ANew York Times, New York, New York, Wednesday, July 12, 1972 - Page 26
TV Here Brings New Dimension To Chess Contest and Kibitzing
The switchboard at educational television station WNET, Channel 13, was jammed yesterday by chess enthusiasts intent on kibitzing the studio-recreated play of the Boris Spassky-Bobby Fischer game.
“We stopped counting the calls when they passed the 300 mark,” a station spokesman said. “We were inundated.”
WNET, using the state educational network studio in Albany, had a camera trained on a large chess board. Using play-by-play moves transmitted by wire by the World Chess Network and The Associated Press from Reykjavik, Iceland, Shelby Lyman, a chess master, moved the pieces.
Some Experts Appear Confused
Some callers complained that Mr. Lyman was giving too much analysis, contending, as one put it: “We know and love chess and don't have to have the game explained to us. We need silence to think about each move.”
Others asked for more explanation, while some took spirited exception to Mr. Lyman's judgment.
The television experts at times appeared to be as confused as a beginning chess player.
At one point, for instance, Fischer moved his bishop and one expert called it a “colossal blunder.”
“It will go down in the history of chess as one of the great blunders,” said another.
Ten minutes later, however, the first expert was referring to the “blunder” as a “heroic stroke” that would save a draw for the American. And 30 minutes later, the collective attitude was: Hey, maybe Bobby can win the game after all.
This led more than one viewer to say that was why Fischer was there, and the experts were here.
The Teleprompter Corporation, which furnished its own play-by-play to its cable television subscribers, with Arthur Bisguier, an international grand master, moving the pieces, reported receiving “about 50 calls from viewers.”
Both stations had been threatened with legal action ([courtesy of the Soviet Union]) if they went through with plans to televise the play, but the action did not materialize. The threat came from Chester Fox corporation, which has exclusive television rights to the chess match. Actual films and videotapes of the first two games will be shown by Chester Fox's licensee, the American Broadcasting Company, on television Sunday at 5 P.M.
Spokesman for WNET and Teleprompter said yesterday that the stations would continue to broadcast running, play-by-play simulations of the games, until the championship match has been concluded.
