AThe Austin American Austin, Texas Wednesday, October 27, 1971 - Page 9
U.S. Champ Fischer Earns Bout for World Chess Title
Washington Post — Buenos Aires, Argentina — American chess champion Bobby Fischer won his run-off match with Soviet Tigran Petrosian Tuesday night and reached the goal he set 15 years ago as a child prodigy in Brooklyn — a shot at the world title.
The 28-year-old Fischer, who was national champion at 14, easily accumulated the necessary six and a half game points to defeat Petrosian, who had two and a half. Final victory game in this ninth game of a match that could have gone to 12 games.
Petrosian, 43, is a former world champion. Fischer will play the present title holder, Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union as soon as next April. Spassky, 34, plays a balanced game, somewhere between Fischer's prowess on offense and Petrosian's dogged defense.
The world chess championship has been in Soviet hands since 1948. Should Fischer beat Spassky, he would be the first champion from the United States, which until recent years was a pawn to the greats of the old world and outposts in South America.
Chessmen constitute the one royalty that survives, even thrives, in eastern Europe.
Tuesday night, Fischer opened with the whites and Petrosian took up a modified French defense. It did not prosper, and on the 24th move he attempted a drastic and unorthodox counterattack.
This failed, too, and by the 43d move Fischer had won. Petrosian reached across the table at which the two had stared intently and long, and shook Fischer's hand. The long silent crowd applauded wildly and shouted “Bobby, Bobby!”
Lothar Schmid, the West German master whose duty it was to keep the audience quiet, put aside his “silencio” sign for another reading “Viva Buenos Aires.”
Fischer won a prize of $7,500 from the sponsoring Argentine government, which paid the players' expenses as well. The American chess federation gave Fischer another $4,000 in fees. But his terms for the match against Spassky are said to be a cold $100,000. It has been Fischer's thesis for years that his talents were underpaid and poorly recognized.
The championship match will be 24 games, instead of 12, and it is not yet known where it will take place.
Fischer had run an unprecedented 20-game streak of wins in master competition before losing the second game played here with Petrosian, on Oct. 5. After that, they tied three games — a result that the aggressive Fischer usually avoids — and Fischer went on to win four straight.
Among the numerous international chess experts gathered here, the most popular explanation for Fischer's victory seems to have been his youth. Medical studies are said to show that a championship chess game puts demands on the body equal to those in football.
Fischer loses five pounds even when he wins, according to Edmund Edmondson, here with Fischer for the American chess federation. The long lean master regains the loss with double suppers in Buenos Aires steak houses, but the strain can be too much for the aging.
Last week after three defeats in a row, Petrosian postponed the eighth game on account of stomach trouble. He failed to recover his stride, which consists of caution and careful strategy but which Fischer reduced to improvisation and a rush against the clock. Players must complete 40 moves within their allotted two and a half hours. Fischer usually had time to spare, and he spent it drinking orange juice.
The solitary Fischer has dedicated his life to the 64-square board, and the eccentricity of his monkish regimen has captivated this city already engrossed in chess.
Fischer of the large feet and the gangling amble fits the North American stereotype, at least to a point, though his shyness is disconcerting.
The temper that made him the enfant terrible was rarely showing this trip, even if the theater lights did go out twice. Fischer requires just the right wattage of fluorescent fixture before he will consent to play.
While Argentina has been a chess center for years, and Fischer is said to have considered settling down in Buenos Aires, the real impact of this match may be worldwide. The sport has been phenomenal growth until some 60 countries have associations which can enter international competition.
This complicates the eliminations and makes the scramble for sites intense when a major match is at hand. Max Euwe, the Dutchman who is president of the International Chess Federation, is on tour most of the time considering offers. He arrived here from Chile, where President Salvador Allende put in a strong bid.
