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New York Times, New York, New York, Friday, August 26, 1960
A Captive Audience of 2,400 Cheers Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer, 17, leans over table to move in one of the twenty games he played at City Penitentiary. Beside him is Frederick C. Rieber of the Department of Correction.
Bobby Fischer, a champion chess player, played before his largest American audience yesterday at Rikers Island.
About 2,400 inmates of the City Penitentiary watched as the 17-year-old champion took on twenty challengers simultaneously. As was expected, Mr. Fischer won all matches.
The crowd, gathered on the recreational field, cheered enthusiastically as the gangling six-foot-one-inch champion walked the length of a forty foot table, pausing only momentarily in front of each opponent to make a move.
The only things that bothered the champion were his feet.
”They're beginning to hurt,” he said. “I can play a hundred persons at once and it wouldn't make any difference, except to my feet.” Harold Wildstein, program director for the penitentiary, said that chess was the most popular sport at the prison.
“It's a great game,” commented one of the challengers. “It takes a lot of time to play—and that's what we have a lot of.”
