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Date: 28 Dec 2008 02:09:20
From: samsloan
Subject: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
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Although I visited Reyjkavik Iceland twice during the 1972 Fischer-
Spassky Match, I was in most cases not involved in the events
described in his book. My name is never mentioned here or indeed in
any press reports about the match.
Nevertheless, I did play a small role in the events in Iceland.
First, there is a specific reason why my name is not mentioned in the
book, which is that I went to great lengths to make sure that Brad
Darrach, the author, did not get to interview me.
The reason for this goes back to an unrelated incident in 1966. At
that time, I was a student at the University of California at Berkeley
and I was the President of a small student club. (I will not bother to
mention the name of the club, as it is well known.)
I was approached by a Life Magazine reporter named Jordan Bonfante,
who said that he wanted to write an article about my club. As I was
interested in getting some publicity for the club, I welcomed him.
He proceeded to come to several of my events, including a party I held
at 2535 Benvenue Avenue in Berkeley. He even brought along his
girlfriend, danced with her at the party and seemed to have a good
time, although I must add that they did not fully participate in the
events of the party, if you get my drift.
Eventually, Jordan Bonfante came so often that I began to think of him
as a member of my group. I forgot all about the fact that he had
originally introduced himself to me as a Time-Life Reporter, working
on a story for the magazines.
I was shocked when the article appeared in the magazine a few months
later. It was a completely negative article, filled with attacks on my
group. He did not have one good word to say about us.
When I got off the airplane in Keflavik Iceland on Saturday, August
12, 1972, I was greeted by Grandmaster William Lombardy, Bobby's
second, who had come to the airport to welcome Paul Marshall, Bobby's
lawyer, who by coincidence had arrived on the same airplane with me.
Lombardy had his driver with him and gave us both a ride to the
Loftleider Hotel in Reykjavik.
When I got out of Lombardy's car and entered the hotel with Lombardy,
I was immediately greeted by a man who introduced himself and picked
up my briefcase and started carrying it to the hotel registration
desk. At first I thought that this man was a hotel bellman. However,
when I found out that this was Brad Darrach, a Time-Life Reporter, I
had a flash-back to what had happened with Jordan Bonfante six years
earlier. So, I told him in no uncertain terms that I wanted my
briefcase back. From that point on, I ignored Brad Darrach, avoided
him and refused to talk to him.
This is the reason why my name is not in his book.
I could see that he was following the same technique that Jordan
Bonfante had followed, which is to get involved with the people,
become their friends, participate in events with them, and become so
totally immersed in their scene that they would forget that he was,
after all, a news reporter. That was what Jordan Bonfante had done
with my little student club at the University of California at
Berkeley in 1966 and was the same thing that Brad Darrach did with the
American chess players during the Fischer-Spassky Match in 1972. This
must be the Time-Life Method.
Ever since, Grandmaster Lombardy has expressed admiration for the fact
that I correctly sized up Brad Darrach immediately, as soon as I met
him, and that I was the only one who avoided him and was not taken in
by him.
However, had it not been for Brad Darrach, we would not have his book.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 13 Jan 2009 07:45:24
From: Rob
Subject: Re: I ACCIDENTALLY ICELAND. IS THIS BAD?
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On Jan 5, 7:10=A0pm, "GEORGE ZIMMER, CEO AND FOUNDER OF MEN'S WAREHOUSE"
<[email protected] > wrote:
> HALP GUYS
Sam,
how is your hunt for your girls going?
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Date: 07 Jan 2009 01:26:13
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
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I do not remember seeing Darrach there at the conclusion of the match.
He probably left Iceland before the end. Whomever his source was who
reported the events of "The Ball of the Century" very likely would not
have known who Grandmaster Quinteros was, and certainly would not have
known who I was.
There have been many published reports on the "Ball of the Century".
The fact that Fischer was sitting there with two girls had often been
mentioned. The girls still get interviewed from time to time.
Yet, there has not been one mention of the fact that Grandmaster
Quinteros was sitting next to the second girl.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 06 Jan 2009 19:40:49
From: Rob
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
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On Jan 6, 7:36=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> The last part of =93Bobby Fischer vs. The Rest of the World=94 is weak on
> the last part of the match. It only gives brief accounts of what
> happened after Game 13. It seems possible that Darrach did not stay
> until the end of the match and is basing the last pages of the book on
> reports he received from others.
>
> Yet, the last part of the match was when the most tumultuous events of
> the match occurred. Bobby, Fred Cramer and myself had entered the
> playing hall at about midnight on the night after the 13th game.
> However, the Russians did not find out about this until about ten days
> later, which was after Game 17. This incident, which hit the world
> news, is only briefly mentioned in Darrach's book.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 =A0 Sam Sloan
why is it that no one else has ever written of you being? Where are
the photos? Why have you never written a book?
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Date: 06 Jan 2009 17:36:26
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
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The last part of =93Bobby Fischer vs. The Rest of the World=94 is weak on
the last part of the match. It only gives brief accounts of what
happened after Game 13. It seems possible that Darrach did not stay
until the end of the match and is basing the last pages of the book on
reports he received from others.
Yet, the last part of the match was when the most tumultuous events of
the match occurred. Bobby, Fred Cramer and myself had entered the
playing hall at about midnight on the night after the 13th game.
However, the Russians did not find out about this until about ten days
later, which was after Game 17. This incident, which hit the world
news, is only briefly mentioned in Darrach's book.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 06 Jan 2009 17:30:02
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
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There is one incident mentioned in the book that struck me as false.
That is a quotation on the original dust jacket of the book, which
says, =93Tell 'em if they bother me any more, I'll go home=94.
I was there at the time when Bobby supposedly spoke those words. I
jumped when I read this quote, which comes from page 231 of the book.
It was at this point that I was sitting across from Bobby and the two
Icelandic girls. There was a big crowd of Icelanders, who were pushing
against the bodyguards, trying to get Bobby's autograph. When Bobby
saw one especially attractive woman in the crowd, he said, =93OK. I'll
give one to the girl.=94 He told the bodyguards to let her through and
then he signed his autograph for her.
That was the only comment I saw Bobby make. Also, he would not have
said =93I'll go home=94, as his home was in either New York or California.
He might have said, =93I'll leave=94.
However, I cannot be absolutely certain that he did not make the
quoted statement. It is just that I did not hear him say it.
Another false statement on the same page 231 is where it says =93Bobby
and his party were the last guests to leave=94. This is not true at all.
Bobby left alone with Grandmaster Quinertos. The girls stayed behind.
As proof of this, we do not have any little Bobbys running around
Iceland to this day. Those girls were looking for action. When Bobby
and Quinteros left, about half of the crowd was still there. In
reality, the last to leave were myself and Fred Cramer, plus the night
watchman.
Another thing, the name of Grandmaster Quinteros is nowhere mentioned
in Brad Darrach's book. Yet, on the video on YouTube showing Bobby
getting on the airplane to leave Iceland, Grandmaster Quinteros is
shown walking up the steps to the aircraft directly behind Bobby.
The last part of =93Bobby Fischer vs. The Rest of the World=94 is weak on
the last part of the match. It only gives brief accounts of what
happened after Game 13. It seems possible that Darrach did not stay
until the end of the match and is basing the last pages of the book on
reports he received from others.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 05 Jan 2009 21:16:36
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
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I Return to Iceland, September 2, 1972
I first traveled to Iceland during the 1972 Great Fischer-Spassky
Match because Fischer's lawyer, Andy Davis, called me and told me that
Fischer would like for me to come to visit him. For that reason, on
Friday Afternoon, August 11, 1972, after the Stock Market had closed,
I ran to JFK Airport and caught an Icelandic Airlines flight to
Iceland, arriving on the morning of Saturday August 12, 1972.
I intended to return the following day, because it was absolutely
necessary to be in my office when the stock market opened on Monday
morning, because I was the principal of a registered securities broker-
dealer and only I could sign the checks. My firm received an average
of $50,000 to $100,000 in securities deliveries every day and turned
around and delivered out a like amount and I wrote and signed checks
for these amounts, so it was necessary for me to be there.
Unfortunately, I missed the Sunday flight back to New York and, as
there was only one flight per day because Icelandic Airlines had only
one airplane, so I had to stay one extra day in Iceland.
The result of that one extra day in Iceland was that I got to meet
Laufey Gu=F0mundsd=F3ttir and Hr=F6nn Isleifsd=F3ttir, which started me on =
an
addiction from which it took me several years to recover.
It was not feasible for me to fly every weekend to Iceland and then
return the following day to New York, so I decided that my next trip
to Iceland would be on Labor Day Weekend, September 2-4, 1972, so that
way I could get to spend two days with Bobby.
By fortunate coincidence, it turned out that the match ended on Labor
Day Weekend, so I got to be there for the end of the match and to
enjoy the festivities that took place after word.
When my flight left JFK Airport on Friday night, September 1, as far
as everybody knew the match was still being played. However, when the
airplane landed in Keflavik Airport in Iceland six hours later, we
heard the rumor that Spassky had resigned.
The book, Bobby Fischer vs. The Rest of the World, describes the
sequence of events in much greater detail.
What I heard when I got to Hotel Loftleidir in Reykjavik was that
Spassky had resigned by telephone but that Fischer was refusing to
accept the resignation unless it was in person!
=93Oh, Great=94, I thought. Here the match was really over, but there was
a new crisis because Bobby was refusing to accept Boris'es
resignation. Can there be no end to these crises?
Fortunately, after a variety of high level conferences detailed in
Bobby Fischer vs. The Rest of the World, the chief arbiter, Lothar
Schmid, decided to accept Spassky's resignation and the match was
over.
However, in part because of this incident, it has been decided by FIDE
that telephone resignations are not valid. The player must appear at
the board and resign in person.
I met Fred Cramer in the hotel lobby of the Hotel Loftleidir and he
told me that there was going to be a great celebration in Reykjavik
the following night and every important person in Iceland would be
there. Would I like to attend?, he asked.
Of course, I wanted to attend.
Cramer asked me to come with him. We then went to see an Icelandic
official in charge of the tickets. =93I absolutely must have two tickets
to the Ball of the Century tomorrow=94, Cramer said.
=93Impossible=94, the official answered.
Cramer protested, saying, =93These are for personal guests of Bobby
Fischer.=94 The Icelandic official told him to go see another official.
So, Cramer and I went to see the second official, again explaining
that personal guests of Bobby Fischer needed these tickets.
=93Impossible=94, was what he also said.
This process continued. Finally, Cramer found a very high official who
was willing to give Cramer two tickets for the =93personal guests of
Bobby Fischer=94.
During this entire time that I had been following around Fred Cramer,
I had no idea what this was all about. I had no idea that one of the
=93two personal guests of Bobby Fischer=94 was me. I later learned that
Bobby had strictly instructed Fred Cramer to get me a ticket.
But who was the other ticket for? This was a mystery.
I soon found out that the other ticket was for Joan, Bobby's sister.
Bobby's sister, upon learning that Bobby had won the big match and was
now the World Chess Champion, had flown in from Luxembourg.
