The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 41

THE TAMPA TRIBUNE SECTION TAMPA, FLORIDA, WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 1972 Astrology Page 6 Bridge Page 6 Crossword Page 6 Billy Graham Page 6 Heloise Page 4 Ann Landers Page 4 Television Page 8 Theaters Page 5 Van Dellen Page 4 Wishing Weil Page 6 1 Chess, A Game Older Than The Hills PAID' IV Spassky Pulls A Fischer And Chess Match Is Off Again. -Story On Page 1-A Philip II's court where the first modern chess matches were staged. In the following centuries the game spread to France and England and in the middle of the 18th century French composer F. A. Philidor won repute as the world's leading chess player.

He has been called the first unofficial world champion of chess. THE FIRST major international tournament was staged in London in 1851. A 30-year-old German professor, Adolf Anders-sen, won the tournament and was given the title "World Champion." In the meantime the game had also caught on in the Western Hemisphere. The leading American player was Paul Morphy, who won major tournaments at the age of 12. In 1858 he became the world champion America's first and only so far.

REYKJAVIK (UPI) The origin of chess is uncertain but historians believe the game was created in India where it was known as Tschatarunga several thousand years ago. It is reputed to be the world's oldest game. It is known that the game came to Europe via Persia, wliere it was known in the sixth century and also got its name from the Persian word for king Shah the foremost piece in the game. IN THE 11th century the game spread to a popular pastime among noblemen and at the courts. The present rules of the game were created in the 16th century when Ruy Lopez De Segura also wrote the first book on chess.

Lopez, a Spaniard, served at King lity Russians Mig Rule The Boards 0 Soviets In Charge Of World Chess Since 1927 REYKJAVIK (UPI) If Bobby Fischer defeats Boris Spassky in the world championship match here, he will become the second American to rule as World Champion. A victory for Spassky, the ruling World Champion from the Soviet Union, would only confirm the Russian domination of the game which has lasted since 1927 when Alexander Aljechin took the title away from the legendary Jose Raoul Capablanca of Cuba. F. A. Philidor, a French composer of many talents, became known as the world's best chess player in the middle of the 18th century.

But the world title was not introduced until 1851 when Adolf Anderssen a 30-year-old German professor, won the first major international tournament in London and was given the title. HE LOST IT seven years later to America's first and only world champion, Paul Morphy, who won eight games and lost three in his battle with Anderssen. Morphy's early career was in some ways similar to that of Fischer. He was born in New Orleans and was known as a strong player already at the age of 12. When he was 20 he won a major tournament in New York and the following year he sailed to Europe to challenge Anderssen for the world title.

While he was still recognized as world champion he stopped playing and disappeared from the chess scene. He died at the age of 47. After Morphy came such players as Wilhelm Steinitz of Czechoslovakia the first universally recognized world champion Emanuel Lasker of Germany and Capablanca, the Cuban who learned to play when he was four years old and became in the eyes of many experts the world's greatest-ever chess player. He finally lost his title to Aljechin. ALJECHIN, a Russian living in exile in Paris, ruled as champion from 1927 to his death in Portugal in 1946 with the exception of two years from 1935 when Max Euwe, a Dutch teacher, held the title.

He took it from the Russian but lost it again to him in the return match. After Aljechin's death the World Chess Federation (FIDE) organized a title tournament involving the world's six leading players. Reuben Fine of the United States had been nominated to play but could not participate. Michail Botvinnik won the tournament and the title and became the first in an unbroken string of Russian champions, which included Vassily Smys-lov, Michael Tal, Tigran Petrosian and Spassky. Vtannmmm.

a Tribun Art by Gorg Srtwart Boris Vasilevich Spassky: A Gool World Champion Robert J. (Bobby) Fischer; A Cocky U.S. Challenger S3? (SR'tj SI -'f 4r Bobby Fischer Boris Spassky By Unted Press International Boyish Boris Spassky stays cool when those around him sweat and squirm- He sits on a Moscow stage under boiling klieg lights, surrounded by a hundred newsmen. His future is at stake. A powerful and terrible-tempered man wants his job.

In a soft and nonchalant voice, he says: "I do not know who will win, but I am sure it will be an interesting and important event." Boris Vasilevich Spassky, 35, of Leningrad, Russia, is the world champion at the game of chess. HE COULD NOT be more unlike America's Bobby Fischer, the cocky and controversial chess genius who is challenging for Spas sky's title and boasting he will win. Spassky, who defeated fellow Soviet player Tigran Petrosyan for the world title in 1969, looks more like a 25-year-old track and field star than a 35-year-old chess champion. He sounds more like the nice boy next door than a celebrity. Slender and broad shouldered, without an ounce of fat, Spassky can be recognized in a crowd by his thick brown wavy hair and his almost baby face.

The soft facial effect is sharpened by a prominant beak of a nose and ice blue eyes that never seem to blink. THE CHAMPION is soft spoken, courteous, modest and unassuming in the extreme. Once at a chess board, however, Mr. Nice Guy disappears. Like Fischer, Spassky is an aggressive, attacking, chess player, although generally rated not quite as quick and a bit more profound in style.

Spassky demolished defensive geles. Few seem to know what he does or how he lives. He has few friends and virtually no life outside of chess. Fischer has won an unprecedented string of victories in the past two years, the last over the Ar menian master of defensive chess; Tigran Petrosian, to earn the right to face Spassky, who had earlier defeated Petrosian to win the world title. WITH AN unsurpassed memory and encyclopedic knowledge of the game, Fischer is a great positional player and ferocious attacker.

But his complaints about noise, living conditions and spectator movement have been known to drive tournament directors wild. American experts are confident of a Fischer victory, although Spassky has won three games and drawn two in their previous encounters. Characteristically, Fischer agrees. Once asked who he thought was the greatest player in the world, Fischer replied "It would be nice to be modest but it would be stupid if I did not tell the truth. It is Fischer." By United Press International Possibly what most worries the man-on-the-street in Moscow these days is a chess player from Brooklyn, N.Y., named Robert James Fischer.

For a Russian, the thought that Fischer could defeat their champion is something akin to what an American would feel at the idea that nine Soviets could whip the Pittsburgh Pirates in four straight. THE OBJECT of the Russians concern is still called "Bobby" though he is now 29 years old. Fischer was born in Chicago March 9, 1943, but raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., where his family moved when he was two years old. His sister taught Bobby the fundamentals of chess when he was six. With the help of a neighbor interested in the game and his own remarkable powers of memory and concentration, Fischer became United States champion at the age of 14.

Since then, the 64 black and white squares of the chess board and the desire to prove himself unequalled in his mastery of them, have become Fischer's obsession. HE DROPPED out of Erasmus High School in Brooklyn in his junior year. "I couldn't waste my time with all those stupid kids," and with teachers "even stupider than the kids," he said. Now 29, a gangling 6-foot 2 inches tall, and good-looking with penetrating eyes and a shock of unkept brown hair, Fischer lives quietly in Los An Paul Morphy: Brilliant Master master Petrosyan for the title three years ago, beating him in only 24 moves in one game with his "hurricane attack." Spassky was born in Leningrad in 1937 and took a degree in journalism, although he is strictly a professional chess player. He began playing chess at age nine, became an international master at age 16 and World Junior Champion at age 18 in 1955.

He first challenged Petrosyan for the world title in 1966 and lost. WHILE HE HAS a gentle and charming personality in public, Spassky represents a chess juggernaut that pours every resource into its gifted players and protects them from public scrutiny in typical Soviet style. Little, therefore, is known about his private life or preparations for this match. It is known, however, that like all Soviet chess players he preps with heavy athletic training as well as mental tuning. He was a track athlete as a young man and likes swimming now.

Spassky lives in a three-room Moscow apartment with his second wife, Larissa, a refrigerator engineer, and their son Vasily, who became five years old Sunday. He also has a 12-year-old daughter, Tatiana, by a previous marriage. By United Press International Bobby Fischer has said that the chess player he admires most, excluding himself, is Paul Morphy, whose short but brilliant career in the mid-18th century made him the first and only American ever recognized as world champion. While Fischer's precocious ability on the board has stunned the chess world, Morphy's feats, though less well known, were even more impos-. ing.

Born in New Orleans, in 1837, Morphy was taught the game by his father and when he was 12 years old defeated the Hungarian J. Lo-wenthal, then recognized as one of the world's best. Fischer was 14 years old when he won the United States championship. At 22, Morphy traveled to Europe, defeating there a series of International Grand Masters, and was generally recognized as the world's best player in 1858-59. Fischer will be a 29-year-old world champion if he defeats Spassky.

Morphy's prowess was such that he would on occasion play blindfolded against eight strong players simultaneously, each time with great success. But after returning to the U.S. in 1859, Morphy gradually lost interest in the game and stopped playing altogether in 1866. He died of a brain hemorrhage in 1884. With an unsurpassed in in and encyclopedic knowledge of the game, Fischer is a great positional player and ferocious attacker..