CHESS DIGEST

(Vol. 4 No. 4, April 1971)

Kolty's Comments

How a Car Was Lost and Won: During the 1955 U.S. Open at Long Beach, California, "X" beat one opponent and was naturally credited on the result sheet with a win. Later "X" learned from other players that his opponent, during the game and when "X" was absent from the board, had retracted a move he had made, and made another move instead. "X" went to the tournament director and demanded that his opponent should be penalized.

"But you have a win marked up on the board and on your card, what more do you want?" sputtered the T.D.

"Not enough" said "X", angrily. "This man deserves to be punished. Circle the point, I prefer people believe I received the point by forfeit than that I played this man." The T.D. complied. NOW COME THE COMPLICATIONS!!!

The first prize was a new $3000 car. If two players tied, the Median points would decide the winner of the car, the other player would get a thousand dollars. (Median points are the accumulated points of players you have played. For a forfeit a half point is deducted from the total points of the person you played with.) So two players, Nicholas Rossolimo and Sammy Reshevsky, did tie. Rossolimo got the car because the Median points gave him a slight edge.

BUT later on it was discovered that Reshevsky had received only 5.5 Median points for playing "X", though "X" had scored a total of 6 points.

"X"'s insistence that the one game he considered "forfeited" resulted in costing Sammy half-a-point - enough to have tied a least! That is how a car was lost and won!!