The Gift of Chess

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Best of Chess Fischer Newspaper Archives
• Robert J. Fischer, 1955 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1956 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1957 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1958 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1959 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1960 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1961 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1962 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1963 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1964 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1965 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1966 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1967 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1968 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1969 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1970 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1971 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1972 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1973 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1974 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1975 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1976 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1977 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1978 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1979 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1980 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1981 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1982 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1983 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1984 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1985 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1986 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1987 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1988 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1989 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1990 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1991 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1992 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1993 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1994 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1995 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1996 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1997 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1998 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 1999 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 2000 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 2001 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 2002 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 2003 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 2004 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 2005 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 2006 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 2007 bio + additional games
• Robert J. Fischer, 2008 bio + additional games
Chess Columns Additional Archives/Social Media

Winning Chess Requires More Than Brainpower

Back to 1960 News Articles

Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, Sunday, January 03, 1960 - Page 42

Check, Mate.. Onions, Smoke and Legs They Win in ChessCheck, Mate.. Onions, Smoke and Legs They Win in Chess 03 Jan 1960, Sun Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan) Newspapers.com Check, Mate.. Onions, Smoke and Legs They Win in ChessCheck, Mate.. Onions, Smoke and Legs They Win in Chess 03 Jan 1960, Sun Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan) Newspapers.com Winning Chess Requires More Than BrainpowerWinning Chess Requires More Than Brainpower 03 Jan 1960, Sun Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan) Newspapers.com

CONCENTRATION . . . CONCENTRATION . . . as players ponder next move at the Detroit Chess, Checker and Bridge Club. Studying (lower left) is Martin Ivan, last of 10 charter members who founded the organization in 1915. Above, club manager John Tolzdorf watches Jack Greenberg make his move.

Check, Mate

★ ★ ★     ★ ★ ★

Onions, Smoke and Legs —They Win in Chess

By Bob Pille
The magic number of chess, if anybody cares to toss knowing remarks into unrelated conversation, is 169,518,829,100,544,000,000,000,000,000.
That's the count of possible combinations in the first 10 moves of a match.
And at tournament level there is taining involved, which belies the misguided conviction that the game leads through crackling brain waves only to secretary's spread.
Mikhail Botvinnik, the world champion from Russia, prepares for serious competition by boning up on his rivals' past games and plotting strategy, of course.

★ ★ ★

BUT HE DOES this in “game-condition scrimmage” with a radio blaring at his elbow and with seconds blowing clouds of cigar smoke in his face.
Newell Banks, the oft-times national checkers champion from Detroit and bashful claimant of countless records, used to go even beyond that.
Now seventyish, Banks used to proclaim that in checkers “legs are of absolute importance.”
“You sit and think,” Banks explained, “And if your legs aren't physically fit you develop cramps.
“That means pain and weariness and takes your mind off the game a little. Zingo! You're perhaps a loser.”
Banks in his golden days also issued proclamations on diet: “Little meat…lots of milk and fresh vegetables…a generous quantity of nuts daily…and several big Spanish onions.”
The onions, he said were “for energy.” Not for something so unsporting as breathing on opponents.
Less concerned with such intense problems are the home and club strategists who play for sedentary and concentrated relaxation.
Mostly they just look for even competition, meaning clubs.

★ ★ ★

OLDEST IS THE Detroit Chess, Checker and Bridge Club. The bridge addition came in depression days. “We needed the money,” manager John Tolzdorf explains.
On the club's sixth site (2450 Park) one

Leslie Conklin concentrates on chess move . . . so does kibitzer.

Winning Chess Requires More Than Brainpower

Continued from First Sports
charter member remains of the 10 who founded the group in 1915.

“Membership tripled in the first year,” says Martin Ivan, Austrian-born retired draftsman admitting to “a little past 70.”
The total has been over a hundred, now is somewhat below half that. “Some move in town and out again.” sighs Ivan. ‘And some have a bad habit of dying.”
But if Detroit Chess and Checker is declining, not all clubs are. A group that meets weekly at the University of Detroit is flourishing.
So are clubs in the Jewish community centers, and the likes of the Kings Men, Detroit Edison, and the Oak Park Community Center groups.
The YMCA, with boys taught for years by Lawrence Sveen, has youngsters waiting for instruction.
“Credit Bobby Fischer for that,” says Dr. William Henkin, president of the U-D group.

