The Leader-Post Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada Monday, July 10, 1972 - Page 23
Fascinating Game of Chess
If you were to have asked a group of average citizens only a few days ago what was the most mind-bending global drama afoot that day, the answers might have ranged all the way from the French nuclear tests in the South Pacific, to the pollution crisis, to the bloody military tug-of-war still proceeding in battered Vietnam. Chances are nobody would have mentioned the game of chess. Yet today thousands of eyes are turned figuratively north to Reykjavik in chilly Iceland where an American and a Russian chess master face each other across the serried knights and rooks and pawns.
Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky today are named almost as familiar as Georges Pompidou and Nguyen Van Thieu. Although the chess experts are playing for money, which now amounts to $156,250 for the winner and $93,750 for the loser, the competition has taken on many of the classic features of an international confrontation.
Chess is a great game for young and old. It develops the capacity for logical thinking and forward planning in children and young people, and keeps older minds alert and active as well. Although chess now gets a good deal of publicity in the Russian press, the game, probably invented in India about 700 A.D., until last week hadn't excited much popular attention in North America.
Patience, concentration, logic, anticipation of counter-moves, the inevitable relationship between short-term tactics and long-term strategy. These are some of the things chess can teach its players. Oddly enough, these qualities of intellect are also among those that make effective politicians. It is earnestly to be hoped that Canadian politicians will be watching the unfolding struggle in Reykjavik during at least part of their summer holiday, and that they will return to their legislative duties a month or two hence all the better for it.
Fascinating Game of Chess 10 Jul 1972, Mon The Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada) Newspapers.com