However, now there was a new problem. Bobby had been estranged from
his sister for many years and did not want to see her. Fortunately,
Bobby's mother had not come, or the situation would have been far
worse.
Now, Cramer and the rest of the US Gang had to decided what to do
about this delicate situation. Cramer was looking around the room to
try to find somebody to deal with this problem. Obviously, the best
sort of person to deal with this problem would be a Catholic Priest.
Fortunately, we just so happened to have one handy. Grandmaster
William Lombardy, who was also a Catholic Priest, was deputized for
this purpose.
=93Lombardy is my chess boy=94, declared Fischer, when Cramer tried to
approach him about this.
When Cramer reported this back, Lombardy said, =93I'm not his chess boy
any longer. The match is over.=94
This situation created a great quandary. Cramer and the other American
match officials simply could not break it to Joan Fischer that Bobby
was refusing to see his sister and that she was not allowed to attend
=93The Ball of the Century=94.
On the other hand, if Fischer found out that his sister was present,
he might refuse to attend and to accept his award for winning the
World Chess Championship. This was a serious situation, because
Fischer had done things exactly like that in the past.
Finally, it was decided to let Joan Fischer attend the =93Ball of the
Century=94 but to place her far away from Bobby, in the hope that he
would not see her. As it happened I had arrived from New York and
Bobby had told Cramer to obtain a ticker for me, so the two tickets
that Cramer had succeeded in obtaining were one for me and the other
one for Joan Fischer.
The =93Ball of the Century=94 was to take place the following day, a
Sunday. It was held in Laugarsdalholl Hall, the same place where the
chess match had been held. With the tickets obtained by Fred Cramer, I
was seated next to Joan Fischer, as Cramer had obtained tickets for
both her and me at the same time.
Joan Fischer wore a long flowery, baggy dress that went down her
ankles, the type of dress that hippie chicks typically wore during the
1960s. Joan also wore a hippie headband. I got the distinct impression
that Joan Fischer was a hippie.
I politely introduced myself and we engaged in a pleasant but
uneventful conversation.
I was on the verge of asking her the BIG QUESTION. I did say to her
that now that Fischer was a famous person as World Chess Champion,
people would be asking questions about him. I have regretted ever
since that I did not ask her the question. The question was: =93Who was
Bobby Fischer's real father?=94
During the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the
Chicago Riots in which I had participated, I had stayed as a guest in
Frank Brady's home. Brady was Fischer's biographer. Brady had told me
that there was a big secret as to who Bobby's real father was. Brady
had tried as hard as he could but he could not break the wall of
secrecy that surrounded this question, as all of Fischer's relatives
would shut up when asked this question.
Strangely, I mentioned this conversation to Frank Brady more than
thirty years later and he could not remember it. I eventually started
a Freedom of Information Act request for investigation into this
matter, which eventually revealed in 2002 that Bobby Fischer's real
father had been Paul Nemenyi, a Hungarian physicist. I can prove that
I knew the identity of Bobby's Real Father before it appeared in the
press because on November 1, 2002, I called Hungarian Grandmasters Pal
Benko and Zsuzsa Polgar and told them that Nemenyi was Fisher's real
father. This was before the story appeared in the press. I also posted
on the chess newsgroups an article entitled =93An Atomic Bomb is about
to drop into the Bobby Fischer Story=94, based on the fact that Nemenyi
had been a scientist involved in the development of the first nuclear
bomb in the Manhattan Project in Chicago, at the same time that
Fischer had been born.
Paul Nemenyi was a research scientist who worked on the development of
the Atomic Bomb in the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago.
He worked on the mechanism which triggered the bomb. His work remains
classified and little is known about the work he did or about the
circumstances of his death.
He died in Washington State, in Hanford, Washington. He was a
professor in the State College of Washington and lived in Hanford.
Hanford, Washington was and still is a top secret facility where the
atomic bomb was developed that was dropped on Nagasaki.
At =93The Ball of the Century=94, Fischer as usual arrived late. There was
tension in th crowd, because it was feared that Fischer might not
come. With Bobby Fischer, one could never tell what is going to happen
next.
When Fischer walked in the door, arriving through the back entrance,
there was a sensation in the crown. Another sensation arose when
Fischer pulled out his pocket chess set that he always carries with
him and started analyzing chess with Spassky. Spassky had been seated
next to Fischer. There were a lot of =93oohas=94 and =93aahas=94 from the
crowd as Fischer and Spassky started making moves on Fischer's pocket
chess set.
During the meal, I had been seated far from Fischer. After the dinner
was finished and people started to leave, I was able to get closer to
Fischer. There were a lot of elegantly and beautifully dressed
Icelandic women at the =93Ball of the Century=94. They were also dead
drink. I was wondering if they would get home safely.
When I got close to Fischer, he was surrounded by a ring of
bodyguards. When I got too close, the bodyguards pushed me away.
It was then that Fischer started waving to them to let me in. When the
body guards saw that Fischer was welcoming me, they let me pass and I
sat down at the table with Fischer.
By now, Spassky had left but most of the Icelanders were still there.
Fischer was seated directly across the table from me. There were two
Icelandic girls there too. One Icelandic girl was on each side of
Fischer. Fischer had already danced with one of the Icelandic girls,
which had caused a great sensation in the crown. It was clear what the
Icelandic girls had on their minds: They were thinking about
procreation.
To the right of Fischer, next to one of the Icelandic girls, was
Grandmaster Miguel Quinteros of Argentina. Quinteros is a well known
womanizer and it was evident what Quinteros was thinking about too.
Fischer and Quinteros started speaking in Spanish to each other. This
may have been so that the girls would not know what they were saying.
My Spanish is quite good, excellent. Nevertheless, I could not follow
their conversation. It seemed that Fischer spoke Spanish better than I
did.
Finally, Fischer said to the girls, =93We have to leave=94, meaning that
he and Quinteros had to leave.
The girls said that they would like to come with them.
=93You cannot come with us because we are going swimming and you do not
have swimming trunks with you=94, said Fischer.
=93No problem=94, said the girls. They were obviously not at all concerned
about their lack of swimming suits.
I was completely shocked and flabbergasted when suddenly Fischer and
Quinteros got up and left by the back door, leaving the two girls
behind, still sitting across the table from me.
By the way, the girls were of average appearance. They were not
especially beautiful, at least not by Icelandic standards, which
abounds in beautiful women, but Fischer had met them previously and
knew them.
All this time, I had been just naturally assuming that Fischer would
spend the night in bed with the two them. Now, he had left them
behind.
So, I decided to trot out the old line, =93As you can obviously see, I
am a friend of Fischer. If you want to sleep with Bobby, you have to
sleep with me first.=94
Sad to relate, the girls had absolutely no interest in talking to me
at all. One of the girls wandered off fairly quickly. The other girl
hung around the Laugarsdalholl Hall for a long time and did not seem
to want to leave. She was among the last to leave.
I approached her several times trying to start up a conversation with
her. It would be a big score if I had succeeded in bedding the girl
that Fischer had rejected. Alas, she turned up her nose and ignored me
every time I tried to speak to her.
I had nowhere else to go so, I hung around. Another person who had
nowhere else to go was Fred Cramer. The hall was almost empty when
Fred Cramer got up on the stage where the chess games had been played.
The famous chess boards and chess pieces were still there. They had
not been moved. So Fred Cramer sat down in one of the chairs, the same
famous chair that Fischer had used during the match.
Fred Cramer was not really a strong player. He was a very active
tournament player. I had played in many tournaments where he had also
been playing. At very best, he was an 1800 strength player. I would
give him 1750.
After Cramer sat down at the board where the Fischer-Spassky match has
been played, the night watch man sat down opposite him and they
started making moves.
I was amused by this. Here was the former President of the United
States Chess Federation playing a chess match against the night
watchman. Who will win?
Actually, the result is not obvious. In Iceland, every male person
knows how to play chess. I would estimate that the average male person
in Iceland is about 1700 strength. On the other hand, girls almost
never play chess in Iceland. It is a boys game.
So, as I watched this chess game with only the three of us now still
left in the Laugarsdalholl Hall, I was secretly rooting for the night
watchman. Sure enough, the night watchman quickly secured an
overwhelming advantage. However, Fred Cramer was an experienced
tournament player and he hung on grimly. Finally, the night watchman
started making weak moves and Cramer won the game.
After that, the night watchman closed the place up and Cramer and I
left.
I met with Bobby the following day. I told him that I had been able to
see the chessboard close enough when he had been analyzing with
Spassky using his pocket chess set so that I could see that they were
analyzing the final position of the match from the point where Spassky
had resigned.
I had seen Fischer correcting several of Spassky's moves.
=93Yea, he had it figured out wrong=94, Fischer said.
Fischer had analyzed the position thoroughly and had stayed up a good
part of the night working out the details. He knew the position cold
in every variation. There was no was that Spassky could have survived.
That was the reason why Fischer had been disappointed when Spassky
resigned by telephone and did not show up to play out the last game of
the match.
=93Now that you are World Chess Champion, what do you want to do next?=94,
I asked.
=93I want to play chess=94, replied Bobby.
This answer is surprising because, for the rest of his life, Bobby
Fischer never played chess again, except for in the 1992 Fischer-
Spassky Match in Yugoslavia, which Bobby won by almost the same score
as he had won the 1972 match.
Because Bobby had disobeyed State Department orders by playing the
1992, match he spent the rest of his life as a =93fugitive from American
justice=94. He died on January 18, 2008 back in Reykjavik, Iceland, the
place that had given him refuge after the Bush Administration had
declared him a fugitive from justice.
As I could not stay more than two days in Iceland, I flew back to New
York on September 4, 1972, which was Labor Day.
When I got back to JFK Airport in New York, I went straight to the
Icelandic Airlines check-in counter. There was an Icelandic girl
working there checking in passengers. I later learned that her name
was Gulla. I approached her and said:
=93I just got back from Iceland. I am a friend of Bobby Fischer. I am in
love with Iceland. I especially love the Icelandic women. I own a big
stock brokerage firm. I make a lot of money. I want to hire an
Icelandic girl to work for me. Do you have any friend who wants a
job?=94
Gulla said that she did have such a friend. Actually, I was surprised
when Gulla gave me her telephone number.
I did not call the number right away. Girls often give out a fake
telephone number. I did not think much about it. Finally, I did call,
and Gulla said that she had a friend that would like a job. Gulla put
her on the telephone. It turned out that she had been waiting for my
call.
Her name was Hafdis Einarsd=F3ttir, but she called herself =93Heidi=94. She
came in the next day for a job interview and I hired her on the spot.
She started work immediately.
The very next day, I received a telephone call from Mayor Lindsay's
office. Mayor Lindsay was giving Bobby Fischer the keys to the city.
Could I come?
I had yes, but I had an Icelandic girl with me and, since the match
had been held in Iceland, could I bring her along?
The Mayor's office said =93yes=94, to I turned to Heidi and said, =93We are
going to see the Mayor=94. We got up and left.
