AAsbury Park Press Asbury Park, New Jersey Wednesday, June 28, 1972 - Page 29
Sports Angles: You'd Never Guess This About Chess
Want to be a good chess player?
Then start a weightlifting program, jog 10 miles a day, do calisthenics, climb mountains, get in shape, get physical.
I know.
“This guy is nuts,” you're muttering to yourself. “Chess isn't even as strenuous as tiddlywinks.”
We've all maybe played a little chess on rainy days and watched others play it — old codgers who couldn't see the men without glasses and tender tykes not suited to contact sports.
Trouble with us, though, is we just didn't know what we were watching. We always looked at two guys playing chess as just sitting there with their brains going a mile a minute. One guy would frown if the other guy shuffled his feet too much or drummed his fingers too loudly or scratched himself.
It's impolite in chess, we always thought, to indulge in any little mannerisms which might distract your opponent. We have seen some of the hot shots who play 20 or 30 people at a time and figured they put in a little walking from board to board, but usually their evenings didn't last long — they would whip everyone in a few moves.
JUST SHOWS YOU how dumb you can be.
Now we learn from researchers a game of chess is as tough physically as a go at football or boxing. Something called a “bio-kinetic” experiment at Temple University in 1970 proved all of this we are advised.
Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, who are going to square off in Iceland for the world championship, are both physical persons, we are informed. Spassky, being Russian, won't divulge his training regimen, but we know it probably includes tennis.
Fischer, being American, tells all of the details of his training. He does calisthenics in front of a television set, in the morning and follows it up with tennis, swimming and bowling.
THE MATCH, to consist of no more than 24 games, will begin Sunday. Just like in boxing, a draw means Spassky will retain his title. He has beaten Fischer in five previous meetings, but the American feels he is in better form now and is predicting he'll take the Russian master out in less than the 24-game distance. Maybe he feels Spassky is over the hill, or maybe he has developed a new punch since the last match.
The match will be judged on the point system — one for a win and a half for a draw. Fischer has to score 12½, to win, while Spassky needs only to 12 to retain his title.
CHESS HAS never ranked very high in the United States. Nothing at all like horse racing, demolition derbies, or even soccer, a game invented by some South Americans who got hold of a basketball and thought you kicked it. Probably it is because we Americans always only saw two guys sitting across from each other looking down at some carved figures. We always missed all of the physical action in the game.
But for a long while I've been trying to figure out why chess was carried on sports pages and when I was young enough to keep asking all I got was grunts and dirty looks from sports editors. Then I became ashamed of showing my ignorance by asking such a question.
NOW I KNOW. Temple University says chess is as tough as football or boxing. Maybe that's why Ron Johnson and Bob Tucker of the New York Giants play it all the time — to get in shape for football. And come to think of it, I remember seeing the New York Giants Dick Barnett playing chess during the NBA play-offs.
I was so dumb I thought he was relaxing after a tough game the night before. I didn't know he was working strenuously to get in shape for the next game.
Maybe we ought to send Yancy Durham or Ray Arcel over to work in Fischer's corner during the matches. They're the best cut men in the business.
