AThe Daily Tribune Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin Thursday, July 06, 1972 - Page 20
Big Chess Match on for Tuesday
Reykjavik, Iceland (AP) — Bobby Fischer lost the draw Thursday night, giving Boris Spassky the first move, and the world championship chess match will finally start next Tuesday.
Unless the American challenger or the Soviet champion pleads illness and gets another postponement.
The confusion of the past week was summarized by the old woman selling c*g*r*tt*s who asked in the beginning: “Fischer come?”
Near the end it was: “Spassky go?”
“I'm very pessimistic,” Dr. Max Euwe said at 10 a.m. At noon: “It's a very delicate situation.” At 7 p.m., the president of the International Chess Federation sighed: “There's hope.”
That was Tuesday. It could have been any day in the garbled prelude to what chess lovers say is the match of the century — Spassky of the U.S.S.R. vs. Fischer of the U.S.A.
Spassky arrived early to wait for Bobby. Saying “I came to play,” he philosophically accepted the first postponement when Fischer didn't show.
Later he demanded an apology or he wouldn't play.
At one news conference, one of Fischer's lawyers said he'd come to say he had nothing to say.
Yefim Geller, Spassky's second, fielded questions with: “Kak Gavarit po Angliski,” or as you say in English, “No comment.”
Then there's the “Eavesdropper,” a man approaching middle age with a shock of graying hair combed in careful disarray onto his forehead.
He takes voluminous notes, for a magazine piece, he says. On scraps of paper he records conversations he's overheard. He carries the scraps in a red plastic shopping bag as he moves soundlessly about the hotel lobbies.
One final quote, from Gudmundur Thorarinsson, president of the Icelandic Chess Federation, who was under pressure from Fischer to give up a share of the gate receipts:
“I have worked for more than a year to get this match to Iceland. I would do many things. But I will not bite into a sour apple.”
Thanks to a rich British chess fan who doubled the stakes, he didn't have to.