I later found out that Bobby Fischer had told the Mayor's office to
give special invitations to three people: Bernard Zuckerman, James
Gore and Sam Sloan. However, they had not been able to locate James
Gore. Bernard Zuckerman had not picked up his messages in time, so he
had not made it. On the other hand, Bobby did not want his closest
friend, Jackie Beers, there, because Beers, a schizophrenic, was too
disruptive and crazy. Bobby had also banned USCF Executive Director
Edmund Edmondson from attending, even though Edmondson had, perhaps
more than anybody else, made it possibly for Bobby to play the match.
When Bobby had found out that Edmondson had been invited, Bobby said,
=93If that man is there, I'm not coming.=94 As a result the Mayor's office
had been forced to call Edmondson and dis-invite him from attending.
There is now a video on youtube.com showing Bobby Fischer receiving
the Key to the City from Mayor Lindsay. The video is fuzzy and you
cannot make out our faces, but Heidi and I are sitting there, behind
and to the left of Bobby Fischer and Mayor Lindsay.
After Bobby Fischer had received the Keys to the City, we were invited
inside City Hall for a reception. Heidi spent most of her time talking
in Icelandic to S=E6mundur P=E1lsson, Bobby's bodyguard.
Heidi certainly was impressed as a result of being on TV where all her
friends could see her, and meeting the Mayor, only one day after
starting to work for me.
Before long, I had three Icelandic girls working for me and, as far as
I am concerned, the rest is history.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 04 Jan 2009 21:50:18
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
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I did not initially post the chapter below, although I did post the
chapter before and after this one.
I then received an email from Al Lawrence who is writing about the
history of the USCF and about the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match. Al
Lawrence asked if I could provide the names of any individuals who
could verify that I was there at that time and place.
Unfortunately, all of the main actors who would remember these
incidents, namely Bobby Fischer, Fred Cramer and Brad Darrach, are now
dead.
However there are two people who could bear witness to the fact that I
was there. There names are Laufey Gu=F0mundsd=F3ttir and Hr=F6nn
Isleifsd=F3ttir. Although 36 years have since passed, I would be willing
to bet that they still remember me and by the way I have found out
that both of them are still alive.
My article that you find objectionable is the one that ties these
events together. The incidents of August 12-13, 1972 hit the world
news, were broadcast every where and are still being written about
today.
I am the only person still alive who was there and who knows exactly
what happened on those fateful nights.
I have kept the events of those nights a secret until now. The reason
for secrecy is revealed in the current January 2009 issue of Chess
Life on pages 12-13 under the heading "Fischer Secrets".
Sam Sloan
[quote=3D"tsawmiller"]Not only off-topic, but sanctionable. This Forum
was not created for people to reminisce about their sexual escapades.
[url=3Dhttp://www.uschess.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=3D122108#p122108]
Subject: #122108:Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972[/url]
[quote=3D"samsloan"]In Iceland with Bobby Fischer, Day 2, August 13,
1972, continued
I missed the flight back to New York because Skuli Thoradsson's
drunken friend was on the telephone and I could not call a taxi on
time, so I was stuck in Iceland for another day.
At least one thing I accomplished at the airport was that they made a
firm reservation for me to fly back to New York the following day, so
that I would definitely be back there on time for when the stock
market opened on Tuesday, August 15, 1972.
I had the home telephone number of Joe Tamargo who normally worked for
me as my runner and had the keys to my Wall Street office. I called
and told him to go to the office in the morning, answer the telephone,
tell them that the trader is out for the day and when any runners came
to make stock deliveries, tell them that the cashier is out sick and
to come back tomorrow.
That was the best I could do in this situation.
I then went back to Hotel Loftleidir.
I was standing in the lobby of the Hotel Loftleidir talking to some
other chess players when an Icelandic Airlines official came up to me.
This was the same airline official who had made the reservation for me
to fly back to New York that day, even though the flight was full and
overbooked.
He asked me what I was doing there as I was supposed to be on the
flight back to New York.
I explained that I had missed the flight.
He was angry and absolutely livid. I have rarely seen anybody so
angry. He said that he had gone to extreme measures, pushing people
aside so that I could catch that flight and now I had missed it.
I said that that was OK as now I had a reservation for a flight the
following day.
He said that I had better not miss this one as he will never do
another thing for me again.
By this time, it was already late in the afternoon. I am now trying to
reconstruct what happened next. It is possible that the incident with
Bobby Fischer in the swimming pool took place at this time, not the
previous day. Several of the things had to have happened on Day One
such as the blitz tournament, because I had to drop out because of
being dizzy due to an all night flight from New York.
I know that on this, my first trip to Iceland, I left Friday Evening
August 11 and arrived Saturday morning August 12. I remember the exact
date because I had to leave on a Friday if I was going to go at all,
and because I remember William Lombardy telling me about a move that
all the commentators had missed during the 13th game of the match,
which had just been played.
My second trip to Iceland was on Labor Day Weekend. I left on Friday
September 1 and I arrived on Saturday September 2. This time, I
remember the date because when I took off from JFK Airport the match
was still being played but when I landed in Iceland the news or rumor
was out that Spassky had resigned the last game and thereby the match.
Because it was Labor Day in America, I was able to stay two days in
Iceland. I returned to America on Monday, September 4.
It was a lucky coincidence that the Fischer-Spassky Match concluded on
Labor Day Weekend so I was able to be there on time for the big
festivities. It was scheduled as a 24 game match, but if the
challenger got 12 =BD points or the champion reached 12 points before
the 24 game limit was reached, then the match was over.
In other words, the champion got draw odds.
By winning game 21 of the match, Fischer had won the match by a score
of 12 =BD =96 8 =BD and Spassky's 8 =BD points included a forfeit win in ga=
me
two. Had Fischer not won game 21, the match could have gone on at
least another week.
By the end of Day Two I had heard that there was really wild
outrageous parties and nightlife in Reykjavik and I should try the
clubs. There were several clubs in Reykjavik, but the largest and most
interesting was the Klubberin, which means, in the Icelandic Language,
literally, =93The Club=94.
It was three stories high with a band on each floor. It was packed
with people. I am sure that in size it was bigger than any dance club
in New York City, bigger than the famous Studio 54, for example. Of
course, I did not know anybody there, as I had come alone. I just
started walking around, going up to the top floor, walking around,
going to the second floor, walking around, going to the ground floor,
walking around, and then starting back up again.
Funny thing, it seemed like everybody else was doing the same thing. I
kept running into the same people. I would be going up the stairs and
bump into a girl who was coming down and then as I was coming down
bump into the same girl who was going up again.
Everybody was outrageously drunk, except for me. I am sure that I
probably had one or two drinks. However, in this situation, I will
often order a coke and then hold it like it is alcohol to make others
think that I am drinking along with them.
As I was walking around like this, two girls who were sitting on
benches called me over. Of course, they were drunk although not
outrageously drunk. They introduced themselves. One was named Laufey.
The other one was named Hr=F6nn. I know this because I still have the
paper, 36 years later, where they wrote their names, addresses and
telephone numbers. Finally, Hr=F6nn popped the question. Pointing to
Laufey, she asked =93Do you love her?=94
=93Yes, I love her=94, I answered.
=93Do you want her?=94, Hr=F6nn asked.
Yes, I want her=94, I answered.
Then she asked again, =93Do you really want her?=94
=93Yes, I really want her.=94
She then repeated these questions a few more times and after a while I
began to think it was just talk. I was about to move on when Hr=F6nn
said, =93We go to my house.=94
So, okay, this started to seem like the real thing.
We then left The Club together. There were now six of us. Laufey,
Hr=F6nn, myself, another girl, and two Icelandic guys. We all got in a
taxi and went to the house of one of the girls.
We were all paired off. I was with Laufey, Hr=F6nn and the other girl
were each with one of the other guys.
We were in a porch like structure at the front entrance to a house.
Everybody laid down on the floor. I started hugging and kissing
Laufey, feeling her up, her feeling me up, and meanwhile Hr=F6nn and the
other girl were doing the same thing with their respective partners.
This was really getting interesting. This was almost like my old SFL
parties in Berkeley and it seemed that it was going to end the same
way, with everybody doing it with everybody else.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door from inside the house. One of
the girls got up and went in. She came out a minute later. Her parents
had told her that the time was up and everybody had to go home.
I was really surprised. I had not realized that while we seemed to be
on the verge of having an orgy, all this time the parents were in the
next room.
So we all got up and put our coats on. I left with the two guys, who
were as disappointed as I was that things did not go to completion.
Altogether this entire incident was of no consequence and nothing ever
came of it. However, I had the home addresses and telephone numbers of
Laufey Gu=F0mundsd=F3ttir and Hr=F6nn Isleifsd=F3ttir. I sent them post car=
ds
over the next several years.
It was the ease of this incident that caused me to become infatuated
with Icelandic girls. For the next several years I was constantly
involved with everything about Iceland.
I will add here however that there is a common belief that Icelandic
women are loose and easy to get. I have found that this is not true.
They are actually hard to get. They get drunk a lot and talk freely
and this makes them seem loose. However, when it comes to the real
thing it is not so easy. There was a large delegation of foreigners,
Americans, Russians, and newspaper reporters and photographers from
every country of the world in Reykjavik for the big match. Many of
them went to the clubs and tried to pick up Icelandic women. I believe
that several of them got about as far as I did. However, none of them
that I know of ever actually slept with an Icelandic woman.
On the other hand, you could go to any other country in Europe, to
England, to Germany or better yet to the Eastern European countries
under Communist rule such as Poland and you would have a good chance
of getting a girl on the first night, free of charge of course.
Indeed, I often did so.
Not so, Iceland. Eventually, I went to Iceland 11 times. I often went
to the clubs and tried to pick up girls. In all that time, I only
actually slept two times with Icelandic women. Slim pickings, I must
say. One of them later married an American and moved to America.
After leaving the house where our little party had just concluded, I
was not going to take any chances of missing the next flight back to
America. So, after catching a quick catnap at the Hotel Loftleidir, I
went to Keflavik Airport, arriving several hours early, and caught the
flight to New York.
Sam Sloan[/quote][/quote]
|
| |
Date: 03 Jan 2009 04:15:29
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
Somehow I forgot to mention my only actual Icelandic girlfriend.
Her name was Hilgegunner Adolfsdottir.
I have lost track of her. I cannot find her in the Icelandic telephone
book and I am told that she lives in America now.
Of course, this all started with Laufey Gu=F0mundsd=F3ttir
Sam Sloan
On Jan 2, 7:37=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 7:01=A0pm, sigvaldi <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jan 2, 2:02=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > On Jan 2, 8:48=A0am, sigvaldi <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > On Jan 2, 12:58=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > > The girls in the pictures are definitely not 55 years old. They a=
re
> > > > > more like 20, so that could not be her.
>
> > > > > Also, Helgadottir is a strange and unusual name forIceland. It
> > > > > indicates that she does not know who her father was, so she was n=
amed
> > > > > after her mother.
>
> > > > No Sam. It means that her father=B4s name is Helgi.
