AEdmonton Journal Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Monday, April 07, 1958
U.S. Chess Prodigy May Win Crown
Fifteen-year-old Bobby Fischer, now United States chess champion, may be America's answer to Russian chess supremacy, says a former Canadian champion who himself was a “boy wonder.”
Abe Yanofsky, five times Canadian champion or co-champion, North American champion in 1942 and British champion in 1953, said that in five years the Brooklyn prodigy will probably be in the world championship contender class.
“He is not the first child prodigy but he is the first who has ever gone so far at such an age,” said the 32-year-old Winnipeg lawyer in an interview.
Compared With Russian
He compared Fischer to Mikhail Tal, youngest player ever to reach the Russian championship which he won in 1956 at age 19. Tal's attainment compared with that of the younger American, since it is harder to win the Russian title than the American.
“It is quite possible that in a couple of years Fischer will become a grand master.” he said.
However, Yanofsky said he doubts Fischer will reach the world championship class in the next round of international competition. Fischer now ranks as an international master—not a grand master—as a result of his victories in the U.S.
The four-year cycle of international events started last year with qualifications in the various international zones. The inter-zone finals are being held this year, at Portoroz, Yugoslavia, Aug. 15 to Sept. 15. There the top five qualify for the candidates' tournament in 1959, and the winner then is entitled to challenge the world champion in 1960.
World champion Vasily Smyslov currently is playing a 24-game world title match in Moscow against challenger Mikhail Botvinnik, a former champion. As of April 1 Botvinnik had won four and lost two, with five draws, making the point score Botvinnik 6½, Smyslov 4½. The first to reach 12½ points is the winner.
Tal, who won the Russian title again this year, will likely play in Yugoslavia; Russia may have at least six players in the event. Fischer was given a round-trip plane ticket to Yugoslavia by a U.S. television show. The other U.S. eligible, 46-year-old grand master Samuel Reshevsky, is not expected to make the trip.
In Big Time At 15
Yanofsky himself was 15 when he entered the international big time in 1939 in a tournament at Buenos Aires. College and navy service during the Second World War intervened before he won an international master's rating in 1946 at a tourney in Holland.
A contrast between Fischer and Yanofsky, the chess prodigy of a few years back, is that the American boy avidly studies works on chess while Yanofsky says he didn't. Just after defeating Botvinnik in 1946 Yanofsky said: “I never really got down to any serious study of chess. A fellow can read chess books—the only one I've read through was Alekhine's My Hundred Best Games—but I've found the best way to learn is to play against the masters of different countries.”
Yanofsky, however, has since written two books on chess and has a fine chess library.
He started playing when he was nine, in the Jewish Chess Club in Winnipeg.
He recalled that until he was 15 he had no worries except school work and could concentrate on chess. Now, after an absence of several years from major tournaments, he has found that as an adult with responsibilities such as a law career and a family—he was married in 1950—he plays a different type of game.
Yanofsky suggested that Fischer, now wrapped up in chess and with little interest in anything else, still has a few years to go without distractions. His development as he gets older will likely be slower, Yanofsky said.
