The Tampa Tribune Tampa, Florida Monday, August 28, 1972 - Page 51
Fischer Accepts Draw To Hold 3-Point Lead
Reykjavik, Iceland (UPI) — Bobby Fischer last night accepted Boris Spassky's offer of a draw after 40 moves of a see-saw 19th game of the world chess championship and moved to within a point and a half of becoming the first American world champion in modern time.
Fischer, wearing a new purple corduroy suit, found himself in positional trouble early in the game but maneuvered back to a strong position.
AFTER FISCHER made his 40th move, Spassky looked at the board then gestured with his right hand. Fischer glanced once more over the board and extended his own hand, sealing the sixth straight draw between them with a handshake.
Fischer leads now 11 points to eight. He needs 12½ points to take the title from Spassky, who needs only 12 points to retain it — a feat that grandmasters say is next to impossible this late in the 24-game match. The next game is scheduled to begin tomorrow at 5 p.m. (1 p.m. EDT).
A crowd of more than 2,000 burst into applause for one of the most exciting games in the $250,000 match. Fischer gulped down the remainder of his juice and was out of the hall. Spassky, looking tired and drawn with heavy lines showing on his face, sat and poured out another cup of coffee from his red thermos, chatting with arbiter Lothar Schmid while he put away the pieces.
SCHMID, WHO earlier yesterday had traded gibes with Fischer aides over the three roped-off front rows of seats, said after the game the American challenger once came up to complain about the noise.
“It's noisy,’ he said,” Schmid recalled. “So I said to him, ‘Bobby, please be kind,’ and you know, he was! He never came back!”
Fischer found himself in trouble after the first moves but advanced his queen up to his queen seven on his 21st move in an apparently simple queen exchange offer. However, the exchange left him in a much stronger position on the board and cut Spassky's winning chances.
“PERHAPS Spassky under-rated Fischer's queen move,” Russian grandmaster Ivo Ney said. “His (Spassky's) position deteriorated then.”
Yugoslav grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric, who had earlier given Spassky a slight advantage, said he thought Fischer was losing “until that 21st move. That Fischer, he always escapes.”
Finally after the 37th move, Russian grandmaster Isaac Boleslavsky got up from a bench on the corridor and said, “It is a dead draw.”
Nikolai Krogius and Eyfim Geller, two other Russian grandmasters and seconds to Spassky, also got up and put on their coats. Three moves later it was over.
The Moves
Reykjavik, Iceland (UPI) — The moves in the 19th game of the Boris Spassky-Bobby_Fischer world chess championship:
