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Chess 19 Sep 1959, Sat Liverpool Daily Post (Merseyside ed.) (Liverpool, Merseyside, England) Newspapers.com
A new weekly chess column by H. Golombek (above), a former British Champion and one of the three players who shared first place in this year's British Chess Championship, makes its first appearance here. Though specially intended for players, even beginners at the game, the column will from time to time include problems as well. One is given today.
Chess by Harry Golombek
To-day, Chess Is A Young Man's Game
A REMARKABLE feature of present-day chess is the way in which young players have come so rapidly to the forefront of the international and national scene. Quite a large proportion of the world's leading chessmasters are in their early twenties.
In the United Kingdom there are the British champion, Jonathan Penrose, and also the gifted Essex player, Peter Clarke; in the Soviet Union you find the Soviet champion, Tal, and the Soviet grandmaster, Boris Spassky; in the Argentine there is Oscar Panno; in Denmark, Bent Larsen, and in Iceland, Fridrik Olafsson.
But the most outstanding case of all is that of sixteen-year-old Bobby Fischer, who has already won the United States championship twice in succession ahead of the formidable Sammy Reshevsky, and in a career extending over some four years has acquired every honor attainable in the American chess world and had a large number of successes in the international field as well.
Last year, by coming equal fifth in the Interzonal Tournament at Portoroz in Yugoslavia, he qualified to participate in the World Championship Candidates' Tournament that will also take place in Yugoslavia this year, during September and October. The other competitors will be Tal, Keres, Petrosian and Smyslov, all from the U.S.S.R.; Olafsson of Iceland, Gligoric of Yugoslavia, and Benko, a Hungarian now resident in the United States.
The winner of this tournament will have the right to challenge the world champion, Botvinnik, to a match for the title, and though one can hardly expect Bobby Fischer to become the challenger at such an early age, there is no doubt that he will acquit himself well in the event and also that it will not be long before he becomes a favourite for the world championship title itself.
The imaginative and attacking chess he plays is to be seen in the following game from this year's international tournament at Mar del Plata in the Argentine: Game No. 1, White Fischer, Black Shocron; Ruy Lopez, Morphy Defense.
Robert James Fischer vs Ruben Shocron
Mar del Plata (1959), Mar del Plata ARG, rd 7, Mar-30
Spanish Game: Closed Variations. Chigorin Defense (C97) 1-0
