St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 82

U. S. Chess Meet-Quiet, Please Country's Leading Players Concentrate in Silence in Open Tournament Here Jofm Crosby 'Sometimes I Think We Are All Nuts' NEW YORK, Aug. 13 SO, BACK TO WORK AGAIN, darn it. It's been a most pleasant vacation.

The set has been mostly turned off. The re-runs have run their merry course without my irritated gaze. Of course, I haven't escaped scot Mi free. My children tell me the plots. Have you ever heard the plot of a re-run western told you in agonizing detail? Oh, it's fascinating: "Then Paladin, see, jumped behind these rocks, see, and started shooting at the man who stole the gold mine and the man who stole the gold mine jumped behind some other rocks, see, and started shooting back.

And then this other man who didn't know about the forgery told the girl that their father was dead but, see, she'd been behind the curtain all this time and she knew that Jack Krausch-meyer wasn't really The conventions are now View of The 87-board United States Open chest tournament at Sheraton-Jefferson hotel. -A JOHN CROSBY 9 If If JR KVVI "i iff, i Father And His Worry By Hal Boyle NEW YORK, Aug. 13 THE DOCTOR WAITED until Joe Grapple had rolled down his sleeve and buttoned the cuff. "I'm afraid you're a bit tens? again, Mr. Grapple," he said.

"And your blood pressure is up. Are you having any business problems?" "Naw, everything's okay at the old salt mine," said Joe. He hesitated a moment, then said reluctantly, "It's my daughter, Dons." Doris was one of the doctor's favorite patients. Into his mind flashed the picture of a small 14-year-old girl with a prudent face and blue eyes beyond her age. "She went to a summer camp last week," said Joe.

"This is the first year I've been able to scare up the dough to send her." "Did she have an accident?" asked the doctor. "Oh, no, nothing like that." "Well, then, what's bothering you?" "Well, we got a letter from her today the first one and it's kinda got me worried." "Why?" "Well, you know the crazy letters most kids write from camp the kind Jack Paar reads on his show all about the goofy things that happen to them. "Guys at the office for yeara have been showing me the letters their kids wrote from camp and they were all funny. Well, Doris didn't write anything funny, and I wonder if there's something wrong. "DO YOU want to show ma the letter?" inquired the doctor.

That was exactly what Joe wanted. He quickly pulled out the letter. The doctor read: "Dearest Daddy: "I am having a wonderful time at Camp Birchbark. The food is fine, and I have made friends with a girl named Ruth. "We go swimming and canoeing together, and I am learning leatherwork and I am making a couple of surprise presents for you and Mother.

"The country is lovely. I love to climb the mountain. It is simply covered with wildflowers, and although I know I shouldn't do it, I have picked a few to press in my memory book so I'll never forget this summer. "Last night before I fell asleep I jieard a whippoorwill outside in the dark, and it made me a little homesick. I thought of you and Mother in the hot, sticky city and wondered If you miss me as much as I miss you.

"RUTH TOLD ME how much it costs to stay at this camp. I didn't know it was so expensive. I guess that's really why you didn't get the new car you wanted, isn't it, Daddy? "You and mother have always done so much for me. I won't forget that either. Your loving daughter.

Doris." The doctor folded the letter and handed it to Joe. Joe looked at him anxiously. "You think she's all right, Doc?" he asked. "She don't write nothing screwball like the other kids. You think she's okay?" "I'd give everything in the world for a daughter who wrote me a letter like that," said the doctor.

"Joe, you're the luckiest man alive." "Yeah, I guess you got something there, Doc," said Joe, putting the letter into the pocket over his heart. He patted it, hopped down from the examining table, put on his coat. "I was just kinda worried because she didn't write nothing crazy like most kids in camp. But I guess any dumb cluck can do that, eh, Doc?" By Post-Diipetch fhotoqrapher. ARTHUR BISGUIER, New York City, last year's champion.

ROBERT STEINMEYER or St. Louis, left, opoosing MAXWELL SOKOLER of Mamaroneclc, N.Y. LISA LANE of Philadelphia women's champion. history, safely embalmed In their own wearisome repetitions but I couldn't escape them entirely. As carried on television, I found them awfully trying.

