Philadelphia Daily News Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Thursday, July 06, 1972 - Page 31
Checks and Mates
Another note from the world of culture (see above editorial): While the world awaits the start of the will they, won't they Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky world championship chess match let's take a look at the stakes.
There's the title, of course. And then there's that loot. With the pot increased at Fischer's insistence, the winner will get $156,250 and the loser $93,750. Also each player will get another $75,000 from TV and film rights.
Now we know that Fischer the American has an obvious rich streak of that “Wall Street Materialism” the Soviets are always harping about. But we wonder what will Spassky, the devoted Communist, do with all those rubles?
([Correction: Spassky reportedly was not a “devoted” member of the Soviet Bolshevik/USSR party. Fischer, gave almost all the prize winnings away to his church.])