The Gazette Montreal, Quebec, Canada Monday, February 24, 1964 - Page 32
Fischer in Simultaneous Matches: Visiting Chess Expert Fischer Pulls Far Ahead of Challengers
At odds of 56 to one, a 20-year-old chess genius from Brooklyn, New York, was winning going away yesterday afternoon at Sir George Williams University.
Robert Fischer was demonstrating his skill by playing 56 experts from Montreal, Quebec City, Hull, Sherbrooke and Ottawa, all at the same time.
The players were ranged on the outside of a large rectangle of tables in the students' common room at Sir George. It was practically an all-male show, with only three ladies among the players and few in the audience.
Behind the players stood friends, onlookers and students of the game. In front of each was a chess game and, periodically, Bobby Fischer, six times U.S. National Chess Champion.
Fischer, a professional chess player since he was 14, moved rapidly along inside the circle, his moves for each game taking anywhere from two to 10 seconds. And from the looks of anxious concentration outside the circle, he wasn't making too many mistakes.
Rules for this sort of tournament calls for a move in the game just before the professional arrives at your position. This gives him an opportunity to recall where the game has been developing.
Tonight Fischer plays 10 experts at the Jewish Public Library in Mount Royal, and he'll have the added disadvantage of playing against a “chess clock” which times a player's moves, with penalties for lengthy decisions.
The young professional visited Montreal for a similar tournament in 1956 when he was only 13, and his chess memory is so thorough that he was able to discuss details of those games with tournament organizers here yesterday.
