Tampa Bay Times St. Petersburg, Florida Tuesday, May 11, 1971 - Page 8
Bobby Fischer Playing To Win Top Chess Title
Vancouver, B.C. (UPI) — Bobby Fischer, the “bad boy” of world chess competition, faces what might be the most crucial period of his young career beginning this week.
Fischer, the U.S. grandmaster, meets the Soviet Union's Mark Taimanov Thursday at the University of British Columbia in one of four quarterfinal matches being played throughout the world.
The quarterfinals lead to the candidates matches to determine who meets world champion Boris Spassky of the U.S.S.R. in Moscow in 1972. Fischer wants the title and experts give him a good chance.
IN OTHER quarterfinal matches, Denmark's Bent Larsen plays Wolfgang Uhlmann of East Germany in Las Palmas, Spain; former world champion Tigran Petrosian takes on Hans Huebner of West Germany in Milan, Italy; and Viktor Korchnoi and Efim Geller, both Soviets, match wits in Sochi, George in the USSR.
Experts are predicting a semifinal clash between Fischer and Larsen and an end to Soviet domination of the game.
Bozidar Kazic, of Yugoslavia, chief arbiter for the Vancouver match, wrote in Chess Life and Review, “Fischer is a unique figure in the history of chess, the most talented player America has produced since Paul Morphy.
“He is described as the genius the likes of which appear but once in a century.”
But, the 28-year-old native of Brooklyn, N.Y. is known also as the “bad boy” of the chess world for the strict restrictions he places on his matches.
IN VANCOUVER, he has stipulated that competition end at sundown Fridays and not resume until sundown Saturdays for religious reasons and that the public be excluded from the room where the match is played.
At the University of British Columbia, the Canadian Chess Federation will transmit the moves to an adjacent room in the graduate center for the public.
Fischer regards this the most crucial period in his career. He is quoted by Kazic as saying:
“I believe it will now be for the first time that both finalists in the candidates matches are not from the Soviet Union. I don't think that Taimanov in our group can defeat both me and Larsen.”
Taimanov reportedly is looking forward to his match against Fischer.
“TAIMANOV IS going into battle with Fischer with complete self-confidence,” Kazic said. “He feels that after so much praise and glorification of Fischer's successes, the match with the American grandmaster will be an extraordinary chance to become famous by defeating the hitherto unsurpassed player.
The Soviet grandmaster is apparently not too worried about any threat from the 36-year-old Larsen.
“Larsen has no chance in the forthcoming competition,” Taimanov is quoted as saying. “Fischer certainly is a great danger and it is he who has the best chances. But a struggle lies ahead…”