A bunch of us sat together one night to watch Senator Kennedy get nominated and all of us went to bed before that deed was consummated. All we had seen and heard was a number of incredibly dull speeches by incredibly dull men. Hours and hours we sat in front of that set and, as I unlaced my shoes, the only clear memory I had of those hours was a picture of a lot of tired hacks milling around the convention floor pushing blurred placards up and down. Why In heaven's name should 150,000,000 Americans (give or take a million or two) sit glued to a screen with the Inane picture on it? Sometimes I think we're all nuts. CHET HUNTLEY in his guest column suggested that television may change the nature of pofitical conventions.

I beg to disagree. I don't think conventions have to change their spots so much as the nature of television coverage ought to change and become more selective. Political conventions have a great sense of excitement when you're on the scene. It just doesn't come across the tube. Why does it have to? I am appalled at the thought that $20,000,000 (give or take a couple of millions if you took a million last time, give a million this time) being spent to cover these donny-brooks.

Why? When I think of the sheer information, education, and enlightenment the news departments of any of the networks could spread if it had that $20,000,000 to spend, it makes me sick to think of the dough being wasted' on a picture of a man pushing a stick up and down and yelling "Meyner for President." For instance, Howard K. Smith's Interview with Walter Lippmann on "CBS Reports" was a far greater contribution to the national wisdom than about 90 per cent of the convention coverage. The Lippmann interview was thoughtful, perceptive, dispassionate, deeply probing. Above it all it stuck to the ribs which so little of television ever does. I can remember what Lippmann said when so much of the mumbo jumbo at the convention Is a gray fog.

WHAT ARE THE GOOD ASPECTS of televised convention coverage? Well, in the best sense of the word, it unifies the country. I think it terribly important that we have a town meeting that we can all sit in on and discuss simultaneously. That is why I think since we're all sitting there that something of greater importance than those placards be on the screen most of the time. This is a big country, deeply divided by Its own geography, and television bringing us all in the same room, as it were can give us a sense of oneness in our vital problem of picking a President. Also this is a cliche but it's true television is a unique instrument in its ability to show off a warts and all.

As Senator Javits remarked to me the other night when I happened to encounter him, there are great political pressures on any candidate at a convention and no man, under those pressures, can dissemble all the time. So, if the lights and the cameras are on him incessantly, you get a pretty good picture of the real man, no matter how hard he tries to conceal his bad points under an overlay of charm. I think this is Important. Convenlions should be televised, but not this way. Why couldn't one network televise, say, two hours a more, for the king of the hill, with consolation prizes of $500, $300 for third, down to $25 for tenth and prizes of $15 each for eleventh to twentieth places, plus prizes far various players in lower classes.

In addition there is a top prize of $250 for the best woman player, plus two other prizes for women, a lure which drew 11 women entrants, among them Miss Lisa Lane of Philadelphia, only 23, who won the Women's Invitation, top feminine title, last December. The United States Chess Federation maintains a rating list of hundreds of players, somewhat like a baseball player's lifetime batting average. This past-performance chart determines pairings in the first round. Subsequent pairings are based on how a player has fared in previous rounds. For each victory a player gets one point, a draw nets a half.

If after 12 rounds two or more players have an even number of points, a more complicated system of scoring is resorted to, whereby the strength of the players he has defeated is taken into account. In addition to top talent from all over the United States, the Open has attracted players from Canada and one from South America: Juan Milas of Bogota, Colombia champion. Non-playing director is George Koltanowski, who is handling his fifth Open. Koltanowski, who has played exhibitions in St. Louis on many occasions, is an international grandmaster.

He has played as many as 34 games blindfolded simultaneously, winning 24 and drawing 10. He knows 10-second chess well, having won 43, lost two and drawn five in a 50-game setting. He writes a chess column for the San Francisco Chronicle as a sideline. A. B.

Carlisle, E. Flynn Ford and Gordon Bennett, all of St. Louis, were mainstays in getting the bankroll needed to guarantee prizes for the Open. Ray Vollmar was president of the St. Louis committee which arranged the tournament.

