A< Prev Index Next >
Chess 24 Jan 1959, Sat Coventry Evening Telegraph (Coventry, West Midlands, England) Newspapers.com
PRODIGY BEATS MASTER
The news that 15 years old Bobby Fischer has won the American championship again, ahead of S. Reshevsky, the American Grandmaster, commonly thought to be the strongest player in the West, has led me to think about this phenomenon of the child chess prodigy.
Fischer, of course, is not unique. Reshevsky himself was a child prodigy and toured Europe giving simultaneous displays at a very early age.
Finally his parents took him to the U.S.A., where after a few tournament games he gave up chess to study, but took it up again later with what seemed undiminished power.
Another recent child prodigy was Arturo Pomar, who played in an international tournament in London in 1946 at the age of 14, scoring five and a half points in a field which included Tartakower and Bernstein. Pomar also seems to have retained his powers, now being the Spanish champion.
