World War II. Fischer claimed they were rigging tournaments by going all out against foreigners while playing ties among themselves to pad superior standing positions.
Fischer was probably right. He demanded to have his own way which was two-man knockout competition, and he finally got it. Head to head, he is considered the toughest chess player to come down the pike.
FISCHER KNOCKED OFF three big wheels without losing a game before he flattened Petrosian at Buenos Aires. Petrosian was world champion from 1963 to 1967.
The Russians took over the world championship in 1948 when Mikhail Botvinnik began a reign of eight years. The came Vasily Smyslov, Botvinnik again, then Mikhail Tal, Botvinnik again, then Petrosian and finally Spassky in 1969.
Prior to this post-war rule, the Russians didn't figure. Steinitz, the first champion, ruled 28 years. After him came Dr. Emanuel Lasker of Berlin who last 27 years.
Then, there was Jose Capablanca of Havana for six years in the early twenties, Dr. Alexander Alekhine of Paris for eight, Dr. Euwe of Holland for three, Dr. Alekhine again for nine and then the Russian onset with Botvinnik.
FISCHER IS PLAYING this match for money, the lion's share of almost $300,000. Whatever share Spassky winds up with, it becomes most curious whether the USSR will allow him to pocket it like a prize fighter.
It may be that Spassky's end will go directly into state coffers and come back to him indirectly by such emoluments as the USSR chooses to confer.
BELGRADE, an Iron Curtain city, and Reykjavik, capital of a free republic, entered the auction with $150,000 and $125,000 respectively. Belgrade isn't Moscow, but it's within the Russian orbit.
Perhaps, the way for the Russians to proceed in hockey is to make a money contract match between Prague and the National Hockey League, rather than between the USSR and the NHL.
This guy Fischer could be a new dimension in international bridge-building.