Chess addicts know there is no other game that has quite the challenge for them at least of starting with equal forces, where only what the inner man can call forth in sound play, guile and artifice make the difference between defeat and victory. Even bridge, they point out, has an element of luck in the deal of the cards, whereas chess players begin even, save for the minimal advantage of having the White rather than the Black pieces. One of the most colorful players in this Open is E. Forry Loucks, stemwinder of the Log Cabin Chess Club, which is billed modestly as "the most diversified, animated chess club in the Western Hemisphere." Its headquarters is in Loucks's home in West Orange, N.J. He lists four telephone numbers, all different, a regular one, a loud-speaker phone, 'a mobile car number and one for ship-to-shore.

This is not as odd as it sounds, for Loucks and some of the 130 members of his Log Cabin Club are frequently on the go, playing interclub matches. They plan one today with their St. Louis hosts. They flew to three nations and in all visited 11 countries in 1958, making two trips to Mexico City and beyond, two to Alaska and two to Cuba, and in 1959 were in Munich, Germany, three times, not to mention Hamburg, Heidelberg, Dormstadt and Nuernberg. The Log Cabin card he carries them in three languages, English, German and Spanish-boasts of its members having played matches in five Canadian provinces and five Mexican states, in 45 of the United States, adding "last in Alaska before statehood, last in Havana before Castro." In case you might have trouble finding your way to his home at 30 Collamore Terrace, Loucks prints more specific directions on his card: West Orange, N.J., U.S.A., Planet Earth 3.

Natural Solar System 9, Dihegral to Cosmic Milky Way. He forgot to include a postal' zone, but with those directions, you can't miss. to business sessions attended by delegates when they aren't playing hooky to do a little shoppingand its evenings to programs of entertainment or high jinks, these chess players do not even get going until evening and then they get right down to busi-ness, the only business they are here for: the serious business of tournament chess. This differs from ordinary chess in much the same way that duplicate differs from partv bridge. Tournament chess is played with a time limit: each player is allowed two and one-half hours in which to complete 50 moves.

Time is kept on a chess dock, actually two separate clocks with a connecting mechanism that permits only one clock at a time to tick away the precious seconds. Thus while the White player is deliberating his move, his clock is running. As soon as he makes his move, he touches a bar or button and his clock stops and the other clock runs until Black has moved. How he divides the time for each move is up to the player so long as he completes his fiftieth move before the allotted two and one-half hours are over. When the late Alexander Alkehine first sprang his Alek-hine's Defense on an unsuspecting opponent in a major tournament, a strategy whereby he permits one knight to be driven about the center of the board at the very start of the game by White's advancing pawns, the opponent took an hour and 40 minutes to reply to the world -champion's fifth move.

Sammy Reshevsky, an international grandmaster in the lexicon of chess) who has played brilliant chess since he was a child prodigy of 9, has the reputation of being a slow player in mid-garfie, often winding up with time trouble with 10 or 15 moves to make and less than a minute left on his clock. Then as soon as his adversary moves he replies with lightning rapidity. This not only pulls him out of his trouble but disconcerts a less-seasoned opponent. By midnight each night, most games in that round will be finished. Those running more than 50 moves may be adjourned until some time the next day.

This is accomplished by one player determining what his next move will be, noting it on a piece of paper which he seals in an envelope and hands to the tournament director. The position of all pieces on the board are noted, along with the actual time consumed on each clock. When the game is resumed in this Open the following morning or afternoon the envelope is opened, the move is made and the game resumed. Once sealed, a move is beyond recall, just as it is when a player's hand leaves his piece. Games longer than 50 moves, rather rare in tournaments, are played with a time limit of 20 moves each additional hour.

