AThe South Bend Tribune South Bend, Indiana Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - Page E2
All For Love of the Game
Inspired by Bobby Fischer, chess players still going strong.
By Virginia Ransbottom, Tribune Staff Writer
Mishawaka — It's been 25 years since Bobby Fischer won the World Chess Championship.
The year was 1972 and Wednesday afternoon chess players at the Battell Community Center remember it well.
“Bobby Fischer made chess very popular back in the Seventies,” said Roger Blaine, of Mishawaka.
That's also the year Floyd Smith, of South Bend, and Steve Cooper, of Mishawaka, started playing the game.
“I was in Toledo, Ohio, in 1972 for my Uncle Henry's funeral when my cousin Milton asked me if I wanted to play a game,” Smith recalled.
“I wanted to learn it for something to do.”
It started the same year for Cooper.
“I was in the military with the Air Force security police force and started playing out of boredom,” Cooper said. “It takes your mind completely off reality.”
George Abraham, of South Bend, started playing chess ahead of the Bobby Fischer-era at the age of 5. He's considered the Battell chess master.
While Fischer fueled Abraham's interest in chess, so did his chess coach, Donald Brooks, of South Bend, who was a 12-time Indiana state chess champion by 1972.
“We used to play chess until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning,” Abraham said of Brooks, who taught around 1,500 youngsters the game.
Brooks himself met Fischer at a Manhattan chess club when Fischer was only 12.
According to Tribune archives, Fischer asked 54-year-old Brooks to play a match and afterward said, “I appreciate playing with you. I'm someday going to be the champion of the world.”
At the time, 12-year-old Fischer and 54-year-old Brooks agreed the best way to start a game was with a P-K4 move.
Two years later, Fischer became the youngest U.S. champion in history at the age of 14.
And 17 years later, Fischer was the only U.S.-born chess player to ever win the World Chess Championship.
That year was 1972, and by then Brooks was 71 years old.
Brooks died in 1975, Blaine said.
Abraham has been playing chess at the community center for the past 15 years and coaches children in chess at Jackson Intermediate Center.
“It's all for the love of the game,” he said.
Victoria Advocate Victoria, Texas Tuesday, February 06, 2007 - Page 6
What Would Bobby Fischer Do?
Venec Miller, 6, looks at his moves during his chess game at a tournament in Boise, Idaho, on Saturday. About 250 kids participated in the event.
The Boston Globe Boston, Massachusetts Monday, March 26, 2007 - Page 63
Chess Notes
“The American Chess Championship is a venerable goal for American chess players. This year, it will be 163 years old. The first champion was Charles Stanley. Probably the greatest champions were Paul Morphy (for 14 years), Bobby Fischer (seven championships), Harry Nelson Pillsburgy (nine years) and Frank Marshall (27 years!), Walter Browne (six times including three ties), and Gata Kamsky. Morphy was unofficially the greatest player of his time and Fischer was world champion. Pillsbury, Reshevsky, and Kamsky were contenders for the world title, and Kamsky will try again. Larry Christiansen and Patrick Wolff were champions while residing in New England.
This year, the championship will be a diminished affair, but still the diadem will be worth pursuing. In prior years the America's Foundation for Chess (AFFC) lavished prizes on the championship, but this year it stepped down and donated $25,000 for the affair. The US Chess Federation, much hobbled financially, found itself with the responsibility of financing it. It had already ceded participation by winners of qualifying local tournaments, without permission of the AFFC and without requiring pledge money for those aspiring to participate. Bill Goichberg took an Alexander Hamilton position and insisted on honoring the USCF commitments and put out the tournaments for bids. The championship is to be held May 15-23.”
South Florida Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Sunday, May 13, 2007 - Page 85
“Seven at one blow:”
We tend to crown our heroes who give superhuman performances. In a well-known Grimms' fairy tale, a tailor bragged that he he knocked down seven at one blow. He meant “flies,” but others thought he meant “foes,” so they made him king. A bowler's dream is to topple all 10 pins with one throw 12 times in a row. For bowling one such “perfect game” in a TV match last year, pro Tony Reyes was awarded a $10,000 bonus. In baseball, pitchers strive to stop batters from getting on base. Doing this against all 27 batters achieves the “perfect game” and a place in history.
Enthronement in Grandmaster (GM) chess can be achieved by winning every game in a major tournament, a tougher fear than the ones mentioned for bowling and baseball stars (and even tailors). Keep in mind that GM's generally take first in major events by winning around a third of their games and drawing most of the rest. This year for instance, former world champion Viswanathan Anand took the super GM event at Linares, Spain, by defeating only four of his 14 foes.
Earlier, in the Corus tournament in the Netherlands, three, including former world champion Veselin Topalov, tied for first with an average of just under five wins apiece in 13 rounds.
Four all-time great world champions have managed total domination of a major event: Emanuel Lasker, Jose Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine and Bobby Fischer. Fischer's feat was especially notable since it took place in a U.S. Championship (1963). In his 11-zip shutout, Fischer produced a historical gem, included with this column. A piece down, Fischer made a quiet move, and his opponent resigned, much to the surprise of spectators who thought Fischer was busted. Today's diagram of that position challenges us to solve the mystery.
His secret & his attitude:
“I give 98 percent of my mental energy to chess. Others give only 2 percent…I am the best player in the world and I am here to prove it!”
The Palm Beach Post West Palm Beach, Florida Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - Page 38
(2 of 3) Most Politicians Never Served
Stanley Linn of Palm Beach Gardens, an ex-Brooklyn chess champion who once beat Bobby Fischer before he became world champion, attended Harvard Law School for a year before joining the merchant marines.
Seated in front of Grandmaster Herman Steiner, (Los Angeles Times Chess Editor), Stanley Linn visited the set of the movie Casablanca and sat across a chess board from Humphrey Bogart. Linn was on leave from World War II at the time.
(1 of 3) Better Late Than Never
(3 of 3) ‘There Have Been Too Many Words’
