ANew York Times, New York, New York, Sunday, June 23, 1957
Another Child Prodigy Stirs Chess World
Bobby Fischer, at 14, Hailed as ‘Genius’ in Leap to Fame
Brooklyn Schoolboy Addicted to Game Since He Was 6
By Gay Talese
At an air-conditioned bar the other day rear the Manhattan Chess Club, Robert James Fischer, wearing sneakers, khaki pants and a T-shirt, sipped a Coke and announced that he had become a chess addict at the age of 6.
He admitted that in his younger days he cried whenever he lost at chess and sometimes he remained despondent for days. But he does not cry any more, possibly because he does not often lose these days, or maybe he is just getting old.
He is now 14.
In the past year the child prodigy from Brooklyn has beaten some of the nation's finest players and has generated more international hullabaloo than any other American player. At the Manhattan Chess Club, an orderly salon in the West Sixties where people normally are as close-mouthed as Pinkerton agents, he has become a subject of constant discussion.
Chess masters and critics have called him, variously, a “genius;” “the finest player for his age in the world today;” “potentially a world champion.” Maurice J. Kasper, president of the Manhattan Chess Club, says, “Players with Fischer's talent come along only once in a century.”
Older Players Disconcerted
Others say that Fischer is a highly emotional, tense combatant whose cockiness often disconcerts the older masters, particularly when he defeats them. Always serious, he peers grimly down at the chessboard as if the fate of mankind hinged on his next move.
But in any case, Fischer is a much sought-after chess master in America, in England, even in Russia.
The chess section of the Soviet Union this week expressed its willingness to entertain Fischer this summer. Last week he was invited to visit England to compete in the Hastings Christmas tournament, which traditionally is limited to ten players from all over the world. Only July 8, he will be in San Francisco defending the national junior chess title he won last year in Philadelphia.
Chess was frowned upon in Fischer's home. Neither of his parents, now divorced, understood the game.
“I spent four years trying to get him away from it,” his mother recalls. “I thought it would be too much strain on him.” She could do nothing with him. Nowadays he plays chess during breakfast, and has a chessboard permanently stationed at his bedside.
Sister His First Teacher
“My sister, who is not very good, first taught me the chess moves,” Bobby says. “I bought all the Russian chess manuals and books, and studied to win. I have now about forty chess books at home. I did not like losing when I began playing. Yes, sometimes I did cry when I lost, but I don't cry any more.
“I'm thrilled about winning, but I try to be nice to people. I don't know if older persons are embarrassed about losing to me, but I do not feel awkward about playing them—or beating them. I beat them, or they'll beat me.”
It has been said by William Lombardy, a high-ranking New York player, “You have to beat Bobby to gain his respect.”
Fischer's rise into the upper echelons of chess was meteoric.
Last October, at the Lessing J. Rosenwald Trophy tournament here, the Erasmus High School freshmen played brilliantly and defeated Donald Byrne, a former national champion. After the match, Al Horowitz, editor of The Chess Review, said, “Nobody in the world could have played better than Fischer on this occasion.”
Genius being as unpredictable as it is astounding, the future of the remarkable Bobby is anyone's guess.
Hans Kmoch, secretary of the Manhattan Chess Club, believes that Bobby is, at 14, the equal of other child wizards of days past—Paul Morphy, José R. Capablanca and Samuel Reshevsky.
Among Club's First Ten
According to Kmoch, Fischer right now is among the first ten players at the Manhattan Chess Club, which has more than 300 members and the finest talent in the country. “In a few years, if Fischer continues to develop,” said Kmoch, “he could be among the top five or ten players in the world.”
Why is Fischer great?
“That phenomenal mind of his,” said Kmoch. “He has the mind that ‘sees’ the combinations on the board. With just one glance, he can see the possible moves of the thirty-two men on the board with the sixty-four squares.
“There is no specific talent for chess. You cannot learn to be great. But some geniuses have the innate feeling for the combinations.’ Fischer is such a genius.”
The young genius had no explanation for his genius. He simply ordered another Coke.
