AHartford Courant Hartford, Connecticut Saturday, February 29, 1964 - Page 9
20-Year-Old U.S. Chess Champion To Lecture, Play 50 Opponents
Bobby Fischer, 20-year-old U.S. Chess Champion, and considered by many as the greatest natural chess player in history, will lecture in Hartford Tuesday night and play an exhibition match simultaneously against 50 opponents.
Fischer won the U.S. championships for the sixth time last month. His 11-0 victory was the first perfect score in major U.S. tournaments in the past 70 years. Fischer first won the U.S. championship when he was 14.
Known as the “stormy petrel” of the chess world,” Fischer is almost constantly in difficulties with chess officialdom.
Withdrew in 1959
In 1959 he withdrew from the U.S. championships because of what he considered an unfair system of pairings.
In 1962 Fischer accused Russian chess players, who sued him for libel, of “pre-arranging games at tournaments. He was the first person to say publicly what many American chess players said privately.
Samuel Reshevsky, five-time U.S. chess champion, agreed with him that the present world chess championships are “unjust and unfair.”
Fischer claimed that Russian chess players do not play as individuals but as a team, and that they throw points to one another when necessary in the tournaments.
ance at 7 p.m. at the Shoreham Motor Hotel is part of his national tour before going to the world championship tournament in Europe in June.