> > > > It would have been Helgud=F3ttir if she was named after her mother =
(if
> > > > her name was Helga)
> > > > Helgi is one of the more common names inIceland
>
> > > Thank you so very much for correcting me.
>
> > > Now that we have you online, do you happen to know any of the people =
I
> > > have mentioned in this article, not counting those who are famous of
> > > course?
>
> > No, I do not.
> > It is one of the more persistent myths about Iceland that everybody
> > knows everyone else.
> > It is sadly just a myth.
>
> > > I have so far mentioned the names of six Icelandic girls, at least
> > > they were girls back then 36 years ago when I knew them. One of the
> > > six I am still in contact with to this day. I exchange IMs and emails
> > > with her and her children all the time.
>
> > > Do you know the other five?
>
> > No, but having their names and approximate ages might enable me to
> > find the others (as I found Laufey in my previous post)
>
> > > Sam Sloan
>
> Four of them worked for me in 1972.
>
> They were Hafdis Einarsdotter. She had just turned 21 in 1972
>
> Johanna Baldursdottir. She was about 24 and had already been married
> and divorced. She was from the small town of Thorlakshofn on the south
> coast of Iceland.
>
> Inga Brandsdottir, she was 18 or 19 in 1972
>
> Helga Thorvardarsdottir I think she was about 23 or 24 in 1973.
>
> Another girl I got involved with 1975 Palina Kristjansdottir . She was
> from Akranes. I think she was about 19 or 20 in 1974.
>
> Finally, there was a girl but I forget her name. She applied for a job
> with me and I agreed to hire her but I had to close my office just
> before she started work. She had been the Icelandic representative in
> the Miss World Beauty Contest, so she was called Miss Iceland World. I
> think she was 18 in 1973. If I heard her name I would remember it, I
> think.
>
> Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 02 Jan 2009 16:37:47
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 2, 7:01=A0pm, sigvaldi <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 2:02=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jan 2, 8:48=A0am, sigvaldi <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > On Jan 2, 12:58=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > The girls in the pictures are definitely not 55 years old. They are
> > > > more like 20, so that could not be her.
>
> > > > Also, Helgadottir is a strange and unusual name forIceland. It
> > > > indicates that she does not know who her father was, so she was nam=
ed
> > > > after her mother.
>
> > > No Sam. It means that her father=B4s name is Helgi.
> > > It would have been Helgud=F3ttir if she was named after her mother (i=
f
> > > her name was Helga)
> > > Helgi is one of the more common names inIceland
>
> > Thank you so very much for correcting me.
>
> > Now that we have you online, do you happen to know any of the people I
> > have mentioned in this article, not counting those who are famous of
> > course?
>
> No, I do not.
> It is one of the more persistent myths about Iceland that everybody
> knows everyone else.
> It is sadly just a myth.
>
> > I have so far mentioned the names of six Icelandic girls, at least
> > they were girls back then 36 years ago when I knew them. One of the
> > six I am still in contact with to this day. I exchange IMs and emails
> > with her and her children all the time.
>
> > Do you know the other five?
>
> No, but having their names and approximate ages might enable me to
> find the others (as I found Laufey in my previous post)
>
> > Sam Sloan
Four of them worked for me in 1972.
They were Hafdis Einarsdotter. She had just turned 21 in 1972
Johanna Baldursdottir. She was about 24 and had already been married
and divorced. She was from the small town of Thorlakshofn on the south
coast of Iceland.
Inga Brandsdottir, she was 18 or 19 in 1972
Helga Thorvardarsdottir I think she was about 23 or 24 in 1973.
Another girl I got involved with 1975 Palina Kristjansdottir . She was
from Akranes. I think she was about 19 or 20 in 1974.
Finally, there was a girl but I forget her name. She applied for a job
with me and I agreed to hire her but I had to close my office just
before she started work. She had been the Icelandic representative in
the Miss World Beauty Contest, so she was called Miss Iceland World. I
think she was 18 in 1973. If I heard her name I would remember it, I
think.
Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 02 Jan 2009 16:01:46
From: sigvaldi
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 2, 2:02=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 8:48=A0am, sigvaldi <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > On Jan 2, 12:58=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > The girls in the pictures are definitely not 55 years old. They are
> > > more like 20, so that could not be her.
>
> > > Also, Helgadottir is a strange and unusual name forIceland. It
> > > indicates that she does not know who her father was, so she was named
> > > after her mother.
>
> > No Sam. It means that her father=B4s name is Helgi.
> > It would have been Helgud=F3ttir if she was named after her mother (if
> > her name was Helga)
> > Helgi is one of the more common names inIceland
>
> Thank you so very much for correcting me.
>
> Now that we have you online, do you happen to know any of the people I
> have mentioned in this article, not counting those who are famous of
> course?
No, I do not.
It is one of the more persistent myths about Iceland that everybody
knows everyone else.
It is sadly just a myth.
> I have so far mentioned the names of six Icelandic girls, at least
> they were girls back then 36 years ago when I knew them. One of the
> six I am still in contact with to this day. I exchange IMs and emails
> with her and her children all the time.
>
> Do you know the other five?
No, but having their names and approximate ages might enable me to
find the others (as I found Laufey in my previous post)
> Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 02 Jan 2009 06:02:03
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 2, 8:48=A0am, sigvaldi <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 12:58=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > The girls in the pictures are definitely not 55 years old. They are
> > more like 20, so that could not be her.
>
> > Also, Helgadottir is a strange and unusual name forIceland. It
> > indicates that she does not know who her father was, so she was named
> > after her mother.
>
> No Sam. It means that her father=B4s name is Helgi.
> It would have been Helgud=F3ttir if she was named after her mother (if
> her name was Helga)
> Helgi is one of the more common names in Iceland
Thank you so very much for correcting me.
Now that we have you online, do you happen to know any of the people I
have mentioned in this article, not counting those who are famous of
course?
I have so far mentioned the names of six Icelandic girls, at least
they were girls back then 36 years ago when I knew them. One of the
six I am still in contact with to this day. I exchange IMs and emails
with her and her children all the time.
Do you know the other five?
Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 02 Jan 2009 05:57:06
From: sigvaldi
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 2, 6:01=A0am, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 12:37=A0am, Rob <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Sam,
> > Far be it from me to keep two destined lovers apart. I have done my
> > part. You may contact her here, via her Facebook page.
>
> >http://www.facebook.com/people/Laufey-Gumundsdottir/1629871062
>
> Thank you.
>
> I just sent her an instant message.
>
> However, her name is extremely common inIcelandso the chances are
> slim that this is the same person.
There are 535 women with Laufey as her first name and 155 who use it
as a second name.
Common but not that common.
> She had to be 20 to get into Klubberin so she would have to be 56 now.
=CDslendingab=F3k has one Laufey Gu=F0mundsd=F3ttir born in august 1953 (th=
e
next one before is born in 1940 and the next after in 1964 so this
must be the correct one.
|
| |
Date: 02 Jan 2009 05:48:20
From: sigvaldi
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 2, 12:58=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
>
> The girls in the pictures are definitely not 55 years old. They are
> more like 20, so that could not be her.
>
> Also, Helgadottir is a strange and unusual name forIceland. It
> indicates that she does not know who her father was, so she was named
> after her mother.
No Sam. It means that her father=B4s name is Helgi.
It would have been Helgud=F3ttir if she was named after her mother (if
her name was Helga)
Helgi is one of the more common names in Iceland
|
| |
Date: 02 Jan 2009 05:08:35
From: Rob
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 2, 6:58=A0am, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 1:13=A0am, Rob <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jan 2, 12:08=A0am, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > On Jan 2, 1:06=A0am, Rob <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > On Jan 2, 12:01=A0am, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > > On Jan 2, 12:37=A0am, Rob <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > > > Sam,
> > > > > > Far be it from me to keep two destined lovers apart. I have don=
e my
> > > > > > part. You may contact her here, via her Facebook page.
>
> > > > > >http://www.facebook.com/people/Laufey-Gumundsdottir/1629871062
>
> > > > > Thank you.
>
> > > > > I just sent her an instant message.
>
> > > > > However, her name is extremely common in Iceland so the chances a=
re
> > > > > slim that this is the same person.
>
> > > > > She had to be 20 to get into Klubberin so she would have to be 56=
now.
>
> > > > > Sam Sloan
>
> > > > If you know her age to be 56, I have another source to use. Do you
> > > > want me to try?
> > > > Rob
>
> > > Frankly, my guess is she was 19 then. Perhaps the drinking age was
> > > lower then. That would make her 55 now.
>
> > > Sam
>
> > Sam,
> > It is her. If you look she lists one of her friends as Hronn:
>
> >http://www.facebook.com/people/Hronn-Helgadottir/1514767808
>
> > Good luck!
>
> > Rob
> > PS. =A0See, I'm am not the heartless evil person you think I am! LOL
>
> The girls in the pictures are definitely not 55 years old. They are
> more like 20, so that could not be her.
>
> Also, Helgadottir is a strange and unusual name for Iceland. It
> indicates that she does not know who her father was, so she was named
> after her mother.
>
> Sam Sloan
Sam,
I think those are her children or grand children. It is not likely
that someone with her name would also have a friend with the exact
name you provided though. Best of luck connecting.
Rob
|
| |
Date: 02 Jan 2009 04:58:01
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 2, 1:13=A0am, Rob <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 12:08=A0am, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jan 2, 1:06=A0am, Rob <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > On Jan 2, 12:01=A0am, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > On Jan 2, 12:37=A0am, Rob <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > > Sam,
> > > > > Far be it from me to keep two destined lovers apart. I have done =
my
> > > > > part. You may contact her here, via her Facebook page.
>
> > > > >http://www.facebook.com/people/Laufey-Gumundsdottir/1629871062
>
> > > > Thank you.
>
> > > > I just sent her an instant message.
>
> > > > However, her name is extremely common in Iceland so the chances are
> > > > slim that this is the same person.
>
> > > > She had to be 20 to get into Klubberin so she would have to be 56 n=
ow.
>
> > > > Sam Sloan
>
> > > If you know her age to be 56, I have another source to use. Do you
> > > want me to try?
> > > Rob
>
> > Frankly, my guess is she was 19 then. Perhaps the drinking age was
> > lower then. That would make her 55 now.
>
> > Sam
>
> Sam,
> It is her. If you look she lists one of her friends as Hronn:
>
> http://www.facebook.com/people/Hronn-Helgadottir/1514767808
>
> Good luck!
>
> Rob
> PS. =A0See, I'm am not the heartless evil person you think I am! LOL
The girls in the pictures are definitely not 55 years old. They are
more like 20, so that could not be her.
Also, Helgadottir is a strange and unusual name for Iceland. It
indicates that she does not know who her father was, so she was named
after her mother.
Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 01 Jan 2009 22:13:13
From: Rob
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 2, 12:08=A0am, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 1:06=A0am, Rob <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jan 2, 12:01=A0am, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > On Jan 2, 12:37=A0am, Rob <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > Sam,
> > > > Far be it from me to keep two destined lovers apart. I have done my
> > > > part. You may contact her here, via her Facebook page.
