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September 01, 1972
The Daily Reporter Dover, Ohio Friday, September 01, 1972 - Page 1 — Bobby Fischer world chess king —Reykjavik, Iceland (AP)— American challenger Bobby Fischer won the world chess championship today when Boris Spassky of Russia telephoned his resignation in the 21st game, which had been adjourned overnight. Max Euwe, president of the International Chess Federation, said Spassky had telephoned Lothar Schmid, match referee, shortly before the game was to resume with Spassky in a probable losing position.
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Redlands Daily Facts Redlands, California Friday, September 01, 1972 - Page 1 — Spassky Resigns: Bobby Fischer Wins Chess Championship — Reykjavik, Iceland (UPI)—Bobby Fischer today fulfilled his childhood dream and became the first American world chess champion winning the title on a telephoned resignation from Russia's Boris Spassky in the 21st game.
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Iowa City Press-Citizen Iowa City, Iowa Friday, September 01, 1972 - Page 1 and 2-A — Bobby Fischer Wins World Chess Crown —Reykjavik, Iceland (AP)—American challenger Bobby Fischer won the world chess championship today when Boris Spassky of Russia telephoned his resignation in the 21st game, which had been adjourned overnight.
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September 02, 1972
The Times Shreveport, Louisiana Saturday, September 02, 1972 - Page 9 — Lombardy Says Fischer Not Yet at Peak Form —Reykjavik (AP) — Bobby Fischer's chief chess adviser during the title match with Boris Spassky says Fischer won't reach the peak of his powers for several years. Grandmaster William Lombardy of New York, a Roman Catholic priest, suggested in an interview that Fischer might remain world champion for a long time.
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The Times Shreveport, Louisiana Saturday, September 02, 1972 - Page 9 — Fischer Wins Chess Title As Spassky Resigns 21st Game — By Julie Flint, Reykjavik, Iceland (AP)—Bobby Fischer won the world chess championship Friday without moving a pawn. He became America's first world titleholder when Boris Spassky resigned by telephone in the 21st game, his position analyzed as hopeless.
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September 03, 1972
Austin American-Statesman Austin, Texas Sunday, September 03, 1972 - Page 8 — Fischer Shakes Hands With Young Chess Fans in Iceland — The young American became World Chess Champion Friday.
The Record Hackensack, New Jersey Sunday, September 03, 1972 - Page 1 — Undaunted Spassky Moves For Rematch, Scoffs at Defection —The Associated Press, Reykjavik — Boris Spassky wants to play Bobby Fischer again for the world chess championship and feels sure he can beat him. The Russian denied a Reykjavik newspaper story that he is planning to defect to the West. “That's just journalism,” Spassky said. The tabloid Visir reported “very strong rumors” that the defeated Soviet champion would seek political asylum in a Western country rather than return home in disgrace.
Spassky dismissed the report with a laugh during an interview yesterday at the seaside suburban villa where he had remained secluded for much of the match with Fischer.
Spassky said he had felt quite confident of beating Fischer until the very last day of the 53-day match, when he adjourned his 21st game, in a losing position.
Fischer, leading 11½-8½, needed only one point—one win or two draws—to end 26 years of Soviet monopoly of the title.
“I had a chance to win in that game,” Spassky said. “But I made a mistake. Fischer found the right defense, and I lost my interest in playing. I was quite confident that if he lost just one game, he could not have fought back.”
Spassky said that he was relieved to no longer be champion, but that he had plans to play Fischer in the future.
His remarks set up the possibility of a Fischer-Spassky rematch. Fischer's aides have denied reports that he plans to play Spassky again next year, but the new champion says he wants to defend his title often — and against Russians.
“I feel I haven't played enough chess,” Fischer said. “I definitely want to take on some more of these Russians if they are willing to play me and if the money is right.
“When the party begins, they know they'll get beaten again. They may not particularly want to play me,” he said.
Fischer stands to get $156,000 in prize money for his defeat of Spassky that made him the first American in a century to win the title.
May Compete for U.S.
Fischer said he may compete for the United States against the Russians in three weeks at the World Team Title Olympiad at Skopje, Yugoslavia.
At the end, Spassky seemed to exhausted to struggle on. He made a weak move when the 21st game was adjourned Thursday and resigned Friday in a phone call to the referee, Lothar Schmid. Fischer said he had been stunned by the resignation.
Fischer said he thought Spassky had played well in the second half of the match, which included seven straight draws, but poorly in the opening games, when Fischer built up a three-point lead.
“My good play put him off,” Fischer said.
“Bobby is stronger than me now,” Spassky said, relaxing in an armchair, his shoes off. “But I am sure I can beat him. I feel inside me enough strength to beat him. I will not repeat my mistakes, on or off the chess board.”
