AHonolulu Star-Bulletin Honolulu, Hawaii Monday, July 17, 1972 - Page 14
Fischer Wins Third Game, Trails, 2-1
Reykjavik, Iceland (UPI)—American chess challenger Bobby Fischer won the third game today in the $250,000 world championship match against Russia's Boris Spassky.
Spassky, who still holds a 2-1 edge in the possible 24-game series, quit on the 42nd move.
Fischer was not even on the stage when Spassky threw in the towel. Fischer had written his next move down when the game adjourned yesterday and the play—bishop to Q6 to check Spassky's king—was made by referee Lothar Schmid.
THE RUSSIAN champion took one quick look at the board and stopped the clock.
Schmid earlier upheld a protest from Spassky to move the third game back into the main sports hall from a table tennis room, where it was moved because Fischer objected to closed circuit television cameras.
Schmid said playing conditions in the backstage table tennis room on the first floor of the sports hall were inferior.
“MR. SPASSKY had agreed to play there for one session only and felt the conditions were very poor. He said there was noise from the streets outside, he could hear children play and the light and the chess board was not up to the highest standard.
“I weighed the two playing venues against each other and decided to move the third game back into the big hall,” Schmid said.
The game was moved backstage yesterday after Fischer protested against the presence of closed circuit television cameras.
RUSSIAN chess sources said one of Spassky's complaints was against the wooden board which was used for yesterday's third match.
The first match last Tuesday, which Spassky won in the 56th move, was played on a specially designed slate table weighing almost 300 pounds.
Schmid told the Russians that it had not been possible to transport the table upstairs, the sources said.
The sources said Spassky objected to playing on the wooden board because the pieces were placed one inch above the table level while the original board was level.
There was no immediate reaction from Fischer. U.S. sources said the challenger slept late in his presidential suite.
Schmid met with a Russian delegation headed by Nikolai Krogius, Spassky's second and a chess grand master. The U.S. delegation was headed by the Rev. William Lombardy, Fischer's second; his lawyers Paul Marshall and Andrew Davies and Fred Cramer, a U.S. Chess Federation vice-president.
Until 90 minutes before the start of yesterday's third game, Fischer kept the chess world guessing whether he would appear or continue his boycott in protest against television cameras, or “the evil eyes,” as he called them.
Only after the Icelandic organizers broke a $120,000 contract with Chester Fox Inc., a New York firm which had acquired all film and television rights, and moved the board into an adjoining table tennis room, did Fischer give in.
Hilmar Viggoson, treasurer of the Icelandic Chess Federation, said he did not know the implications of the breach of contract. ([Here's a clue: “Under agreed rules of the match, [Fischer] had the right to object and to demand removal of the cameras if they disturbed him.” -Col. Ed Edmondson, US Chess Federation])
“We had to cancel a meeting with Mr. Fox but the matter will be straightened out later,” he said. “We heard a nasty rumor he will sue us for millions but let's see what happens.” ([Yes, return the money to Mr. Fox, as Mr. Fox deceived Mr. Fischer regarding the men who were hired to purposely disruptively operate the cameras, as an excuse to swarm Mr. Fischer in the playing hall and distract him from his games.])
FRED CRAMER, a U.S. Chess Federation vice president said Fischer had been persuaded to appear because of the great number of cables he received from all over the world “begging him to sit down opposite Spassky.”
