AThe Record Hackensack, New Jersey Monday, July 17, 1972 - Page 3
Spassky Objects to Playing Series in Backstage Room
Reykjavik, Iceland (UPI)—World chess champion Boris Spassky of Russia today protested against the playing conditions in a back-stage table-tennis room for the 24-game playoff against American Bobby Fischer.
Referee Lothar Schmid called an emergency meeting to discuss the latest snag in the on-again—off-again $250,000 world championship match. The third game, which was adjourned Sunday, was scheduled to resume today at 5 p.m. (1 p.m. EDT).
Spassky holds a 2-0 lead in the match but Fischer had a one pawn advantage and a stronger attacking position when the third game was adjourned after 41 moves. Most experts gave Fischer the edge to take the game.
Schmid said he received a letter from the Russian delegation protesting against the playing conditions in the table-tennis room behind the main stage of the Reykjavik sports hall. ([Temperamental Soviets can not stop ranting and lodging complaints of nit-picking criticism. Where's that saintly contentment?])
The match was moved there Sunday for the third game after Fischer objected to the presence of television cameras ([actually disruptive crews of men operating said cameras!) and threatened to fly home. ([Said which source? others deny this claim])
Schmid met with a Russian delegation headed by Nikolai Krogius, Spassky's second and a chess 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.
In five previous meetings, Fischer had never beaten Spassky. He lost three playing black and drew two when he played white and had the first move.
Fischer needs 12½ points to dethrone Spassky while the Russian can retain his title with only 12. A player gets a point for winning a game and half a point for a draw.
U.S. Grandmaster Robert Byrne looked up from a pocket chess board and said:
“He (Spassky) is almost finished. I cannot see Bobby letting him slip out of the rope. He (Fischer0 has the advantage of a pawn and is in a very strong attacking position.”
Most experts on hand gave Fischer a 70-30 chance of winning and reducing the 35-year-old Russian's lead.
Immediately after the game, Spassky jumped into a car with one of his seconds, Grandmaster Nikolai Krogius, and left for their hotel to analyse the situation.
Would he or wouldn't he?
Until 90 minutes before the start of Sunday's third game Fischer kept the chess world guessing whether he would appear or continue his boycott in protest against television camera ([disruptive men operating the infernal machines]), 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 ([is sympathetic with the Soviet Union]) had acquired all film and television rights ([an affront to constitutional freedom of the press and was widely criticized by world news journalists]), 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 breech of contract ([Here's a clue, Sherlock, the contract was null and void to begin with, since Fischer was under the wrong impression, unaware there would be crews of men, disrupting the game, and that “Under agreed rules of the match, [Fischer] had the right to object and to demand removal of the cameras if they disturbed him.” -Colonel Ed Edmondson, USCF, but Icelandic Chess Federation proved to the entire world it has no respects for contractual obligations or rules.])
“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.” ([No bother mentioning the fact, Fischer's lawyer was just on the verge of taking the Icelandic Chess Federation to court, of its breech of contract with Fischer! With the fact, “Under agreed rules of the match, [Fischer] had the right to object and to demand removal of the cameras if they disturbed him.” -Colonel Ed Edmondson, and bearing in mind, Fischer's very legal protest of the second game, was illegally forfeited to the Soviets… it's so timely, that suddenly, the Icelandic Chess Federation conveniently “breaks its contract with Chester Fox” and expresses worries of Chester Fox suing, but nothing of Robert Fischer suing... interesting coincidence.])
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.”
Fischer staged a 35-minute protest during Tuesday's first game ([after, as Golombek reported, a reporter was dangling above, from the roof, with a camera trained on Fischer and Schonberg of the N.Y. Times reports disruptive camera man at the side of the stage]) and subsequently resigned ([due to disruptive camera men, some working in crews up to three men, and located no farther than 5 meters/15 feet from Fischer]) after 56 moves. He then boycotted Thursday's second match, inside his presidential suite in protest against the ([disruptive men operating the]) cameras. West German referee Lothar Schmid awarded the game to Spassky ([illegally, because as Paul Marshall reports, “At 11:58 P.M., two minutes before the deadline Cramer, handed a formal written protest to Schmid.” - Paul Marshall and that's aside of the oral protest lodged by Fischer. But the Icelandic and Soviet officials have no intention of following rules of sportsmanly conduct or regulations of international chess.]) Fischer appealed. ([And rightly so. As U.S. Chess official, Ed Edmondson stated, “Under agreed rules of the match, [Fischer] had the right to object and to demand removal of the cameras if they disturbed him.” but the purpose, and persuasive argument fallacies presented by the author, Jim Ward, have no intention to provide readers with “fair and balanced” presentation of the facts.])
Officials ([3 out of 4, overtly and unapologetically in the Soviet corner]) overruled the American's appeal against the forfeit, and until the last minute it was uncertain if Fischer would continue. He and two lawyers assisting him in Iceland had seats booked on a Sunday afternoon flight to New York, but they did not leave. Instead, at Fischer's insistence, the match was moved to the small room and the audience of paying fans in the big sports hall downstairs watched on closed circuit television. Apparently Fischer had no objection to that TV equipment.
But Schmid announced he had moved the third game into the private room “just for today … just to save the match.”
Schmid said the rest of the games would be played in the hall.
Spassky's aides described the offstage room as a chess cupboard, and warned that the Russian would not play any more games in it. ([Oh my! SO TEMPERAMENTAL those Soviets!])
Asked how Fischer would react to this, one of the American's aides said, “I don't even know if he knows.”
Schmid said he moved the game site under Rule 21, providing that the competition can be in private if either player demands it because of disturbance.
Gets on with Game
But if Fischer was emotionally upset he put it behind him the moment he sat down at the board. For a couple of minutes after Spassky had pushed forward his queen pawn, Fischer argued with Schmid over the presence of a camera relaying moves to the world outside the room. Then he shrugged, cupped his hands under his chin and got on with the game.
In the big hall outside the secluded room, a crowd of 1,500 followed the match on a vast closed-circuit screen.
Fischer, appearing in his first world-championship playoff, was the first to leave the middle of the road. His 11th move, moving a knight instead of a pawn, brought comments like “suicide” from grand and international masters in the audience who had not expected this variation of the Benoni opening.
Spassky, apparently caught by surprise, spent almost 15 minutes in deep meditation. Fischer kept pressing forward and after a rapid exchange of pieces starting with the 31st move, he came out on top with six pawns to Spassky's five.
Spassky Lodges Protest on Conditions Backstage 17 Jul 1972, Mon The Record (Hackensack, New Jersey) Newspapers.com
Spassky Objects to Playing Series in Backstage Room 17 Jul 1972, Mon The Record (Hackensack, New Jersey) Newspapers.com