Spassky looked tired and said he needed to “sleep and sleep and sleep” before trying to understand why his game collapsed in the first half of the match.
He said he had been disturbed by Fischer's delay in reaching Reykjavik to start the match and by the American's temperamental behavior.
But the Russian was angered only over Fischer's forfeit of the second game.
“I wanted to fight,” Spassky said excitedly, “but not to get points without play. I didn't like that.
“Bobby has a very individual way of doing things. Sometimes he behaved badly. I prefer to find other ways, but I don't like to criticize him.
Russian Press Brief
The Moscow press, which had criticized Fischer throughout the match, reported victory briefly and without comment. One paper put the news in a black-bordered box, as if it were an obituary.
That was the Central Committee newspaper, Sovetskaya Rossia, which like nearly all others used the brief Tass announcement that Spassky resigned without resuming play and Fischer won the title.
The top sports newspaper, Sovetsky Sport, gave the story, with a headline saying: “Match is over. World champion—Robert Fischer.”
Spassky said his big mistake was in living near his Soviet chess analysts in a downtown hotel in the first weeks of the championship, until his wife arrived and the couple moved out of town.
“I like very much to live in a private house when there is a match and so much nervous tension,” he said. “My wife is very good to me. She doesn't disturb me. It is unfortunate she could not come earlier. I spent too much nervous energy in the first half of the match.
“I had so many bad games,” he said, throwing his hands in the air. “I lost my chance to win so many times. I made so many blunders. There is a law in sports—if you have a chance, catch this chance. It's not possible to win if you lose such opportunities.”
Not the Best
“Fischer won a good match, I like his fighting spirit. He played very accurately and he showed himself a good technical but he is not imaginative, standing of chess is not the best in the world. He is practical but he is not imaginative, not very creative.”
Asked how long Fischer might hold the title, Spassky replied, “It depends on him. It is not as good as he thinks and he thinks the world revolves around him—that is a danger for him. He needs the criticism of other grand masters. He is not the best player in the world—perhaps Petrosian is when he is not lazy.”
Photo Caption: New King—Bobby Fischer leaves Laugardal Hall, Reykjavik, after becoming champion. ★
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The Record Hackensack, New Jersey Sunday, September 03, 1972 - Page 1 — Hometown Honors — New York City offers its congratulations to new chess champion, Bobby Fischer, with banner across West 72nd Street.
The Record Hackensack, New Jersey Sunday, September 03, 1972 - Page 1 — Many Experts Say Game 13 Blunder Was Turning Point. For Spassky, 13 Proved to be a Fatal Number —From the Record Wire Services, Reykjavik — A blunder that cost Boris Spassky the 13th game against Bobby Fischer will go down in chess history as the pivot point of the 1972 world championship, many grand masters believe.
Spassky, playing white in that game, Aug. 11, was in peak form, having taken 1½ of a possible 2 points from the two preceding games to stand at 5-7.
After nine hours' play, he had turned a losing position into a probable draw with a brilliant defense. Fischer, who had gained the initiative when he breached a make-or-break Russian attack, was also playing what aides said was the “most exquisite endgame of his life.”
Inexplicably, on the 69th move, the champion erred. He checked the American king with a rook on his own queen-one square, instead of checking the king by moving the rook to the third rank.
A draw would have kept Spassky in contention. In defeat 5-8 down, he sat alone at the board until referee Lothar Schmid showed him the drawing move and, taking his arm, helped him away.
“Spassky should have drawn and the whole match would have been different,” said Denmark's Jens Enevoldsen, a chess master. “That defeat shook him so much that he lost a win for a draw in the next game.”
Psychologically, Spassky's worst hour may have come in the third game, when he appeared to be holding all the cards.
He had never in his life lost a game to Fischer. he was two points up in the match, having won the first game over the board and the second on a Fischer forfeit. He was first with white. Yet Spassky lost.
Fischer took the game out of the well known “book lines” with an abnormal 11th move that sacrificed a knight that offered a knight sacrifice to open a file toward the Russian's king. A pawn down on adjournment, Spassky resigned as soon as he saw Fischer's resuming move.
“He never expected Bobby to come back and to come back so strongly,” said Father William Lombardy, Fischer's second. Grand masters generally were satisfied with the quality of play in the championship, despite Spassky's poor showing in the first half.
“This match was better than most others,” said Max Euwe, a former world champion and president of the International Chess Federation, the world's ruling chess body. “There was more struggle and fewer draws.”
