AFlorida Today Cocoa, Florida Saturday, July 01, 1972 - Page 4A
Bobby Makes His Move
Can a lone American successfully challenge a product of the Soviet Union's time-tested chess machine?
Can a perfection-seeking genius keep his cool through the grind of a 24-game championship series?
Can Bobby Fischer, America's challenger, end a 25-year reign for the U.S.S.R. as world chess champions?
We'll start getting the answers Sunday when Fischer — Brooklyn's now-grown-up child prodigy — faces world champ Boris Spassky across the 64-square board.
The championship match has attracted widespread interest in this nation, which has tended to regard chess as a dull, slow, sedentary game that intellectuals play.
Aficionados know better. It's a game that demands great physical stamina as well as superior concentration when played at the international grandmaster level. Bobby's youth was credited in part with his victory in the challenge round over the Soviet's former world champ, Tigran Petrosian. At 43, the one-time Russian “tiger” is over the hill.
Bobby's lopsided victories in the preliminaries have excited great interest in this nation, with a parallel rise in chess set sales.
Bobby — who trains as strenuously as any athlete (mainly bowling, swimming and table tennis) — has indirectly led many Americans to the game of chess. They have discovered that the game not only is interesting and challenging, but just plain fun.
For Fischer and Spassky, the match promises to be a grueling challenge.
If we were a gambling man, our money would have to go on Bobby.
It's your move, Boris …
Bobby Makes His Move 01 Jul 1972, Sat Florida Today (Cocoa, Florida) Newspapers.com