Arthur Bisguier of New York City, who won the Open in 19.30 when he was only 20, again in 1956 and again last year at Omaha, is back to see whether he can make it two straight, a feat not achieved in the Open since Larry Evans of New York did it in 1951 and '52. Bisguier is seeded fourth in the field of 174, behind Pal Benko, once of Hungary, who has been playing in this country for the last five years, Evans and Robert Byrne, always a strong contender, whose brother Donald copped the Open in 1953. Fifth-ranking player at the start of this tourney was Robert Steinmeyer of St. Louis, who can remember countless moves in many gambits and openings but can't remember whether he has won the Missouri title three or four times. He does remember that he won the Ohio title the year the barge line for which he does office work transferred him there.

Another strong contender from the St. Louis area is 29-year-old John V. Ragan of East St. Louis, another former Missouri title-holder. It is no empty honor to win the Open: along with a year's possession of the usual loving cup and a permanent trophy, there's a tidy $1000, possibly By E.

A. Talley tht Post-Dispatch Staff ST. LOUIS, which has experienced almost everything in the way of conventions at one time or another, is playing host to a different kind of conclave which opened Monday and will continue through next Friday. In this case, no outlandish costume plugging the old home town or outsize convention badges plugging the lodge mark the gathering of the faithful, the loyal, and true. Even in the lobby of the Sheraton-Jefferson one is unaware that the Ivory room is packed with men and a few women hunched over tables, deep in concentration and surrounded here and there by knots of standees as silent as they or whispering so softly that only the adjacent kibitzers can hear.

It is the United States Open Chess tournament. There are 174 players and they have been at it since opening night at 7 o'clock. Most of them will still be going strong when the twelfth and last round is played Friday. This means that in the 12-day period more than 1000 games of chess will be played, most of them lasting the better part of five hours, a few even longer. Chess players are accustomed to being the butt of stale jokes about being 'chess-nuts, and complaints that chess is for graybeards and that one game lasts forever.

They know that none of these things is true: that men and women from all walks of life enjoy chess, that the Open championship was won by Bobby Fischer at the age of 14 and that the length of a game depends on the players. A friendly game often takes less time than a rubber of bridge. They know also that it is useless to try to convince the layman: his mind is made up and he doesn't want to be confused with facts. The staff at the Sheraton-Jefferson has probably concluded by this time that chess players are an odd lot. Where a convention devotes its days night with a definite sign-on and sign-off time.

The politicos, I think, would contrive to have the important happenings transpire in those two hours if they knew the cameras wouldn't be on them the other hours. The network could pick by lot which night they televise but just one at a time, for heaven's sake. That would put the thing In its proper perspective. (Copyright, New York Herald Tribune Inc.) Bennett Cerf Try and Stop Me WHEN GROUCHO, Harpo, Chico and Zyppo Marx were headlining the bill for the first time at Broadway's famed Palace, their father attended his matinee to revel in tons success. The man sitting next to Papa Marx was Bob Hope and Lucille Ball All Wet-For Their Art WHAT ODDS WICL YOU give also watching the proceedings intently, and suddenly announced, "Those fellers don't look alike at all.

I bet they're really not brothers. I bet they're only cousins at most." Papa Marx pondered a moment, then asked, "What odds will you give me?" LINDA AND DICK I Pet Doctor By A. W. Moller, D.V.M. Q.

We love our cat but we'r fond of birds too. Is there any way we can stop the cat from catching them? Patty Conley, New Cumberland, Pa. A. It is almost as natural for a cat to catch a bird as it is for a bird to fly. However, it is cruel to allow the housed, well-fed cat to stalk birds.

Even a house cat can develop a lust for killing when no effort is made to stop him. It is psychologically possible to train your cat to live in peace with a pet parakeet and even wild birds. I'll admit it rakes a lot of patience, and training should begin in the kitten stage. The cat's greatest assets in this unfair sport are his velvet paws. A small bell or two tied on your pet's collar will give the bird fair warning, and a chance to escape.

(Aililres your question tn Pel Doctor in rare of the Post-Dispatch. He will en-steer selected inquiries in hit column, but cannot reply to them.) By Harold Heffernan HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 13. BEHIND MOVIE HEADLINES: The rainmakers were at it with blinding cloudbursts on "The Facts of Life" sound stage, Urenching Lucille Ball and Bob Hope in an open car whose automatic top went haywire, according to plan, on the open road. Whirling overhead sprays repeatedly soaked the two performers from head to foot as director Melvin Frank sought perfection in the difficult scene for his comedy-drama of romantic peccadilloes among America's country club set.