(Caption:Family Man—Boris Spassky was photographed in June with his son Vasya in Iceland. He was world champion then.) ★
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September 04, 1972
Santa Maria Times Santa Maria, California Monday, September 04, 1972 - Page 1 — Champ Honored — America's newest hero, more famous than even Olympian Mark Spitz, new world chess champion Bobby Fischer is honored with a red, white and blue banner stretched high across West 72nd Street in New York City. Fischer won the world chess championship from Russia's Boris Spassky. (UPI)
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Santa Maria Times Santa Maria, California Monday, September 04, 1972 - Page 1 — Still Griping – Success Can't Spoil Fischer — Reykjavik (UPI) — Has success spoiled Bobby Fischer? Apparently not — Fischer turned up 53 minutes late at official closing ceremonies for his world chess championship, remarked how small his winner's gold medal was, asked for his money and sat down to play some more chess with the man he beat for the title. The crowd attending the banquet ceremonies closing the championship cheered louder for loser Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union than it did for Fischer, a 29-year-old New Yorker. But Fischer, busy playing chess on a pocket board, seemed not to notice.
While Spassky sat at one end of the banquet table chatting with his wife Larissa, Fischer did what he has done so superbly the past two months—he played chess.
Fischer, dressed in a velvet tuxedo, made no speech and interrupted a game with himself on a pocket chess board only once—to walk across the hall and accept a check for the $76,125 winner's purse from Icelandic Chess Federation President Gudmunder Thorarinson. Fischer smiled, took the envelope with the check, looked inside and returned to his seat without a word.
Spassky collected the loser's share—$46,825. Another $150,000 put up by British millionaire will be split the same way at some future time. He doubled the original purse when Fischer said it wasn't enough.
Fischer arrived 53 minutes late for the lamb and roast suckling pig dinner, held in the small hall in which his 21-game “match of the century” against Spassky took place.
When he saw Dr. Max Euwe, president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), he asked him: “Did you bring the money?” —the prize money Fischer had won. “Yes, sir,” Euwe replied, and Bobby walked away, apparently satisfied.
Euwe introduced Fischer to the sellout crowd of 1,150 persons who had paid $22 a head to attend the dinner. They cheered as Euwe placed a wreath around Fischer's head and presented him with the world champion's gold medal as a band played the Star Spangled Banner.
Fischer looked incredulously at the medal and said, “Thank you. Such a little one (medal).”
Then Euwe presented Spassky with a silver medal and the crowd cheered even louder. But Fischer, already back in his seat and studying his pocket chess board, seemed not to care.
At one point, Fischer rose from his seat and went over to Spassky with the pieces of his chess board in the adjourned position of the final game.
Spassky said: “I sealed the wrong move. I should have sealed king to rook three (instead of bishop to queen seven).”
“No Boris, it was lost whatever you did. Your sealed move was as good as any,” Fischer replied.
Spassky then lit a cigarette and the champion and former champion played through the position several times before Fischer returned to his seat.
After the ceremonies, Fischer and Spassky stood together for questions from newsmen. Asked how he felt, Fischer said: “Just wonderful. It's a great moment.”
Spassky, smiling for one of the few times during the evening, said: “I feel as if I had just the title from Bobby. I'm not sad. In fact, in one way I'm relieved that the tension and pressure is over.”
Fact Checker: Bobby Fischer does not comment on the “size” of the medal. Rather he says, “The medal don't have my name.”
If your device can not display the video click here.
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September 07, 1972
FISCHER recalled--Don Wagner, former president of the Baton Rouge Chess Association, is shown with Bobby Fischer when he visited in Baton Rouge eight years ago. Wagner's son, Larry, looks on.
- North Baton Rouge Journal, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Thursday, September 07, 1972 — Local Chess Expert Predicted Fischer's Easy Win — The Brooklyn-born Bobby Fischer's win over Boris Spassky was predicted by Baton Rougean Don Wagner, former president of the Baton Rouge Chess Association and host for Fischer's 1964 visit to Baton Rouge.
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September 11, 1972
New York Times, New York, New York, Monday, September 11, 1972 - Page 28 — New Wealth Expected to Foster Big Shift in Fischer's Life-Style —Bobby Fischer is planning to change his life-style substantially now that he is the world chess champion, Life magazine says in its issue out today. An article entitled “Can This Be Bobby Fischer?” predicts that the heretofore unpredictable 29-year-old champion will buy an expensive car and a house in California with his new-found wealth, and will begin “a social life that includes women.”
“Now that I'm champion I'm going to see more girls,” Life quotes Fischer as confiding to its reporter. The article says that Fischer “has never been quite so complete a stranger to sex as people supposed” but that he has always put chess before everything.
The “big new fact” in Fischer's life, according to the magazine, is money. Offers from commercial sources for Fischer chess sets, records, books, exhibitions and a chess special on television could generate more than $10-million for Fischer, who, in his pre-champion days earned about $20,000 a year. But Fischer has not yet signed a contract.
“I want to make money,” he is quoted by Life as having said, “but I hate to see the creeps gathering around.”