★ ★ ★

FISCHER IS the latest chess prodigy. At 16 the Brooklyn high school boy is national champion. “He has shown that it's a game for young energetic minds with the drive to win … not just graybeards,” says Dr. Henkin.
Graybeards like Martin Ivan have found that their students sometimes catch them. He used to give a rook handicap to a young man, then reduced that to knight, finally played him even.
“And I showed him a few of my tricks … too many, I guess,” says Ivan. “Now he beats me nine out of 10.”
The student was Morris Weidenbaum, now rated with Royal Oak physician Paul Poschel and Michigan champion and ex-French titlist Stephen Popel among Detroit's best.
But even teaching like that of Ivan and professional Newell Banks doesn't solve the “Russian problem” which also plagues chess.
“They could take their 20 best and hold their own against the 20 best in the rest of the world,” says Ivan. “The government supports them.”
“This country should do the same,” he says. “Intellectual talent like Bobby Fischer's should be subsidized. We shouldn't have any more situations like the genius of a General Grant turning to storekeeping because he couldn't make a living in the Army.”

★ ★ ★

THERE ARE chess players subsidized by the state of Michigan.
Among the many who play the game by mail — sending coded moves back and forth — are inmates of Marquette Prison. Discriminating against nobody, they have battled professors from MIT and Federal judges from Texas.
These mail games are not for the impatient. Tournaments take three or four years if you quickly polish off a rival every six months or so.

Banks recalls that his father once played the champion of New Zealand in a contest that lasted eight years . . . considerable contrast to the night Newell claimed a world record for simultaneous play.
In an exhibition at the Tuller Hotel in the 1930s he stood off 75 checker opponents with his eyes open, six more blindfolded and 25 chess opponents.

★ ★ ★

'til the world understands why Robert J. Fischer criticised the U.S./British and Russian military industry imperial alliance and their own Israeli Apartheid. Sarah Wilkinson explains:

Bobby Fischer, First Amendment, Freedom of Speech
What a sad story Fischer was,” typed a racist, pro-imperialist colonial troll who supports mega-corporation entities over human rights, police state policies & white supremacy.
To which I replied: “Really? I think he [Bob Fischer] stood up to the broken system of corruption and raised awareness! Whether on the Palestinian/Israel-British-U.S. Imperial Apartheid scam, the Bush wars of ‘7 countries in 5 years,’ illegally, unconstitutionally which constituted mass xenocide or his run in with police brutality in Pasadena, California-- right here in the U.S., police run rampant over the Constitution of the U.S., on oath they swore to uphold, but when Americans don't know the law, and the cops either don't know or worse, “don't care” -- then I think that's pretty darn “sad”. I think Mr. Fischer held out and fought the good fight, steadfast til the day he died, and may he Rest In Peace.
Educate yourself about U.S./State Laws --
https://www.youtube.com/@AuditTheAudit/videos
After which the troll posted a string of profanities, confirming there was never any genuine sentiment of “compassion” for Mr. Fischer, rather an intent to inflict further defamatory remarks.

This ongoing work is a tribute to the life and accomplishments of Robert “Bobby” Fischer who passionately loved and studied chess history. May his life continue to inspire many other future generations of chess enthusiasts and kibitzers, alike.

Robert J. Fischer, Kid Chess Wizard 1956March 9, 1943 - January 17, 2008

The photograph of Bobby Fischer (above) from the March 02, 1956 The Tampa Times was discovered by Sharon Mooney (Bobby Fischer Newspaper Archive editor) on February 01, 2018 while gathering research materials for this ongoing newspaper archive project. Along with lost games now being translated into Algebraic notation and extractions from over two centuries of newspapers, it is but one of the many lost treasures to be found in the pages of old newspapers since our social media presence was first established November 11, 2017.

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