>
> > > >http://www.facebook.com/people/Laufey-Gumundsdottir/1629871062
>
> > > Thank you.
>
> > > I just sent her an instant message.
>
> > > However, her name is extremely common in Iceland so the chances are
> > > slim that this is the same person.
>
> > > She had to be 20 to get into Klubberin so she would have to be 56 now=
.
>
> > > Sam Sloan
>
> > If you know her age to be 56, I have another source to use. Do you
> > want me to try?
> > Rob
>
> Frankly, my guess is she was 19 then. Perhaps the drinking age was
> lower then. That would make her 55 now.
>
> Sam
Sam,
It is her. If you look she lists one of her friends as Hronn:
http://www.facebook.com/people/Hronn-Helgadottir/1514767808
Good luck!
Rob
PS. See, I'm am not the heartless evil person you think I am! LOL
|
| |
Date: 01 Jan 2009 22:08:38
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 2, 1:06=A0am, Rob <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 12:01=A0am, samsloan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jan 2, 12:37=A0am, Rob <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > Sam,
> > > Far be it from me to keep two destined lovers apart. I have done my
> > > part. You may contact her here, via her Facebook page.
>
> > >http://www.facebook.com/people/Laufey-Gumundsdottir/1629871062
>
> > Thank you.
>
> > I just sent her an instant message.
>
> > However, her name is extremely common in Iceland so the chances are
> > slim that this is the same person.
>
> > She had to be 20 to get into Klubberin so she would have to be 56 now.
>
> > Sam Sloan
>
> If you know her age to be 56, I have another source to use. Do you
> want me to try?
> Rob
Frankly, my guess is she was 19 then. Perhaps the drinking age was
lower then. That would make her 55 now.
Sam
|
| |
Date: 01 Jan 2009 22:06:27
From: Rob
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 2, 12:01=A0am, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 12:37=A0am, Rob <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Sam,
> > Far be it from me to keep two destined lovers apart. I have done my
> > part. You may contact her here, via her Facebook page.
>
> >http://www.facebook.com/people/Laufey-Gumundsdottir/1629871062
>
> Thank you.
>
> I just sent her an instant message.
>
> However, her name is extremely common in Iceland so the chances are
> slim that this is the same person.
>
> She had to be 20 to get into Klubberin so she would have to be 56 now.
>
> Sam Sloan
If you know her age to be 56, I have another source to use. Do you
want me to try?
Rob
|
| |
Date: 01 Jan 2009 22:01:52
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 2, 12:37=A0am, Rob <[email protected] > wrote:
> Sam,
> Far be it from me to keep two destined lovers apart. I have done my
> part. You may contact her here, via her Facebook page.
>
> http://www.facebook.com/people/Laufey-Gumundsdottir/1629871062
Thank you.
I just sent her an instant message.
However, her name is extremely common in Iceland so the chances are
slim that this is the same person.
She had to be 20 to get into Klubberin so she would have to be 56 now.
Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 01 Jan 2009 21:37:13
From: Rob
Subject: Helping Sam Sloan find his lost love: Laufey-Gumundsdottir
|
On Jan 1, 11:15=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> In Iceland with Bobby Fischer, Day 2, August 13, 1972, continued
>
> I missed the flight back to New York because Skuli Thoradsson's
> drunken friend was on the telephone and I could not call a taxi on
> time, so I was stuck in Iceland for another day.
>
> At least one thing I accomplished at the airport was that they made a
> firm reservation for me to fly back to New York the following day, so
> that I would definitely be back there on time for when the stock
> market opened on Tuesday, August 15, 1972.
>
> I had the home telephone number of Joe Tamargo who normally worked for
> me as my runner and had the keys to my Wall Street office. I called
> and told him to go to the office in the morning, answer the telephone,
> tell them that the trader is out for the day and when any runners came
> to make stock deliveries, tell them that the cashier is out sick and
> to come back tomorrow.
>
> That was the best I could do in this situation.
>
> I then went back to Hotel Loftleidir.
>
> I was standing in the lobby of the Hotel Loftleidir talking to some
> other chess players when an Icelandic Airlines official came up to me.
> This was the same airline official who had made the reservation for me
> to fly back to New York that day, even though the flight was full and
> overbooked.
>
> He asked me what I was doing there as I was supposed to be on the
> flight back to New York.
>
> I explained that I had missed the flight.
>
> He was angry and absolutely livid. I have rarely seen anybody so
> angry. He said that he had gone to extreme measures, pushing people
> aside so that I could catch that flight and now I had missed it.
>
> I said that that was OK as now I had a reservation for a flight the
> following day.
>
> He said that I had better not miss this one as he will never do
> another thing for me again.
>
> By this time, it was already late in the afternoon. I am now trying to
> reconstruct what happened next. It is possible that the incident with
> Bobby Fischer in the swimming pool took place at this time, not the
> previous day. Several of the things had to have happened on Day One
> such as the blitz tournament, because I had to drop out because of
> being dizzy due to an all night flight from New York.
>
> I know that on this, my first trip to Iceland, I left Friday Evening
> August 11 and arrived Saturday morning August 12. I remember the exact
> date because I had to leave on a Friday if I was going to go at all,
> and because I remember William Lombardy telling me about a move that
> all the commentators had missed during the 13th game of the match,
> which had just been played.
>
> My second trip to Iceland was on Labor Day Weekend. I left on Friday
> September 1 and I arrived on Saturday September 2. This time, I
> remember the date because when I took off from JFK Airport the match
> was still being played but when I landed in Iceland the news or rumor
> was out that Spassky had resigned the last game and thereby the match.
> Because it was Labor Day in America, I was able to stay two days in
> Iceland. I returned to America on Monday, September 4.
>
> It was a lucky coincidence that the Fischer-Spassky Match concluded on
> Labor Day Weekend so I was able to be there on time for the big
> festivities. It was scheduled as a 24 game match, but if the
> challenger got 12 =BD points or the champion reached 12 points before
> the 24 game limit was reached, then the match was over.
>
> In other words, the champion got draw odds.
>
> By winning game 21 of the match, Fischer had won the match by a score
> of 12 =BD =96 8 =BD and Spassky's 8 =BD points included a forfeit win in =
game
> two. Had Fischer not won game 21, the match could have gone on at
> least another week.
>
> By the end of Day Two I had heard that there were really wild
> outrageous parties and nightlife in Reykjavik and I should try the
> clubs. There were several clubs in Reykjavik, but the largest and most
> interesting was the Klubberin, which means, in the Icelandic Language,
> literally, =93The Club=94.
>
> It was three stories high with a band on each floor. It was packed
> with people. I am sure that in size it was bigger than any dance club
> in New York City, bigger than the famous Studio 54, for example. Of
> course, I did not know anybody there, as I had come alone. I just
> started walking around, going up to the top floor, walking around,
> going to the second floor, walking around, going to the ground floor,
> walking around, and then starting back up again.
>
> Funny thing, it seemed like everybody else was doing the same thing. I
> kept running into the same people. I would be going up the stairs and
> bump into a girl who was coming down and then as I was coming down
> bump into the same girl who was going up again.
>
> Everybody was outrageously drunk, except for me. I am sure that I
> probably had one or two drinks. However, in this situation, I will
> often order a coke and then hold it like it is alcohol to make others
> think that I am drinking along with them.
>
> As I was walking around like this, two girls who were sitting on
> benches called me over. Of course, they were drunk although not
> outrageously drunk. They introduced themselves. One was named Laufey.
> The other one was named Hr=F6nn. I know this because I still have the
> paper, 36 years later, where they wrote their names, addresses and
> telephone numbers. Finally, Hr=F6nn popped the question. Pointing to
> Laufey, she asked =93Do you love her?=94
>
> =93Yes, I love her=94, I answered.
>
> =93Do you want her?=94, Hr=F6nn asked.
>
> Yes, I want her=94, I answered.
>
> Then she asked again, =93Do you really want her?=94
>
> =93Yes, I really want her.=94
>
> She then epeated these questions a few more times and after a while I
> began to think it was just talk. I was about to move on when Hr=F6nn
> said, =93We go to my house.=94
>
> So, okay, this started to seem like the real thing.
>
> We then left The Club together. There were now six of us. Laufey,
> Hr=F6nn, myself, another girl, and two Icelandic guys. We all got in a
> taxi and went to the house of one of the girls.
>
> We were all paired off. I was with Laufey, =A0Hr=F6nn and the other girl
> were each with one of the other guys.
>
> We were in a porch like structure at the front entrance to a house.
> Everybody laid down on the floor. I started hugging and kissing
> Laufey, feeling her up, her feeling me up, and meanwhile Hr=F6nn and the
> other girl were doing the same thing with their respective partners.
>
> This was really getting interesting. This was almost like my old SFL
> parties in Berkeley and it seemed that it was going to end the same
> way, with everybody doing it with everybody else.
>
> Suddenly, there was a knock on the door from inside the house. One of
> the girls got up and went in. She came out a minute later. Her parents
> had told her that the time was up and everybody had to go home.
>
> I was really surprised. I had not realized that while we seemed to be
> on the verge of having an orgy, all this time the parents were in the
> next room.
>
> So we all got up and put our coats on. I left with the two guys, who
> were as disappointed as I was that things did not go to completion.
>
> Altogether this entire incident was of no consequence and nothing ever
> came of it. However, I had the home addresses and telephone numbers of
> Laufey Gu=F0mundsd=F3ttir and Hr=F6nn Isleifsd=F3ttir. I sent them post c=
ards
> over the next several years.
>
> It was the ease of this incident that caused me to become infatuated
> with Icelandic girls. For the next several years I was constantly
> involved with everything about Iceland.
>
> I will add here however that there is a common belief that Icelandic
> women are loose and easy to get. I have found that this is not true.
> They are actually hard to get. They get drunk a lot and talk freely
> and this makes them seem loose. However, when it comes to the real
> thing, it is not so easy. There was a large delegation of foreigners,
> Americans, Russians, and newspaper reporters and photographers from
> every country of the world in Reykjavik for the big match. Many of
> them went to the clubs and tried to pick up Icelandic women. I believe
> that several of them got about as far as I did. However, none of them
> that I know of ever actually slept with an Icelandic woman.
>
> On the other hand, you could go to any other country in Europe, to
> England, to Germany or better yet to the Eastern European countries
> under Communist rule such as Poland and you would have a good chance
> of getting a girl on the first night, free of charge of course.
> Indeed, I often did so.
