AThe San Francisco Examiner San Francisco, California Saturday, July 15, 1972 - Page 4
Try to Lure Fischer: Closed-Door Chess Proposal
Reykjavik, Iceland — (UPI) — In a desperate attempt to get American challenger Bobby Fischer to continue his world chess championship match against Boris Spassky, the match committee proposed today that the match be played in a closed room with only the players and judges present.
Judge Lothar Schmid of Germany said, after meeting with Fischer's aides, that any player can request the game be moved from the 3000-seat chess hall to a closed backstage room if he is disturbed by crowd noise.
Fischer refused to play the second game Thursday because the organizers refused to remove all TV cameras from the hall. He said the cameras ([disruptive men operating the cameras]) distracted him.
Members of the match committee ruled that Fischer's no-show forfeited the game and gave the match to Spassky. ([Paul Marshall, Fischer's lawyer said, “At 11:58 P.M., two minutes before the deadline Cramer, handed a formal written protest to Schmid.”])
With the loss of Tuesday's opener, Fischer trails 0-2 in the 24-game competition. Spassky needs 10 more points to retain his world title. Fischer 12½ to take it. Win counts one point, a draw half a point.
The third game is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Fischer announced he would play only if the cameras ([and disruptive men operating them]) were removed and if the forfeit were erased and the game tomorrow considered the second.
Fischer's ([according to Colonel Ed Edmondson of the USCF, “Under agreed rules of the match, [Fischer] had the right to object and to demand removal of the cameras if they disturbed him.”]) threatened to cost him the money the organizers had begrudgingly coughed up in drawn-out negotiations preceding the match.
An Icelandic chess official said the organizers do not intend to pay the loser's share of the purse if Fischer's non-appearance Thursday causes his disqualification. ([And why should it?! As Paul Marshall, Fischer's lawyer said, “At 11:58 P.M., two minutes before the deadline Cramer, handed a formal written protest to Schmid.” Valid and legal, and was illegally forfeited.])
The loser has been scheduled to get $46,875 from the chess federation, $45,000 from a $120,000 purse offered by London investment banker James Slater and $27,500 from television and movie rights.
Removal of the cameras could eliminate the television and movie cash. ([Chump change compared with Slater's contribution! Fischer won't miss it, nor the disruptive camera men.])
Charles Fox, a New York promoter who bought the film rights, said “the whole financial structure of the match” depended on the filming. ([Nonsense! How did they afford to pay for the Vancouver, B.C. Taimanov Fischer tournament, or the Denver, Colorado Larsen-Fischer tournament, or the Argentine encounter between Petrosian-Fischer without Chester Fox?!])
Fox said he had told Fischer in New York last month that the competition would be filmed and Fischer at the time seemed interested only in how much money he would get ([but Fischer was not given prior warning that, “instead of..video tape film that didn't make any noise they had guys with film cameras that were..all around..making a racket..and visually you could see them moving around.”- R.J. Fischer, and in a report by Harold Schonberg, New York Times, July 14, 1972, Paul Marshall informs us, “Iceland promised that he [Fischer] would not know there was filming taking place, so he could concentrate. In two inspections prior to the match, he [Fischer] was not shown the television equipment.”
Robert Fischer Boycotts Second Match in Protest Against Men Hired to Disruptively Operate Cameras 15 Jul 1972, Sat The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California) Newspapers.com
