Chess Notebook By Lyman Burgess
Major problem for chess tournament directors always has been material, i.e.: sets, boards and clocks and the greatest worry of these is clocks. Golfers, I take it, would not dream of showing up at a tournament without a putter or a driver, and tennis players, I'm certain, report for play with a cord of rackets. Lo, the poor director of chess tournaments stands biting his nails each opening night worrying just how far he can stretch the club's stock of equipment. Moral: If you intend to play in the Greater Boston chess championship at the Cambridge Y.M.C.A., Oct. 23, 24, 30 and 31, bring board, a set and a clock, if possible.
The Greater Boston tournament, 25th in its line, will be a six-round Swiss in two classes, A and B. The tourney will be U.S.C.F. rated. Entrance fee is $6 in Class A, and $3 in Class B; entries will be accepted up to game time (7 p.m., Friday, on 23). Write to: George Nute, 201 Hamilton st., Cambridge.
The fourth international correspondence world championship team preliminary sections have been decided and play is under way. The United States team is in Section 2 with Argentina, Australia, Canada, West Germany, Spain and Yugoslavia. The Americas lineup: 1, Irving Kandel, Baltimore: 2. Michael Gottesman, New Haven; 3, Kazys Merkis, South Boston; 4, Charles E. Brown, Aiken, S.C.; 5, W. Frank Gladney, Baton Rouge; James W. Donato, Utica; L. D. Ware and D. C. Heap. The last two are reserves and Heap is team captain.
Kazys Merkis has been doing well in correspondence chess for many years. He is one of the top players in Chess Review's Postal ratings and ranked third in the U.S. Grand National championship.
D. A. Yanofsky, Winnipeg won the Canadian championship for the fourth time. Yanofsky racked up a clear score in the finals. 11-0. He was followed by Geza Fuster (9-2) and F. Anderson (8½-2½). Povilas Vaitonis, former titleholder did not compete.
Bobby Fischer disappointed his many boosters with his collapse in the second quarter of the marathon challengers' tournament in Yugoslavia. With the change to Zagreb he opened with a win over Paul Keres (again), tournament front-runner at the time. The latest Chess Life goes on at length about Bobby's financial heartbreaks and triumphs and brings the happy news that Bobby has a second, Bent Larson of Denmark. There is a small irony here because Larsen was, in earlier days (circa the 1958 interzonal tourney), one who loudly scoffed at Fischer's prowess, Larsen learned at Portoroz.
Here is Fischer's win from Round 10 at Bled. His opponent is Paul Benko, Hungarian refugee, who calls New York his home.
Robert James Fischer vs Pal Benko
Bled-Zagreb-Belgrade Candidates (1959), Bled, Zagreb & Belgrade YUG, rd 10, Sep-22
Sicilian Defense: Classical. Anti-Fischer-Sozin Variation (B57) 1-0
THE 10 MOST POPULAR RUSSIANS. I polled a group of Russians to determine the 10 most popular living Soviet men and women. Here is the list, in the order of preference:
1 Nikita Khrushchev, Communist Party Chief and Premier.
2 Sergei Bondarchuk, actor and producer, who won first prize in the International Film Festival in Moscow this year.
3 Maya Plisetskaya, prima ballerina of the Bolshoi.
4 Andrei Tupolev, airplane designer.
5 Ivan Maltsev, agricultural specialist who devised a deep-plowing technique that has increased Soviet crop yields.
6 Trofim Lysenko, the biologist who won Kremlin favor with his Marxist theories on heredity.
7 Frol Kozlov, First Deputy Premier.
8 Popov, the clown.
9 Mikhail Botvinnik, world chess champion.
10 Vassily Kuznetsov, decathlon record-holder.