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Fischer, Reshevsky Schedule Match
By Harold Lundstrom
The big news that the chess world has long awaited has now been announced: Five-time and current United States chess champion, 17-year-old Bobby Fischer, is going to play a match with eight-time former U.S.A. champion, Samuel Reshevsky.
They will play a 16-game match.
It is scheduled to begin July 16 at the Hotel Empire in New York City.
Eight games will be contested in New York, and the final eight games will be played at the Herman Steiner Chess Studio in Hollywood.
I was once a member of this club when Mr. Steiner was alive and at the time he was the United States champion.
This is a long delayed match. Every time Sammy has been in Salt Lake City for one of his annual simultaneous exhibition matches, I have asked him about it.
He has always said that Bobby has always demanded a guarantee that was so high that they could not get any one to sponsor it.
When I asked Sammy if this was Bobby's way of refusing to play, Sammy said that many of his friends thought so.
Anyway, whatever Bobby's conditions for the match, they have at long last been met, and it starts in two weeks.
There have been some of us who had hoped that Harold's Club might sponsor the match in Reno for the international publicity it would receive, but this never developed either.