ACourier-Post, Camden, New Jersey, Thursday, January 09, 1958
14-Year-Old Wizard Wins National Title
Fourteen-year-old Bobby Fischer has added the U.S. National Rosenwald Trophy to his U.S. Open and National Junior chess championships.
The Brooklyn schoolboy defeated 13 of the best players in the country to win the crown in three weeks of competition at the Manhattan and Marshall Chess Clubs in New York. He clinched the title Tuesday night and on Wednesday attended high school classes in Brooklyn as usual among friends of whom many, according to one intimate, “don't even know he plays chess.”
Bobby thus has achieved a competitive record that, at his age, is on a par with the Morphys, Capablancas and Reshevskys as a chess prodigy. Reshevsky, long regarded as the leading player of the United States and the Western world, was runnerup to Bobby in this tournament.
Throughout the tourney Fischer and Reshevsky alternated in the lead. Bobby took it for keeps Monday night when Reshevsky was beaten in an adjourned 10th round game by James T. Sherwin, then held to a 12th round draw by Edmar Mednis in a bitterly fought 78-move game. Meanwhile, Fischer drew ahead by defeating Atilio De Camillo of Philadelphia in an adjourned 11th round game and drawing with Arnold S. Denker in the 12th round.
None of the 12 contestants was within shooting distance of the top two stars at the finish.
