Ironwood Daily Globe Ironwood, Michigan Saturday, April 01, 1972 - Page 10
Fischer In Chess Brinkmanship
American chess players don't have the stomach for the brinksmanship games that chess star Bobby Fischer has been playing recently.
They hope Fischer will forget his latest money demands and get on with the business of winning America's first official world chess championship.
Fischer is currently balking at the terms of the agreement set for his match with the world champion, Russian Boris Spassky.
Fischer was set to play Spassky in a 24-game match, beginning June 22 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and continuing in Reykjavik, Iceland — under an agreement reached in Amsterdam recently. The purse was set at $138,500.
However, last week Bobby demanded that he and Spassky share in the profits from the match, beyond the prize money. The two host countries refused. Bobby then refused to play in those countries. He dismissed E. B. Edmondson, executive director of the U.S. Chess Federation, as his negotiator, and Edmondson said Bobby would bargain for himself.
The organizers in Belgrade announced Friday that they had stopped planning for the match in the scheduled period because they couldn't be guaranteed that Fischer would show up.
Dr. Max Euwe, president of the International Chess Federation, has the power to disqualify Bobby. The match would then be played between Spassky and Russian Tigran Petrosian, ex-world champ, who Bobby defeated in the semifinals.
