Clarion-Ledger Jackson, Mississippi Sunday, July 02, 1972 - Page 38
American Chess Genius Meets Russian Champion In Bid For World Crown by Mary Ellen Myrene, Associated Press Writer
When he won his first U.S. chess championship at the age of 14, Bobby Fischer observed with nearly galling relish, “I like to see ’em squirm.”
Now 29 and facing Russia's Boris Spassky for the world title, Fischer remains one of the most controversial—and most successful—players in the game's history.
While his actions outside tournaments may be unexpected and perplexing, his game inside is legendary—an aggressive strategy dotted with ferocious attacks that have left his opponents exhausted.
Bobby Fischer wants—no more and no less—to win. And he has done so with incredible consistency, winning a total of eight U.S. championships and dominating recent international play.
Described by chess master Anthony Saidy as “the most rounded chess genius of all time,” Fischer now seeks the only title that has ever eluded him—the world championship held by the Russians since 1948, and by Spassky for the past three years.
Fischer, a solidly built 6'-2" bachelor, was born in Chicago and, after his parents were divorced, moved to Brooklyn with his mother and an older sister in 1949.
His first contact with chess came a short time later when his sister brought home a small, dime store chess set and taught him the moves from an instruction sheet.
Joining the Brooklyn Chess Club at 8, Fischer earned a Reserve Rating in the strong Manhattan Chess Club by the time he was 12 and had played in his first national tournaments.
He burst into the big time one year later, winning the U.S. Junior chess Championship and having one of his competition games acclaimed by elder chess statesman Hans Kmoch as “the game of the century.”
At the age of 14—turned out in a T shirt, dungarees and sneakers—he won his first national championship. At 15 he became the youngest chess competitor in history to win the rating of grand master.
DONE MORE
In the years that have followed, Fischer has done more than any man before him to popularize the sport of chess in the United States, and single-handedly, has generated more controversy.
Over the years, Fischer has complained about the lighting, the scheduling, the spectators, the air conditioning, the living conditions and the purses of his matches, and he quit some of them.
He refused to compete in the last two world championships eliminations, charging that the Russian players had rigged the tournaments by playing for draws against one another and for wins against Westerners.
As a result, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) has tightened its rules on tournament draws and changed the challengers' competition from round-robin to man-to-man elimination.
“SENSE OF MISSION”
Now mounting his first real bid for the world title, Fischer appears to have tempered his quarrels with officials to pursue what he calls “a sense of mission to win the championship.”
I'm tired of being the unofficial champion,” he said. As he faces the opening game in Reykjavik, Iceland, Fischer is riding a wave of victories unprecedented in the history of chess.
In the first of three elimination matches to determine the challenger to Spassky, Fischer defeated Soviet grand master Mark Taimanov by the starting score of 6-0—the first time in chess history that one grand master had shut out another without a single drawn game.
Two months later, Fischer attacked Denmark's brilliant Bent Larsen like a computer steamroller and won again, 6-0; it was the equivalent of pitching back-to-back perfect games in baseball.
19 STRAIGHT WINS
With 19 consecutive victories in grand master play, Fischer then secured his right to play Spassky for the title, defeating former world champion Russian Tigran Petrosian, 6½ to 2½. No chess player in history could show a record like it.
Now primed mentally and physically for probably the most important match of his career, Fischer has no doubt about the outcome.
“It's nice to be modest, but it would be stupid if I did not tell the truth,” he says, “I should have been world champion ten years ago.”
