The Times, Shreveport, Louisiana, Sunday, March 30, 1958
FOR COMPETITION
Youthful U.S. Champion In Chess to Meet Reds
New York, Mar. 29 (AP)—The United States' 15-year-old chess champion, Bobby Fischer, will get a shot at Russia's masters in the world championship tournament next summer.
A television show has given the gangling Brooklyn youngster a round-trip plane ticket to interzonal matches Aug. 5 through Sept. 15 at Portoroz, Yugoslavia. Russia may have at least six players in the event.
The other U.S. eligible, 46-year-old Samuel Reshevsky, may not be able to make trip because of lack of funds. The players' expenses are paid once they reach the tournament.
A world championship match currently is being played in Moscow between titleholder Mikhail Botvinnik, a former champion. It's progress is eagerly followed by Russian chess players and others around the world, estimated to number in the millions.
One point is awarded for winning a game and one half for a draw. The first player to score 12½ points wins the title and if the 24-game match game is played out on even terms the titleholder retains his championship.
Chess is virtually a national game in Russia. American players, counted only in thousands, are by comparison a mere handful.
The interzonal tournament is the second stage in a three-year cycle leading up to a world championship match. The first is qualifying competition in the various zones into which the international federation divides the chess world.
“The interzonal tournament is like the semifinals,” said Kenneth Harkness of the U.S. Chess Federation. “The top seven players in it, I think, qualify for the candidates tournament the next year. The winner of that is entitled to challenge the world champion.”
asked why Russia should have six or more eligibles and the U.S. only tow, Harkness said: “It's logical. They have so many more players and more masters.”
About 20 or 30 or so players who have won the international title of Grand Masters are Russians. The five already eligible for places in the Portoroz tournament hold that title. The sixth Russian place will go to the loser of the current world title match.
Reshevsky also is a Grand Master. Young Fischer, a gangling 10th grade student at Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School, was rewarded for his amazing victories in the U.S. tournament with the title of International Master of chess.
Bobby, who hates to lose a chess game and who is regarded as probably the most remarkably young player ever developed in America, commented:
“They shoulda made me a Grand Master.”