>
> Not so, Iceland. Eventually, I went to Iceland 11 times. I often went
> to the clubs and tried to pick up girls. In all that time, I only
> actually slept two times with Icelandic women. Slim picking, I must
> say. One of them later married an American and moved to America,
>
> After leaving the house where our little party had just concluded, I
> was not going to take any chances of missing the next flight back to
> America. So, after catching a quick catnap at the Hotel Loftleidir, I
> went to Keflavik Airport, arriving several hours early, and caught the
> flight to New York.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 =A0 Sam Sloan
Sam,
Far be it from me to keep two destined lovers apart. I have done my
part. You may contact her here, via her Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Laufey-Gumundsdottir/1629871062
|
| |
Date: 01 Jan 2009 21:15:13
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
|
In Iceland with Bobby Fischer, Day 2, August 13, 1972, continued
I missed the flight back to New York because Skuli Thoradsson's
drunken friend was on the telephone and I could not call a taxi on
time, so I was stuck in Iceland for another day.
At least one thing I accomplished at the airport was that they made a
firm reservation for me to fly back to New York the following day, so
that I would definitely be back there on time for when the stock
market opened on Tuesday, August 15, 1972.
I had the home telephone number of Joe Tamargo who normally worked for
me as my runner and had the keys to my Wall Street office. I called
and told him to go to the office in the morning, answer the telephone,
tell them that the trader is out for the day and when any runners came
to make stock deliveries, tell them that the cashier is out sick and
to come back tomorrow.
That was the best I could do in this situation.
I then went back to Hotel Loftleidir.
I was standing in the lobby of the Hotel Loftleidir talking to some
other chess players when an Icelandic Airlines official came up to me.
This was the same airline official who had made the reservation for me
to fly back to New York that day, even though the flight was full and
overbooked.
He asked me what I was doing there as I was supposed to be on the
flight back to New York.
I explained that I had missed the flight.
He was angry and absolutely livid. I have rarely seen anybody so
angry. He said that he had gone to extreme measures, pushing people
aside so that I could catch that flight and now I had missed it.
I said that that was OK as now I had a reservation for a flight the
following day.
He said that I had better not miss this one as he will never do
another thing for me again.
By this time, it was already late in the afternoon. I am now trying to
reconstruct what happened next. It is possible that the incident with
Bobby Fischer in the swimming pool took place at this time, not the
previous day. Several of the things had to have happened on Day One
such as the blitz tournament, because I had to drop out because of
being dizzy due to an all night flight from New York.
I know that on this, my first trip to Iceland, I left Friday Evening
August 11 and arrived Saturday morning August 12. I remember the exact
date because I had to leave on a Friday if I was going to go at all,
and because I remember William Lombardy telling me about a move that
all the commentators had missed during the 13th game of the match,
which had just been played.
My second trip to Iceland was on Labor Day Weekend. I left on Friday
September 1 and I arrived on Saturday September 2. This time, I
remember the date because when I took off from JFK Airport the match
was still being played but when I landed in Iceland the news or rumor
was out that Spassky had resigned the last game and thereby the match.
Because it was Labor Day in America, I was able to stay two days in
Iceland. I returned to America on Monday, September 4.
It was a lucky coincidence that the Fischer-Spassky Match concluded on
Labor Day Weekend so I was able to be there on time for the big
festivities. It was scheduled as a 24 game match, but if the
challenger got 12 =BD points or the champion reached 12 points before
the 24 game limit was reached, then the match was over.
In other words, the champion got draw odds.
By winning game 21 of the match, Fischer had won the match by a score
of 12 =BD =96 8 =BD and Spassky's 8 =BD points included a forfeit win in ga=
me
two. Had Fischer not won game 21, the match could have gone on at
least another week.
By the end of Day Two I had heard that there were really wild
outrageous parties and nightlife in Reykjavik and I should try the
clubs. There were several clubs in Reykjavik, but the largest and most
interesting was the Klubberin, which means, in the Icelandic Language,
literally, =93The Club=94.
It was three stories high with a band on each floor. It was packed
with people. I am sure that in size it was bigger than any dance club
in New York City, bigger than the famous Studio 54, for example. Of
course, I did not know anybody there, as I had come alone. I just
started walking around, going up to the top floor, walking around,
going to the second floor, walking around, going to the ground floor,
walking around, and then starting back up again.
Funny thing, it seemed like everybody else was doing the same thing. I
kept running into the same people. I would be going up the stairs and
bump into a girl who was coming down and then as I was coming down
bump into the same girl who was going up again.
Everybody was outrageously drunk, except for me. I am sure that I
probably had one or two drinks. However, in this situation, I will
often order a coke and then hold it like it is alcohol to make others
think that I am drinking along with them.
As I was walking around like this, two girls who were sitting on
benches called me over. Of course, they were drunk although not
outrageously drunk. They introduced themselves. One was named Laufey.
The other one was named Hr=F6nn. I know this because I still have the
paper, 36 years later, where they wrote their names, addresses and
telephone numbers. Finally, Hr=F6nn popped the question. Pointing to
Laufey, she asked =93Do you love her?=94
=93Yes, I love her=94, I answered.
=93Do you want her?=94, Hr=F6nn asked.
Yes, I want her=94, I answered.
Then she asked again, =93Do you really want her?=94
=93Yes, I really want her.=94
She then epeated these questions a few more times and after a while I
began to think it was just talk. I was about to move on when Hr=F6nn
said, =93We go to my house.=94
So, okay, this started to seem like the real thing.
We then left The Club together. There were now six of us. Laufey,
Hr=F6nn, myself, another girl, and two Icelandic guys. We all got in a
taxi and went to the house of one of the girls.
We were all paired off. I was with Laufey, Hr=F6nn and the other girl
were each with one of the other guys.
We were in a porch like structure at the front entrance to a house.
Everybody laid down on the floor. I started hugging and kissing
Laufey, feeling her up, her feeling me up, and meanwhile Hr=F6nn and the
other girl were doing the same thing with their respective partners.
This was really getting interesting. This was almost like my old SFL
parties in Berkeley and it seemed that it was going to end the same
way, with everybody doing it with everybody else.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door from inside the house. One of
the girls got up and went in. She came out a minute later. Her parents
had told her that the time was up and everybody had to go home.
I was really surprised. I had not realized that while we seemed to be
on the verge of having an orgy, all this time the parents were in the
next room.
So we all got up and put our coats on. I left with the two guys, who
were as disappointed as I was that things did not go to completion.
Altogether this entire incident was of no consequence and nothing ever
came of it. However, I had the home addresses and telephone numbers of
Laufey Gu=F0mundsd=F3ttir and Hr=F6nn Isleifsd=F3ttir. I sent them post car=
ds
over the next several years.
It was the ease of this incident that caused me to become infatuated
with Icelandic girls. For the next several years I was constantly
involved with everything about Iceland.
I will add here however that there is a common belief that Icelandic
women are loose and easy to get. I have found that this is not true.
They are actually hard to get. They get drunk a lot and talk freely
and this makes them seem loose. However, when it comes to the real
thing, it is not so easy. There was a large delegation of foreigners,
Americans, Russians, and newspaper reporters and photographers from
every country of the world in Reykjavik for the big match. Many of
them went to the clubs and tried to pick up Icelandic women. I believe
that several of them got about as far as I did. However, none of them
that I know of ever actually slept with an Icelandic woman.
On the other hand, you could go to any other country in Europe, to
England, to Germany or better yet to the Eastern European countries
under Communist rule such as Poland and you would have a good chance
of getting a girl on the first night, free of charge of course.
Indeed, I often did so.
Not so, Iceland. Eventually, I went to Iceland 11 times. I often went
to the clubs and tried to pick up girls. In all that time, I only
actually slept two times with Icelandic women. Slim picking, I must
say. One of them later married an American and moved to America,
After leaving the house where our little party had just concluded, I
was not going to take any chances of missing the next flight back to
America. So, after catching a quick catnap at the Hotel Loftleidir, I
went to Keflavik Airport, arriving several hours early, and caught the
flight to New York.
Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 30 Dec 2008 17:55:51
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
|
Day 2 =96 August 13, 1972
I have been thinking about it and amazingly all these things happened
on the same day, not on two consecutive days. It had to be like that
because on this trip I only spent two nights in Reykjavik and what
happened on the second night was especially memorable.
To Recap Day One in Iceland:
I caught a Friday Evening flight from New York and landed in the
airport in Iceland on Saturday morning, where I was greeted by
Grandmaster Lombardy. He gave me a ride from the airport to Hotel
Loftleidir, where I was greeted by Brad Darrach. Brad Darrach picked
up my briefcase and tried to carry it for me, but as soon as I found
out that he was a Time-Life Reporter I demanded that he give me the
briefcase back. After that, I refused to talk to him.
The Hotel Loftleidir was full but the hotel staff recommended that I
try Hotel Saga which still had rooms. I checked into the Hotel Saga.
I was then invited to play in a blitz tournament that was taking place
that day. I lost my first two games to Grandmaster Lothar Schmid and
Grandmaster Fridrik Olafsson. I also remember losing to Baruch Wood,
editor of Chess magazine. I think I did win perhaps one or two games.
I had to quit the tournament more than half way through because I was
dizzy from lack of sleep the previous night, as I had been on an all
night flight from New York.
I went to my room in Hotel Saga and laid in bed for an hour or two
trying to get some sleep, but I could not fall asleep because of being
so wired up and tense. I got up and went to the disco in the Hotel
Saga and had a few drinks, hoping that this would tire me out so that
I would get to sleep. That did not work, so I went to Hotel Loftleidir
where they told me that a room was now available, so I checked into
that hotel.
.I was then informed that Bobby wanted to see me. I was taken up to
his room where I found him seated at a huge table filled with a wide
variety of different foods. He told me to take anything I wanted.
After awhile alone with Bobby, Fred Cramer arrived. Bobby said that he
wanted to go to the swimming pool and swim. So, we went to the
swimming pool and we watched Bobby swim.
Then, Bobby said that he wanted to check out the boards. I did not
know what that meant but we all got into a car and we were driven to
the playing hall where the chess match was being played. It was late
at night, perhaps 11 or 12 midnight.
After a brief protest by the night watchman, we were let into the
Playing Hall. For the next hour or two, Bobby, with the help of me and
Fred Cramer, changed the chess boards around with Bobby trying to
decide which combination of board and table he liked best. Bobby could
never make up his mind, so in the end we put all the boards back the
way they had been when we got there.
Incidentally, we did not touch the chairs. We also did not touch the
lighting fixtures, although as I recall Fred Cramer found one light
switch that turned on a bank of lights that had not been lit during
the games previously. Bobby said that he liked those additional lights
and to make sure that they were on for the next game of the match.
We did not spray chemicals into the air, nor did we murder any flies.
Nothing like that happened while we were there.
We went back to the Loftleidir Hotel. Bobby went up to his room.
It was then that Fred Cramer said that somebody had given him a hotel
room key and he did not know why it had been given to him, so he was
going to hand it in to the front desk. As Fred Cramer was about to
hand in the room key, the lady at the front desk said that this key
was for the room of the female newspaper reporter from England. As I
had met that newspaper reporter earlier in the evening, I told Cramer
that I would take that key. Cramer gave me the key. I went up to her
room. With the room key in my hand and having met the lady earlier in
the evening, I thought about using the key to enter her room and to
climb into bed with her. In case she protested (which I felt was
unlikely) my excuse would be that I was drunk. However, I could not
get up the courage to do it, so I went to my own room and went to
sleep, finally.
