The Vancouver Sun Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Thursday, May 13, 1971 - Page 1 and 2
Big Match Postponed - Room For Dispute in Chess World by Bill Rayner
A “Nyet!” rang through the hallowed halls of the University of B.C.'s Graduate Centre Wednesday, thereby stalling the world chess championship match between grandmasters Bobby Fischer and Mark Taimanov.
Fischer, of the U.S., and Taimanov, of the Soviet Union, were to begin the 10-game match today, but a dispute over playing conditions has forced postponement of the first game until Sunday.
The Russian growls of protest began in the afternoon over the center's TV room, chosen by the Canadian Chess Federation as site of the match.
They continued during the night while a frantic search was made of the center for a room suitable to both Fischer and Taimanov.
The TV room, it seemed, was too small.
“I cannot breathe in this room,” said Taimanov to his Russian interpreter, grandmaster Alexei Kotov.
Fischer also rejected the room at first glance Wednesdays, but later changed his mind and agreed to play.
At one point during the day Kotov and classics dean Malcolm McGregor, UBC's representative, held a heated discussion over use of the center's library.
It was the only room acceptable to both factions, but McGregor refused to allow its use.
He said the center was a private club and he could not bar students from one of their most popular gathering places.
“It's like strangers coming into a private home,” he said.
He also took the position that the TV room was accepted for play by the CCF as representatives of the players, and that the players should be told to play in it.
“Tell them to stop acting like children,” he said.
McGregor's adamant stand brought a flood of anti-Canadian and anti-UBC rhetoric from Kotov.
He accused both UBC and Canada of a lack of hospitality, and at one point threatened to take the four-man Russian team home to Moscow.
Earlier, Kotov had declared, with heavily-accented sarcasm, that Canada was a poor country, especially for chess.
“Spain, yes; Belgrade, yes. But Canada, no, no,” he said.
Kotov also said he would advise world champion Boris Spassky not to play in Vancouver this summer. (Spassky is scheduled to play in the Canadian Open here in August and September.)
The meeting with McGregor also included Max Euwe, former world champion and now president of the international Chess Federation (FIDE); Bozidar Kazic, FIDE official from Yugoslavia, and match referee; and CCF representative Elod Macskasy and George Bryant, both of Vancouver.
Fischer and Ed Edmondson,, executive-director of the U.S. Chess Federation, were not present. Fischer left UBC early for his hotel, taking Edmondson with him.
Edmondson and Fischer, however, later took part in negotiations which lasted late into the night.
It now appears certain that the playing site will be shifted to another spot on the UBC campus. The disputants will spend today looking at several possibilities.
One of them is the penthouse of the Angus building. There are problems to be solved, however, regarding adequate lighting and removal of furniture.
There is also the question of finding a suitable room for spectators to watch demonstration boards or closed circuit TV.
The Russians' reaction to the original playing room seems to stem in part from their unhappiness with Fischer's demand for a room with no spectators.
FIDE had granted this demand before the two players arrived in Vancouver, despite the Russians' protests.
At one point Wednesday, Taimanov was shown and immediately accepted as a site the education faculty auditorium. As a professional pianist, he said, he preferred to play chess also before large crowds. Fischer, of course, turned down the auditorium.
Winner of the match, if it ever gets started, will advance to the semi-finals of the challengers' round.
Other matches scheduled to start today are between Denmark's Bent Larsen and East Germany's Wolfgang Uhlmann; West Germany's Robert Huebner and Russia's Tigran Petrosian, and Russians' Viktor Korchnoi and Yefim Geller.
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