AThe Age Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Friday, July 21, 1972 - Page 9
Chess Fever Grips America From Roy Macartney, in Washington
The once-scorned game of chess has come out of the cobwebs and is sweeping the United States.
Little-known clubs are now crammed with players, duffers are hunching intently over boards in the parks, and newspapers, radio and television are giving the world chess championship in Reykjavik almost baseball World Series treatment.
In New York, the club where Bobby Fischer once played is charging $3 for the privilege of hearing experts analyse each move of the epic struggle in Iceland.
Not since Neville Cardus found cricket fields peopled with the gods of Greek mythology has such prose been lavished on what presumably is still a game.
The New York Times special correspondent wrote from Reykjavik that Fischer and Spassky “are able to mobilise the 16 pieces at their disposal, much as a Mozart could organise the notes at his disposal, into personalised patterns of logic and beauty.”
He said Spassky, “playing for his honor and what he considers the honor of the Soviet people”, was prepared for Fischer by a “phalanx of Soviet grandmasters”.
A “fighting mad” Spassky had Fischer defending desperately as he attacked “with his two bishops sweeping the long diagonals, with constant mating threats.”
“Spassky and Fischer use foils rather than sabres,” said the Times chess buff.
All this is inspiring young Americans at home, at least those youngsters who might gain on the chess board a recognition likely to elude them on the football field.
Chess clubs are never likely to threaten to replace saloons in America, one television commentator remarked.
But as the New York Times expert noted, “chess remains a game of infinite possibilities”.
