Times Colonist Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Wednesday, January 27, 1988 - Page 10
Masterly Analysis
Former world champion chess player Boris Spassky analyses the previous day's matches at the World Chess Festival in Saint John, N.B. Spassky's match against American Bobby Fischer in the '70s sparked international interest in the game of chess.
Tallahassee Democrat, Tallahassee, Florida, Sunday, July 10, 1988 - Page 80
Previously, we wrote about a reported appearance of the reclusive ex-world champion Bobby Fischer in a Manila chess club last August.
Indeed, it was Fischer. His trip had been arranged by Florencio Campomanes, president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) in cooperation with Philippine chess organizers.
Although Fischer was paid a fee and all expenses, he gave no interviews, talks or exhibitions. So why the trip?
One theory was offered to me by a Manila sports writer, “As everyone knows,” he told me, “Fischer is still unbeaten. Anyone who could get him back into competition would reap great publicity.”
“There's tremendous interest in Fischer. He's like Muhammad Ali. I think Campomanes, who has been accused of associating too closely with the Russians, would like to bring back Fischer, an American.
“And Philippine grandmasters and other strong players are not getting the kind of financial and logistical support that they used to get before Campomanes became FIDE president and took up residence outside the Philippines.
“A Fischer chess event here would change that.”
In 1975, Fischer turned down a $5,000,000 offer to defend his title against Anatoly Karpov in the Philippines, because of a disagreement with FIDE over the terms of the match.
Although Fischer seems no more ready to return to the chess arena than ever — nothing seems to have come out of the Manila visit — he still exhibits the brashness and bravado for which he is so famous.
He is reported to have told friends in Manila that he is better than both World Champion Garri Kasparov and ex-champion Anatoly Karpov. And that he could beat either one of them without a warm-up match, even though he hasn't played competitive chess for 15 years.
Below is a game played by Fischer in the 1966 Havana Chess Olympiad against Svetozar Gligoric of Yugoslavia.
The Tennessean, Nashville, Tennessee, Saturday, July 23, 1988 - Page 3
Bobby Fischer's chess mentor dies
Los Angeles (AP) — Lina Grumette, 80, the “chess mother” to the enigmatic Bobby Fischer when he prepared for his 1972 world championship, has died.
Grumette, who kept Fischer, then the “enfant terrible” of international chess, at her home for months at a time as he prepared for the championship, died Thursday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of complications of lung cancer. One of the best women chess players of the 1940s, she encouraged Fischer to seek the championship from Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky and accompanied him to Iceland for the match. It was there he became the only American to win a world chess title.
Fischer, now a recluse believed to be living in Southern California, has refused to play in public since. For many years, Grumette ran a club in her home called The Chess Set. It became a gathering place for tournament players and other chess celebrities. For several years she also hosted the largest Memorial Day chess tournament on the West Coast. She is survived by a son, a daughter and a grandson. A funeral will be held tomorrow.