The York Dispatch York, Pennsylvania Tuesday, April 10, 1962 - Page 22
Teen-Ager Expects Contract to Be Fulfilled 10 Apr 1962, Tue The York Dispatch (York, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.comTeen-Ager Expects Contract to Be Fulfilled
New York, April 10 — Bobby Fischer, 19-year-old U.S. chess champ, made a legal move after due deliberation against an opponent, Samuel Reshevsky, once a boy prodigy himself.
Young Fischer asked the State Supreme Court to bar Reshevsky, now 50, from engaging in any public chess exhibition until the completion of a series of matches started between them last year.
According to the youth's complaint, he entered into a contract with Reshevsky on March 15, 1961, for a series of 16 matches. The purse was to be about $8,000, with the winner to get a 65 per cent cut, the loser 45. After 11 games, the players were tied at 5½ points each.
Subsequently, the teen-ager alleged, Reshevsky claimed the twelfth game and the match on the ground the young man failed to appear. Bobby maintained he had never agreed to the time scheduled for the twelfth game, that he was ready to go ahead with the match, but Reshevsky refused.
Bobby, through his lawyer, Harold Davis, advised the court, “my reputation as the most skillful and proficient chess player in the United States will be irreparably damaged and tarnished unless Reshevsky fulfills the terms of the contract.”
Bobby also said it was the general custom among chess pros that “forfeited games are not declared or accepted because of a temporary failure between two players to agree upon a mutually satisfactory date and time.”
According to Bobby, Reshevsky improperly claimed the twelfth game of the 16-game series and he wants the older player to be directed to continue the series “from the end of the eleventh game.”
Bobby lives in Brooklyn while Reshevsky lives in Spring Valley, N.Y. He could not be reached there. Reshevsky has 30 days in which to answer the suit—which sought no money damages.