ADetroit Free Press Detroit, Michigan Monday, February 10, 1964 - Page 2
Champ Defeats 47 Chess Fans
By Van G. Sauter, Free Press Staff Writer
The tall, gangly youth in a midnight blue double-breasted tuxedo walked quickly around the inside of the large square formed by the four tables and sullenly viewed the chess boards arrayed before him.
He paused briefly at each of the 51 boards.
The men behind the boards made their moves with precision, while the impatient youth stood before them, his left hand in a pocket, the right pointed toward the floor.
WHEN THE challenger completed his move, Bobby Fischer's right hand shot up in retaliation and took a knight. He then moved on to the next table, continuing the devastation of those brazen enough to challenge the U.S. chess champion.
Fischer, who is 20, captured the championship just a few days after he turned 14, and relinquished it only for one year when he chose not to enter the annual competition that enthralls the small and dedicated American chess community.
He flew into Detroit Sunday and took on 51 of Michigan's strongest players in a simultaneous exhibition at the Chess Mate Gallery, 17126 Livernois.
Fischer lives alone in a Brooklyn walk-up apartment and cares for little outside chess, which he began to play at 6.
MORRIE WIDENBAUM, 1963-64 Michigan state champion, and proprietor of the gallery, paid Fischer $255 and his plane fare for the exhibition. If Fischer didn't thank Widenbaum, those who saw the show certainly did.
“It's just unnerving,” one player moaned, as each circuit by Fischer brought the contest closer and closer to an early end game. “It is almost embarrassing to go like this.”
It shouldn't be embarrassing to any amateur, as Fischer has topped about everyone in the chess world except Tigran Petrosian, a Soviet citizen, who currently reigns as the world's chess champion. The champs of East and West have yet to meet.
A logical mind with a bent towards math helps in chess, which has 169,518,829,100,544,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations in the first 10 moves of a game.
Approximately five hours after the competition began, the matches ended with Fischer scoring 47 wins, two losses and two draws.
Fischer is not a gracious winner. His attitude towards defeat is ever less gracious.
“I hate to lose,” he sneered, “to anybody.”
