Bobby Is Wonder at Chess, But Loses Game to Tampan

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The Tampa Times, Tampa, Florida, Friday, March 02, 1956

Bobby Fischer is one boy who never gets “board.” This burr-haired lad of 12 years is a chess champ from way back.
On tour with the Log Cabin Chess Club of West Orange, N.J., which takes some of the top players from the nation on its rounds, he lost his first game of the tour last night to Nestor Hernandez of Tampa.
The seven on circuit played in Miami, St. Petersburg, Hollywood and Havana, Cuba, before returning to St. Petersburg, yesterday and Tampa last night.

Proves Prowess
While in Havana, Bobby, chaperoned by his mother, proved his prowess as a chess player by giving a simultaneous exhibition against 10 players in the Casa Blanca Chess Club.
This simultaneous show features 10 players sitting at their respective boards which form a square surrounding Bobby. He walks from one board to another, making a play here and a play there until the game is finished.
In Havana, he claims he whipped eight players and “drew” two.
He also won his individual tournament game with J. R. Florido of Havana. Mr. Florido plans to come to Tampa in the Fall to take part in the Pan-American chess tournament.

Requires Genius
It takes a certain amount of genius to perform tasks such as those performed by Bobby, especially when you are only in the eighth grade. As a student at Brooklyn Community Woodward, a private progressive school, the nervous, blond youth with hazel eyes admits that arithmetic is the “least unpopular” subject to which he is exposed but that baseball is his favorite sport.
A native New Yorker, he became interested in the game at the age of six when his sister, Joan, now 19 and a student nurse at Brooklyn College, brought home a chess set and a book of rules.
By the time he was eight, Bobby was taking the game seriously and at 10, he joined the Brooklyn Chess Club and was tutored by the club president, Carmine Nigro.
As a current member of the Manhattan Chess Club, he plans to take part in the Metropolitan League Tournament in New York after his return this week end.”