AAlabama Journal Montgomery, Alabama Thursday, July 13, 1972 - Page 18
State Chess Players Keep Close Tabs On Title Match by Hoyt Harwell
The relatively few chess players in Alabama, happy over the surge of interest in the game, are keeping a close watch on the world chess match for various reasons.
And most of them are pulling for American Bobby Fischer in the match in Iceland against Russian Boris Spassky.
Members of the four clubs in Alabama — at Birmingham, Huntsville, Montgomery and Mobile — are doing their best to keep up with each move of the Russian champion and his challenger.
“We all hope to learn something,” John Dohne of Birmingham said today in an interview. He is past president of the club and a director of 15 tournaments.
“Some of us may even have a bet on the match,” he said.
Another club member, Charles Smith, said the match “will be great for national chess. It has created a wonderful springboard of interest and chess has a way of being its own attraction once you can get someone to try.
“Most people shy away from it because of its obvious egghead atmosphere which is not true at all.”
Dohne agreed: “It's already been somewhat of a boon to this country. There has been more in the newspapers about chess the last two months than in the last 10 years altogether. There are a great many youngsters starting to play.”
Alabama has one chess master, Milan Momic of Leighton, a political refugee from Yugoslavia.
“He walked into an Alabama open tournament shortly after he came to this county. He sat down to play and scored 7-0 and was a master at the end of the tournament and has been a master ever since,” Dohne said.
Momic works for an aluminum firm at Muscle Shoals.
“Fischer's temperament ([set off by unethical Soviet manipulation and meddling]) created a little bit of an unfavorable image ([said who, except western media lackeys of Soviet Chess Federation, out to cover up the double-dealing overbearing demands and ultimatums of Soviet/European organizers who refused for months to sort out details before the match. Nor emphasizing in newspapers about Belgrade's illegal demand of $35,000 USD “guarantee” which the USCF rightly refused to fork up! And Mexico and Australia's legal bid of $225,000, snubbed by Russia, in a childish tantrum, threatened they “would not play” unless they got their own way, in almost everything then the USSR selected the hostile Anti-American, Racist Iceland who restricted entry of blacks and news coverage, to prevent Americans and the free world reading about the humiliating defeat of Soviet Russia whose schemes to disqualify Fischer and replace with Petrosian, etc. were known to inner-chess circles. The papers for some reason felt it wasn't necessary to pursue those leads on the misconduct of Soviet and European chess organizers. Strange how they pick and choose their criticism. One-sided and biased.]) Dohne said. “Non-chess players are annoyed and some tell me they hope the Russian wins, but most chess players know about Fischer and hope he wins.
Smith put it this way: “We are pulling for Fischer, certainly. We overlook his idiosyncrasies ([perhaps the fact that Fischer keeps the seventh day Sabbath, which is an affront to antisemites, and likewise resulted in Sam Reshevsky being dubbed “The Reshevsky Problem” when he refused to break and play on the Sabbath day, or Fischer dubbed “temperamental” because he chose to walk out of a tournament while he was in the lead, rather than break the Sabbath day. Both men kept the 7th day Jewish Sabbath, and therefore a target of the Soviets' antisemitic abusive smears in press.]) We overlook his idiosyncrasies because he's demonstrated this ever since he's been a child prodigy.” ([Could Fischer so easily overlook the vicious Soviet smear campaign coordinated by Soviet sympathizers who regularly made up false stories, seeking to defame Fischer as “strange” which later devolved into charges of madness? If Bobby was a loner, explain why he would enjoy socializing with people who couldn't say anything but biting, derogatory slurs?])
Smith said that most chess news usually is obtained through special publications and is two months old. He said it was an unusual pleasure to be able to keep up with the Spassky-Fischer match on a day-to-day basis.
In fact, the Birmingham club at its Wednesday night meeting spent most of the time studying the moves by the two masters.
The Birmingham club has about 50 members, most of them new, young members. “In fact, one other man and I were the only ones at our last meeting with shoes on,” Dohne said. ([and if Fischer had arrived “without shoes on,” he'd been made the brunt of ridicule, widely publicized in the press as “unkempt,” “imbalanced,” “too poor” to afford a pair of shoes and his entire family put on trial in the court of public opinion for doing exactly what EVERY ONE else was doing! They scrutinized Fischer, put everything he said (and things he didn't say) under the microscope, they mocked his mannerisms, persecuted and berated him for mannerisms of those born on the Autism Spectrum. Just par for the course growing up during the intolerant 1960s-1970s era America.])
“The interest by youngsters is a good thing. They have bright, quick minds. When you get 50 you just play for fun; you can't be a great competitor.”
The average game in the club lasts from 30 to 45 minutes, Smith said, “mainly because when a lost position is reached, the player will usually not continue. Being amateurs, we have a way of reaching lost petitions must faster than masters would.”
He said of Fischer: “The beauty of the games he plays by far overcome any dislike of him in his person actions.” ([What actions? That Fischer rightfully retaliated against Soviet muddling and manipulation of the tournament via assistance of the biased Icelandic organizers? See above. Is this guy even aware of the decades of hostile Anti-American atmosphere, related to the Keflavik NATO military base, and bitter Anti-American sentiments that were held against American challenger Fischer, years before the 1972 match was even conceived? Why do the papers avoid the issue, that the Soviet “selected” Iceland, knowing they were forcing Robert Fischer into a political hornet's nest. The speaker only knows the very limited reports printed in his local newspaper, written by Soviet associates in the press, with very few facts allowed to filter through to the “daily edition” from thousands of miles away.])
The Alabama Chess Championships will be held during the Labor Day weekend in Montgomery with from 50 to 60 players expected, and a stronger interest than ever, due to the current Fischer-Spassky match.
State Chess Players Keep Close Tabs On Title Match 13 Jul 1972, Thu Alabama Journal (Montgomery, Alabama) Newspapers.com
