APhiladelphia Daily News Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Friday, July 07, 1972 - Page 18
Local Expert Likes Fischer by Lee Daniels
Dr. Leroy Dubeck, president of the American Chess Federation, thinks U.S. chess phenom Bobby Fischer will win the world's chess championship in twenty games.
The match, in which Fischer is to face champion Boris Spassky, of the Soviet Union, is scheduled to begin Tuesday in Reykjavik, Iceland, after being postponed once for Fischer and again for Spassky in separate disputes.
“Bobby is a chess genius,” Dubeck, a Temple University physics professor said. “He throws every ounce of himself into a chess game, Boris does not. That's all I'd care to say publicly.”
DUBECK HAS DONE considerable research into the mental and physical stress of major chess competition. He knows Fischer and Spassky personally and has watched each perform many times.
“But this match has received so much publicity it will make the pressure that much greater,” he said. “Then there is the $250,000 in prize money. These two are undoubtedly the two best living chess players in the world and tremendous prestige is involved.”
Dubeck believes both Fischer, 29, and Spassky, 35, are at the peak of their games. He said a grandmaster usually reaches his peak in his early 30s.
Fischer, he said, is the highest rated chess player in the world by the World Chess Federation because he has done better in international competition.
