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Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 177

Publication:
Tampa Bay Timesi
Location:
St. Petersburg, Florida
Issue Date:
Page:
177
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

CHESS WHIZ continued tffl Thinnest craclcliest brittle you ever ate! (juitrryit and see) I 4 l'iii-ffl. rfi tisW 1.. ri tot PflanutBriffl always fresh never sticky crammed with peanuts Costs to little at supermarket, drug and variety stores 1 Al Halloween so nice to have on hand for Trick or Treatl yeJf-' 9S. M.wtWj. '1.

ninMeflalHBMasMBWBaBUBMB aa1 rise to fame, Bobby still dresses casually. Note his dungarees and shirt in contrast to opponents' business suits and ties. ALONE in rectangle, Bobby takes on more than 20 good chess players at one time. He defeated them all. Despite his than 20 good all.

Despite his Bobby has taken on as many as 30 challengers at once at $1 apiece Atlanta, and Livingston, N.J. Watch daily editions of this newspaper for prices and local news about products and services advertised in Parade standing inside a rectangle and playing as many as 20 matches at once. The curious Bobby sat down at a board and made a move. A few minutes later Pavey had forgotten about the other players and was concentrating hard on beating Bobby. He did, but it took him 1 5 minutes a long time for an international master against an 8-year-old who'd played only a few games in his life.

A teacher of chess, Carmen Nigra, witnessed the game. Impressed, he offered to teach Bobby. Within a few years Bobby was beating Nigro regularly. By 1956, now a member of the Manhattan Chess Club, he had tied for fourth in the U.S. Open and won the National Junior Championship the youngest titleholder in history.

This glittering record earned him a bid to the Lessing J. Roscnwald tournament, the top test of U.S. chess to which only six to 12 of the top players are invited. He was beaten several times but, playing against the only man in the tournament to defeat Reshevsky, Bobby won. "I never saw any game played better," says referee Hans Kmoch.

"It was the game of the century." Bobby finished eighth in the tournament, but won the coveted prize for bril board always near his bed to practice on. Blond and on the thin side, Bobby away from chess is much like any teen-ager. He's wild about blueberry pie, the Dodgers, baseball, basketball and plaid shirts. He listens to rock 'n' roll records for hours on end. So far, he has shied away from girls and dancing.

$1 and a Rainy Afternoon He's cocky about his chess. Once he played Samuel Reshevsky, the balding little accountant who's been the king of U.S. chess since 1936. The experienced Reshevsky, 46, polished off Bobby, then 13, with little trouble. But afterwards he told a bystander: "The boy is brilliant; he'll go far." Bobby, meanwhile, was pointing out to anyone who would listen how Reshevsky had missed moves that would have ended the game sooner.

What amazes old chess hands is that Bobby has been playing the complex game less than eight years. His sister Joan had bought a $1 set to while away a rainy afternoon; she and her 6-year-old brother played a few games, but he was only mildly interested. Two years later he walked into the Brooklyn Public Library he's a voracious reader and saw Max Pavey, an international chess master, liancy. Among those finishing behind him was Max Pavey, his library opponent of seven years earlier. Last summer Bobby scored his greatest triumph, winning the U.S.

Open Chess championship at Cleveland. He defeated the best American players with the exception of Reshevsky and Larry Evans, neither of whom competed. In the next few months, some experts believe, Bobby may prove himself the equal them both. Money for His Mother Right now, though, he must start doing better in his school work and try to help out his hard-working mother. To make money, he has taken on as many as 30 challengers simultaneously at $1 a challenger.

But such games, he says, "don't produce good chess. They're just hard on your feet." Recently his chess playing has started to produce bigger dividends. He won $750 for winning the Open, $125 in another tournament. This, he says, will help him toward his goal: the chess championship of the world. How long will it take him? Says the cocksure Bobby about a crown that some men have spent a lifetime chasing: "I guess maybe 10 years." BrighferShinea in Coven up icropei end scuff marks like mogicl Givet thoei deeper thine, richer color! Keepi leolher "olive," new-looking longerl 10 Colors and Neutral Alia liquid Whit KIWI (Kll-Will 88 Parade Oct.

27, 1957.

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Pages Available:
5,185,605
Years Available:
1886-2024