His primary goal is to win respect for chess, Life says.
“Chess masters should play under superb conditions and be paid as well as top athletes, Fischer told Life. “Whatever Muhammad Ali gets, next time I want more.”
The author of the article, Brad Darrach, a Life staff member, accompanied Fischer to Iceland, where Fischer won the championship. Fischer reportedly had an arrangement with Life not to give interviews to reporters from other news organizations during the championship match, which ended with his victory over Boris Spassky 10 days ago.
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September 17, 1972
September 18, 1972
Green Bay Press-Gazette Green Bay, Wisconsin Monday, September 18, 1972
The Champ Returns
World Chess Champion Bobby...
Posted by Bobby Fischer's True History on Thursday, November 14, 2019
Green Bay Press-Gazette Green Bay, Wisconsin Monday, September 18, 1972 - Page 1 — The Champ Returns — World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer arrives from Iceland at New York's Kennedy Airport Sunday. ‘It's Great To Be Back’ New York (AP) — World chess champion Bobby Fischer has returned from Iceland, stating, “it's great to be back in America.” In a rapid, running exchange with newsmen at Kennedy Airport late Sunday, Fischer was asked if he would play in the chess Olympics in Yugoslavia beginning today. “I don't know,” he said. “I'm going to get some rest.” The Rev. William Lombardy, the American international grandmaster who was Fischer's second in Reykjavik, met the champion at the airport. He said it was hoped that Fischer would join the U.S. team but after “he may be too tired” after the strenuous play for the world title.
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News-Journal Mansfield, Ohio Monday, September 18, 1972
Chess Champ Glad to Be Back — World chess champion Bobby...
Posted by Bobby Fischer's True History on Thursday, November 14, 2019
News-Journal Mansfield, Ohio Monday, September 18, 1972 - Page 1 — Chess Champ Glad to Be Back — World chess champion Bobby Fischer manages a big smile as he walks from a plane to a waiting limousine following his arrival at New York's Kennedy Airport from Iceland. (UPI Photo). — Relaxed, Happy Fischer Flies Home from Iceland by Edward P. Butler, New York (UPI) — Bobby Fischer, first American to win the world chess championship, flew home Sunday night from Iceland looking rested and happy. Fischer, wearing a plaid summer-weight suit, walked briskly from the Icelandic jet to a limousine sent by Mayor John V. Lindsay. To newsmen who shouted questions at him during the brisk 300-yard walk, Fischer said, “It's great to be back in America.” Asked what his plans are, he replied, “I'm going to sleep.” Asked where, he said, “In a bed.”
Carrying a dog-eared wreath which was awarded him at the championship chess match, Fischer said he doesn't know whether he will attend the Chess Olympiad which starts Monday in Skopje, Yugoslavia.
Fischer's second, the Rev. William Lombardy, was on hand to greet Fischer. Lombardy said Lindsay had tentatively scheduled a reception for Fischer on Friday.
The first week or so of the Olympiad consists of qualifying matches. Lombardy said if Fischer decides to compete, he could join the team in time for the final competition.
The champion's departure from Iceland was delayed 30 minutes while Fischer and Sammy Palsson, an Icelandic policeman friend who accompanied Fischer here, drove to the National Museum in Reykjavik so the American could sign the chessboard used in the tournament.
Boris Spassky, the former world champion from the Soviet Union who Fischer defeated to win the title, signed the board before he flew home to Moscow a week ago.
The last American to be recognized as world chess champion, although there was no formal competition for the title in those days, was Paul C. Morphy in 1858-59.
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September 22, 1972
September 22, 1972.
https://rmyauctions.com/bids/bidplace?itemid=33614
Posted by Bobby Fischer's True History on Friday, October 11, 2019
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Political Propaganda / Smear Campaign: These articles were part of politically-motivated smear campaign of Bobby Fischer, spanning 1960's till his death in 2008. Sources often cited 1962, Ralph Ginzburg (sued by Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater for defamation); Ronald Gross who claimed he ‘moved to New York’ to substantiate his sordid rumors about Fischer. (Search Chess Grand Master Isaac Kashdan's Los Angeles Times chess column which meticulously documents the 1950's-1970's residency of Ronald Gross as 'Compton, California'.)
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How many sordid supposed “facts” are based on idle rumors by jealous chess rivals? 1,000,000 bribe offered to “take down” Israel's critics (State PROPAGANDA). In 1980, you could earn as much spreading propaganda, as you could winning a chess tournament!
For examples where Chess has been sold out for a political agenda and deception, see ★ and ★
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FISCHER recalled--Don Wagner, former president of the Baton Rouge Chess Association, is shown with Bobby Fischer when he visited in Baton Rouge eight years ago. Wagner's son, Larry, looks on.