The next morning which was now Sunday morning, I did what I had been
afraid to do the previous night which was use her room key to enter
her room. She was sitting there working on a story she was writing for
the newspaper. I entered her room without knocking but she either did
not notice or else she had no objection and then I spent the next two
hours talking to her about the match while she read to me her draft of
the newspaper story she was writing. I told her that I had spent the
previous evening with Fischer and that I was an old friend of Fischer
whom I had known for the last 16 years but that there was no way in
the world that I could get her in to see Fischer.
After that, I went down to the hotel lobby.
An important detail that I left out previously is that when I had
arrived at the Hotel Loftleidir, the first thing I had done was try to
make a reservation to fly back to New York the following day. The
airline was headquartered at the same hotel, because the airline also
owned the hotel. The airline staff was a bit surprised that I wanted
to fly back to America the day after had I arrived. They told me that
the flight was completely full and overbooked. There was no chance for
a seat.
I was aghast and upset. I had flown to Iceland at the last minute
without any reservation and I had assumed that I could get back to
America the same way. I was running a stock brokerage firm in New York
and I was the only one with check signing authority. I was trading
between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of stocks every day, making my
money on eighths and quarters between the buying and selling prices.
Therefore, I had to sign between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of checks
every day. It would be a disaster if I could not get back to New York
to sign those checks.
Finally, one of the chess officials spoke to a high official of the
airlines and he managed to give me a reserved seat on the airplane
back to New York the following day.
This all happened on Day One.
On Day Two, I spent the morning talking to the English girl newspaper
reporter in her hotel room but I did not try to get into bed with her.
I then went down to the hotel lobby and then I went back to the Hotel
Saga. Hotel Saga was the number two hotel in Reykjavik at that time
and was where all the Russians including Spassky were staying, whereas
Hotel Loftleidir was the number one hotel in Reykjavik and was where
all the Americans were staying.
Since I has only planned to stay one night in Iceland, I had traveled
lightly, bringing only a briefcase with me. I still had to check out
of the Hotel Saga because I had not checked out of there when I had
checked into Hotel Loftleidir, so I had actually had two hotel rooms
the previous night.
In the lobby of the Hotel Saga was an Icelandic man who was talking
drunkenly if salaciously to several of the Icelandic girls who were
working in the hotel. He was also talking about the chess match. I was
interested so I stopped to listen to what he had to say.
I quickly found out that he was a medical doctor and his name was
Skuli Thoradsson. He spoke English well and we started talking about
chess.
Before long, he decided that I should marry his daughter. =93You are
very intelligent and you will have beautiful children together=94, he
said He took me by the arm and led me out the door, insisting that I
come to his home to meet his daughter so that I could marry her.
I had never experienced anything like this before and naturally I was
curious so I got into a taxi with him and he took me to his home.
When we got there, his daughter was not there, but two of his friends
were there playing chess. They were both drunk and were not playing
chess very well.
Soon his daughter arrived and Skuli introduced me to her. She barely
looked at me and went off to do housework. She was blond and of
average attractiveness, not beautiful. She did not seem to be very
interesting. I doubt that she had any idea that her father had just
betrothed her to be my wife.
I had a flight to catch back to New York at 3:00 PM. So, I asked if
someone could drive me to the airport. Skuli and his friends were far
too drunk to drive. So, I asked them to call a cab. One of his friends
was on the telephone having a drunken, slurred conversation with
somebody. I said that I needed to use the phone. The man using the
phone ignored me and kept talking. Then I started screaming. The man
continued to ignore me. I did not know what to do. I even tried to
grab the phone out of his hands but he pushed me back.
Finally, I was jumping up and down screaming that I was missing my
flight. Everybody was so drunk that they just went about what they
were doing as though I was not even there. There was nothing I could
do.
Somehow I eventually got a hold of the telephone and called a taxi.
The cab came. I told him to hurry and get me to the airport. Keflavik
is about 30 miles from Reykjavik. It was already past flight time but
as Icelandic Airlines is always late, I was hoping to catch the flight
anyway.
I got to the airport but alas, for perhaps the only time in history,
Icelandic Airlines had left on time. A truly history-making event.
Icelandic Airlines had only one airplane, a DC-8. It took off every
evening at JFK, landed in Keflavik, discharged and took on a few
passengers, then flew to Luxembourg, then turned around and flew back
to Iceland. It was a deeply discounted airline which offered by far
the cheapest flights to Europe. It had not joined IATA, so most
passengers were budget travelers. Few ever stopped in Iceland. Most
passengers went from New York to Luxembourg or Luxembourg to New York.
So, I was trapped in Iceland for another day. There was no way to get
back to New York in time for the stock market to open on Monday
morning.
Fortunately, I had one employee in New York who had the keys to my
office. I believe it was Joe Tamargo. I called him at home and
explained the situation. I told him to sit in my office and when any
runners came in to deliver securities, to tell them that the cashier
was out sick today so we could not receive any deliveries that day and
to come back tomorrow.
At that time, all securities transactions were settled by the physical
delivery of stock certificates. The brokerage firms sent out their
runners early in the morning with stock certificates to be delivered
to the other firms. Usually the cutoff time was 11:00 AM, but some
brokers would accept them as late as 11:30. Then, in the afternoon,
usually after 2:00 PM, the runners would return to pick up the checks.
The checks would be brought back to the selling brokers who would
deposit them in the bank the same hour.
At that time, all major Wall Street banks had a special office only
for brokers, where night deposits by brokers could be made.
Surprisingly often, the major firms like Merrill Lynch would be short
of cash. If a big check was involved, say over $100,000, the runner
would be instructed to go to the window to have the check certified.
If the broker did not have enough money, the runner would be told to
wait. I used Citibank, the same bank that most of the major brokerage
firms also used. They had a special brokers night deposit section
around the bank door to 99 Wall Street, that only runners working for
brokers could enter. There were seats where the runners could sit
waiting for the checks they had brought in to be certified.
Now, for example, let us say that there was a check from Merrill Lynch
that they were trying to have certified, but Merrill Lynch only had
$50,000 on deposit at the bank. The runners would sit and wait.
Eventually runners working for Merrill Lynch would come in with
certified checks issued by other brokers to be deposited in the
Merrill Lynch account. As soon as the clerks working at the brokers
window at the bank could see that another $50,000 in certified checks
had come in for deposit to the Merrill Lynch account, they would
certify the checks issued by Merrill Lynch and the runners could take
them back to their offices.
This was the daily routine, but the outside world knew nothing about
this. When I was working for the smaller firm of Hayden Stone, we
would send out for delivery $50 million in securities on the average
day and receive in a like amount, but we might start the day with less
than $100,000 in the bank. Sometimes we would even be overdrawn at
some point during the day, so it was a struggle to close the books
with a positive bank balance for the day.
Now that I had my own firm of Samuel H. Sloan & Co, I went though the
same thing every day, but on a much smaller scale. On the average day,
I had about $10,000 in the bank, but I would be receiving and then
delivering between $50,000 and $100,000 in securities every day, every
day and writing and depositing a like amount in checks. That is why
runners were called runners. They sometimes had to run like H to get
to the buying broker's window by 11:30 AM before it closed. It was a
nerve racking experience every day. I would even get angry if one of
my runners had to use the restroom to take a leak.
That is why it had been so important for me to catch that flight and
get back to New York in time, before the stock market opened on Monday
morning.
Now, because Skuli Thoradsson's friend was drunk on the telephone and
I could not call a cab on time, I had missed the flight and was stuck
in Iceland for another day.
As it turned out, there was no great crisis that arose because I could
not make it back on Monday morning, as a was able to catch a flight to
New York on Monday afternoon and the brokers with whom I dealt
regularly did not seem to be upset that I had not received the
deliveries on the proper day. I could not have allowed this to happen
to often, however.
In fact, in the five years that I had my brokerage firm, that was the
only day that ever I missed work. I just never got sick.
What did happen as a result of my being stuck in Iceland for another
day were a number of events that changed the course of my future life.
One of the most obvious changes that happened at a result of one extra
day in Iceland is that I hired a bevy of beautiful Icelandic girls to
work for me as runners and I got rid of the down and out chess masters
who had been working for me until then. Joe Tamargo is still angry to
this day that I fired him to make room for Hafdis Einarsdottir, who
was followed by Johanna Baldursdottir, Inga Brandsdottir and Helga
Thorvardarsdottir.
One great thing about having beautiful Icelandic girls to work for me
as runners is that they did not have to stand in line behind the
elderly retired men who held most of the runner jobs, to pick up the
checks. Out of politeness, the other runners would always let my girls
go to the front of the line to pick up my checks. Also, if one of my
runners had to make a late delivery say at 11:45 AM which was 15
minutes past the cut off time, what cashier's clerk would tell my
beautiful female runner that she was just 15 minutes late and the
window was closed?
As for Skuli Thoradsson, the medical doctor who caused this entire
thing to happen by making me miss my flight, my Icelandic girls sadly
informed me that he committed suicide the following February, 1973.
Iceland has the lowest murder rate but the highest suicide rate in the
world. Murder is virtually unknown in Iceland, but they kill
themselves frequently.
As for Hafdis Einarsdottir, who became my number one runner after I
fired Joe Tamargo just so that I could hire her (a fact that Joe
angrily brought up again yesterday when I spoke to him), she now works
as the Station Manager for Icelandic Airlines in Orlando, Florida.
Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 30 Dec 2008 01:28:28
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
|
On Dec 29, 3:26=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> The English Girl Newspaper Reporter
Within moments after I posted this article, an English chess player
wrote me and identified her.
I do not remember her face after so many years but there is no doubt
that this is her.
Take a look at:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=3D1&categ_id=3D5&article=
_id=3D88592
She writes:
"Twenty years after I first saw him, tall and gangling and infinitely
appealing, I finally sat down, alone, with Bobby Fischer. I wanted to
talk about him. He wanted to talk about Lebanon, and me. The world
chess championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in
Reykjavik in 1972 was my first big reporting assignment."
There is also an article about her on ChessBase which says, "She
remembers the Match of the Century: "Reykjavik in 1972 was my first
big reporting assignment, for The Associated Press. I went for three
days and stayed for three months".
She is a very serious journalist now, traveling to Sudan and writing a
book about Darfur.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1842779508/ref=3Dsib_dp_pt#reader-link
I wonder what she will say when she reads this, as undoubtedly
somebody will be pointing this out to her soon.
Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 29 Dec 2008 12:26:14
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
|
The English Girl Newspaper Reporter
The two brief visits I made to Iceland during the 1972 Fischer-Spassky
Match were so eventful and so many things happened that it seems
incredible that they all could have taken place in such a short time.
Since I was operating a stock brokerage firm on Wall Street and I was
the only person with check signing authority and checks had to be
signed every day, I could not miss even one day of work. Since I could
only travel on weekends, this makes it easy to reconstruct exactly
what happened with me in Iceland and when.
