Free Endgame by Frank Brady Page B

minus score. Years after, Bobby recalled that he was unhappy with the outcome and took to heart Nigro’s advice: “You can’t win
every
game. Just do your best
every
time.”
    A few months later, determined to make up for his poor showing, Bobby mailed in his registration to play in the U.S. Junior Championship in Lincoln, Nebraska. Nigro couldn’t take time off from his teaching schedule to accompany him, nor could Regina leave her job and studies, especially since she’d been home ill with a chronic lung problem for three weeks. So Bobby elected to go alone.
    He stood impatiently at a ticket window in Pennsylvania Station where Regina was attempting to buy him a ticket to Nebraska via Philadelphia.She’d saved the money for him to go and was determined to get him there. The plan was for Bobby to take the train to Philadelphia and meet another player, Charles Kalme, who was also going to attend the U.S. Junior. The two could then travel the almost 1,400 miles together. “How old is your son, ma’am?” the ticket agent asked. Told that the boy was twelve, the agent refused to sell her a ticket. “He’s too young to travel all that distance alone.” “But you don’t understand,” she argued. “He must go! It’s for his chess!” The agent peered over his glasses and looked at Bobby. “Why didn’t you tell me the boy was going for medical care?” Years later, Bobby laughed in reminiscing about the incident: “And he sold us the ticket without further talk. He thought there was something wrong with my
chest
!” With some trepidation Regina sent her little chess duckling on his way, but not before draping a large U.S. Army surplus dog tag around his neck, engraved with his name, address, and telephone number. “In case …,” she said. “Don’t take it off!” And he didn’t.
    Charles Kalme, a Latvian-born sixteen-year-old, was a handsome and polite boy who’d spent years in a displaced persons’ camp and was the reigning U.S. Junior champion. He and Bobby played dozens of fast games during the two-day trip and analyzed openings and endgame positions. Kalme, considerably stronger, was respectful of Bobby’s passion.
    Unfortunately for the participants in the U.S. Junior, the city of Lincoln was embroiled in a heat wave of more than one hundred degrees during the run of the tournament, and Civic Hall, the ballroom where play took place, seemed to have little if any air-conditioning. Going into the ten-round tournament, twelve-year-old Bobby was the youngest of twenty-five players. One contestant was thirteen, and there were several twenty-year-olds, all rated quite highly. Ron Gross, slightly older and more experienced than Bobby, later reflected back on Bobby’s performance there: “Fischer was skinny and fidgety but pleasant in a distracted way. He wasn’t a bad loser.He would just get real quiet, twist that dog tag even more and immediately set up the pieces to play again.”Regina called Bobby every day at an arranged time to see if he was all right, and when she received the telephone bill at the end of the month, it came to $50, more than she was paying for rent.
    Bobby, dog tag entwined, managed to compile an even score, with two wins, two losses, and six draws, fretting afterward that “I didn’t do toowell.” But he was awarded a handsome trophy for achieving the best score of a player under the age of thirteen. “I was the
only
player under 13!” Bobby was quick to point out. The trophy was quite large and heavy, yet he insisted on carrying it back to Brooklyn rather than have it shipped. “It gave me a big thrill,” he remembered, despite not having won it for exceptional play. His traveling companion, Charles Kalme, repeated his win of the previous year and was crowned the champion once again. He didn’t return to the East Coast right after the tournament, so Bobby journeyed alone, this time by bus, looking out the window sometimes, but mostly analyzing games on his pocket