Finally, after a dozen takes, and with no end in sight, Hope turned to Frank and jokingly accused him of fiendishly inventing the scene for his players discomfort. Whereupon Frank quipped, "Stop grousing, Hope; anybody knows a downpour like this is a godsend to the eral teleplays, latest a subject for the "Cheyenne" series. CONTROVERSIAL LOCAL TV personality Tom Duggan draws his biggest screen role to date because he's a "glib and forceful Irish personality" as demonstrated on a one-hour program every night. Key role of the Boston district attorney in Bryan Foy's "The Big Boston Robbery" goes to Duggan as the direct result of consultations involving the actual Boston D.A., Garrett W. Byrne, who insisted that his cinematic counterpart be "glib and Irish." Duggan won' over 50 candidates.

THAT LONG LANGUISHING "Ben-Hur" heroine finally gets her second turn at bat. The news from MGM, where she has been drawing $500 a week since being plucked from her native Israel three years ago, is that Haya Harareet is now set to co-star with Stewart Granger in "The Secret Partner." It's a romantic mystery melodrama which beeins Sept. 1 in England and cut the bongo bit." "But," protested Mason, "I've worked hard on the drums for days." Lang was adamant, but much to the surprise of everyone except the director the was okayed on the first try. "I feel like a ridiculous idiot," stormed Mason after finishing the hip-swirling session. "I'm sure I made an absolute ass of myself." "Good, good," smiled Lang tolerantly.

"That's exactly what I wanted you to do." YOU'RE WONDERING maybe about the non-appearance of actor Richard Ney, ex-husband of Greer Garson, who soared to fame with her in the wartime epic "Mrs. Well, he's doing just fine but behind the scenes. Ney- has many other irons in the fire these days. He designed a special do-it-yourself shirt with a built-in ascot tie, all set and ready to go. It went on the market a couple of months ago.

And, he'a scripted andiold sev Ratoff continues never at a loss for words mostly the wrong ones as Phil Gersdorf, with the Darryl F. Zanuck company 'shooting "The Big Gamble" in southern France, relays from the location site. The garrulous Russian was in the midst of a talkative sequence, as a larcenous German trying to induce Stephen Boyd, Juliette Greco and David Wayne to hire him as a guide, when he came to the "You are in trouble big trouble." Juliette demands, "What kind of trouble?" and Ratoff, hesitating with a blank look in his eyes, finally pipes up: "The big trouble is me I've forgotten my lines." TWO WEEKS' PRACTICE pounding on the bongo drums, keen anticipation of scoring a big audience hit with the sticks then one word from the director and everything down the drain! James Mason was fit for a strait-jacket. Julie Newmar and Mason arrived on the set of "The riage-Go-Round" to rehearse a 11. kJ son-in-law of composer S3 9e' Richard dodgers, are gradually acquiring a respectable art collection in their home.

Already they have hanging a Picasso, a Monet, a Renoir and a Roualt. Recently the Levines hired a new cleaning woman. She was working in the drawing room when Linda passed by for breakfast. "Say," called the cleaning woman cheerfully, "you've got a pretty good looking lot of pictures in here. Who paints in this family?" A TADPOLE paused by the side of a pond to pass on a word of cheer to two dumb little caterpillars.

One day soon, he promised them, they would turn into beautiful butterflies. After the tadpole had gone on his way, one caterpillar confessed sadly, "I might have believed his fairy tale if he hadn't spoiled everything by claiming that some day HE Is going to be a bullfrog! LUCILLE BALL bit in which she, in form-clinging jersey, lures him into a red-hot cha-cha, to be climaxed by James seizing the bongo outfit and beating out a furious beat. But to the pair's astonishment, director Walter Lang ordered: "I want this to play natural-like. shoot without a rehearsal with Basil Dearden directing. Sun Aug.

14. I960 ST. LOUISfOST-DISPATCfi ACTOR DIRECTOR Gregor.