Icelandic flights were scheduled to leave from JFK Airport at about
8:00 PM and to arrive at Keflavik Airport at about 7:00 AM. However,
this was just in theory, as Icelandic Airlines was always late. I made
11 trips to Iceland over the next few years and after a while I never
even bothered to come to airport at the proper time. I always came a
few hours late and I was never too late to catch the flight.
There is a five hour time difference between New York and Iceland and
the flights themselves took six hours, so there was a total of 11
clock hours between departure from New York and arrival time in
Iceland. Coming back, the flights took longer because of the Westerly
Winds, so the flights back seemed to take only one hour.
So, I know that in my first trip to Iceland I left Friday Evening
August 11 and arrived Saturday morning August 12. I remember the exact
date because I had to leave on a Friday if I was going to go at all,
and because I remember William Lombardy telling me about a move that
all the commentators had missed during the 13th game of the match.
On my second trip to Iceland, I left on Friday September 1 and I
arrived on Saturday September 2. This time, I remember the date
because when I took off from JFK Airport the match was still being
played but when I landed in Iceland the news or rumor was out that
Spassky had resigned the last game and thereby the match.
I remember that the Blitz tournament where I played Grandmasters
Olafsson and Lothad Schmid was played on August 12, the same day that
I arrived from New York, because I was so dizzy from not sleeping on
the airplane on an all night flight that I had to drop out of the
tournament without completing it.
I remember that after that, I was so wound up that I could not sleep
although I was very tired. It was then that I went to the Loftleidir
Hotel and was informed that Fischer would like to see me. Then, late
than night, at nearly midnight, I went with Fischer and Cramer to the
hall where the chess match was being played to examine the boards.
It could not have been that night that the minor incident involving
the English Girl occurred, so it must have been the next night, which
would have been the night of August 13.
There was an English girl who was a newspaper reporter, hanging around
the chess players. I estimate her age to have been 22-25. She was a
slender girl of average appearance. I do not remember her name. She
was a stringer working for one of the major newspapers in London. I
think it was one of those second-string newspapers, but I am not sure.
I am sure that she was a real reporter.
She anxiously wanted to meet Fischer,.but of course that was
absolutely impossible. So, she wanted to be friends with anybody who
could possibly get her in to see Fischer.
I had been out somewhere having a few drinks. (Being in Iceland, I had
to have some drinks, as everyone there does, although I no longer
drink at all.) I came back to the Loftleidir Hotel with Fred Cramer.
He had a hotel room key in his hand. He said that somebody had given
him this hotel room key. He had no idea why it had been given to him,
so he was going to hand it in at the reservation desk.
When we got to the reservation desk of the Loftleidir Hotel, the girl
at the desk said, Oh, that's the room key of so-and-so, the English
Girl.
Seizing this opportunity, I said, =93Oh. Then, I will take it.=94 So, Fred
Cramer handed me the key.
It was now midnight or a bit after midnight. I now had the hotel room
key of the English Girl in my hands. I had also had a few drinks. This
presented me with a great quandary.
I went up to her room. I stood outside the door of her hotel room,
pondering the weighty question of what I should do. I was there for at
least a half an hour, trying to decide whether to use her hotel room
key to enter the room.
I had heard that when a woman wants to invite a man to sleep with her,
she discretely hands him the key to her hotel room. I had never
experienced this directly before, but now I was faced with this
situation. She wanted to meet somebody who was friends with Fischer,
and I was friends with Fischer, so I was qualified. True: She had not
given the key to me, but she had given the key to somebody and there
could have been no other reason.
I had as much right to the key as anybody, as there were few people in
Reykjavik who knew Fischer as well as I did.
Another consideration was that earlier in the evening she had been
hanging around with another newspaper reporter. He was an American but
he was not a chess player. I was worried that if I entered her hotel
room, he would be there, sleeping with her.
This was my first trip to Europe. I was not yet aware that English
girls have a certain reputation along these lines, as I later learned.
Those who are familiar with my track record have a hard time believing
this, but I have always been extremely bashful and shy about women. I
have always been =93afraid of girls=94, as they say. I do not think I have
ever in my life called a girl and asked her for a date. All of the
women in my life have come to me, not me to them.
So, I just could not get up the courage to do this. Finally, I went to
my own hotel room and went to sleep.
The next morning, I got up and decided that now that it was daytime,
it would be OK for me to use her hotel room key. So, I went to her
door, put the key in the slot, turned the key, opened the door and
went inside.
She was up and was sitting at her desk working on a story she was
writing. She said hello and did not seem even to notice that I had
just walked into her hotel room uninvited. She knew who I was. She
started reading me the story she was working on, asking me what I
thought about it.
I quickly realized that she knew nothing at all about chess, zero. The
story she was writing and reading to me showed that she had no idea of
what had been going on in the games. The story she read to me said
something like this, =93The Battle Waxed and Wained and the pieces moved
to and fro across the board=94. If anybody can find a quote like that
from the Fischer-Spassky match, that is from her.
By the way, that does sort of describe the 13th game, the game that
had just been played, so perhaps she knew more than she seemed to
know.
Finally, I asked her the question: =93Don't you find it curious that I
just walked into your hotel room door without even knocking.=94
She replied that she had not really thought about it.
So, I said, =93By the way, I have your hotel room key and here it is.=94 I
handed her the key.
She thanked me.
Then I told her the whole story that I have written here, about how
another chess player had given me the key to her room, how I had come
up to her room and stood outside her door for a half hour, how I had
originally planned to go into her room and, assuming that she was in
bed asleep, to crawl into bed with her and hope for the best.
She did not show any reaction to this. The impression I got was that,
if I had done this, it would have been perfectly OK with her.
I also told her that one reason I had not done this was that earlier
in the evening she had been palling around with another news reporter
and I feared that if I entered her room, I would find her in bed with
him.
She replied that she knew whom I meant but that, no, she had not been
sleeping with him.
I soon said goodbye and left and went about the events of the day.
And, by the way, I never put the make on her or even suggested
anything like that. In fact, I never even thought about it, even
though I had spent about two hours in her hotel room talking to her.
Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 29 Dec 2008 09:15:42
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
|
How you ever considered the possibility, however remote as it might
seem, that I valued Fischer's friendship more than I valued any
publicity that I might receive by writing about him?
Are you aware of what happened to Fischer's friends if they wrote
about Fischer?
Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 29 Dec 2008 08:52:08
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
|
As I was operating a Wall Street stock brokerage firm with every day
securities being received and delivered, and since I was the only
person in my firm who had check signing authority, I could only go to
Iceland where the Fischer Spassky Match was being played on weekends.
I could not miss even one day of work. I employed various chess
players to work as my runners, to receive and deliver securities. My
main men were Larry Gilden, Mike Goodall and Joe Tamargo. I believe
that George Kane worked for me briefly, as did Triinu Mikiver and
Tandy Warnaw. I also had a girlfriend who later became a medical
doctor named Joyce Ilson, who did my bookkeeping. Her brother helped
out too.
However, none of these people had authority to sign checks for my
brokerage firm, which was Samuel H. Sloan & Co. Only I had that
authority.
I do not remember which of these people were working in my office
during the Fischer-Spassky Match. I know that it was not Mike Goodall,
because by that time he was working on the Shelby Lyman Show that was
broadcasting the Fischer-Spassky Match. Joe Tamargo says that he was
not there at that time either, but I think he was, especially since he
complains that I fired him to make way for the three beautiful
Icelandic Girls who came to work for me as a result of the Fischer-
Spassky Match.
After receiving a call from Andy Davis, who now works as Director of
the Charities Bureau for the New York State Attorney General's Office,
who told me that Bobby would like for me to come over to Iceland and
visit him, I waited until the stock market had closed on Friday and
ran down to Kennedy Airport and hopped on a airplane to Iceland.
Arriving in Iceland, I was greeted at the airport by Grandmaster
William Lombardy, who was Fischer's second, who gave me a ride to
Hotel Loftleidir in Reykjavik. However, the hotel was full, so I got a
room in Hotel Saga.
A blitz chess tournament was being organized. Somebody told them that
I was a strong chess player and a friend of Bobby Fischer and that I
had just arrived from New York, so I got invited to play in this chess
tournament.
It was a blitz tournament where everybody was assigned seats and then,
after every game, everybody moved one seat to the left, Alice-in-
Wonderland Style. In this format, everybody eventually plays everybody
else, kind of like the way we used to do it in my student club.
This tournament was strong. My first opponent was Grandmaster Lothar
Schmid, the arbiter of the match. I still remember something about the
opening. I still played normal openings back then. I was White and he
played an Alekhine's Defense. It started 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 and now I
played either d4 or c4, but probably c4 as that was what I played back
then.
I was shocked when a few moves later Lothar Schmid played g6. I had
never seen that kind of move in Alekhine's Defense.
I lost the game and then moved one chair to the left. My second
opponent was Grandmaster Fridrik Olafsson. I lost that game too.
Continuing around the table, I do not remember the names of many of my
other opponents, but some of them were not super-strong. I think I won
a game or two, but I am not sure.
One opponent I clearly do remember was Baruch Wood of England, the
famous owner and editor of Chess magazine. I had a brief conversation
with him, telling him that I had been a subscriber to his magazine.
While I was playing him, he seemed to be a weak player. Some of his
moves did not seem to be very good. I was expecting to beat him.
But then I blundered, so I lost that game too. I was not happy to lose
that game, as I felt that I should have won it.
About two games later, I realized that my head was actually spinning.
I have never been one to make excuses, but my brain was swimming back
and forth. The pieces on the chessboard in front of me were moving
around.
As this point, I decided that I could not continue. I got up and told
the arbiter that I had been on an all night flight from New York and I
was dizzy for lack of sleep. Therefore, I could not continue the
tournament.
He said that this was OK and crossed my name out. I left the playing
hall and went to Hotel Saga to try to get some sleep.
I have always, to this day, felt badly about this, especially since I
was so tense and wired up that I was unable to fall asleep in my room
in the Hotel Saga anyway, so I got out of bed and went to the Hotel
Loftleidir. By then, a room had materialized in the Hotel Loftleidir,
so they gave me a room and I checked out of Hotel Saga.
What has always bothered me about this is that this is the only chess
tournament in my entire life that I have quit the tournament without
playing all the games. Other players quit when they are having a bad
result. Not me. I do not expect to win anyway, and I feel that the
best way to improve my play is to keep playing and to try harder.
Usually, when I am convinced that I am just no good and have no chance
to win, that is when I finally start winning.
What has bothered me about this blitz tournament in Iceland is that I
am fairly certain that I won or drew at least a few games. I lost most
of the games but I was not completely wiped out. I do not know how
many players there were but there were more than 20. I really want to
know if I finished dead last or merely near the bottom. I imagine that
the Icelanders still have a record of this event and if they can tell
me how I did, I would appreciate it.
By the way, in case you are wondering, I was a lot better then than I
am now. On a subsequent trip to Iceland in December 1975, years after
the Fischer-Spassky Match had concluded, I played in one of the
regular monthly tournaments in the Reykjavik Chess Club and qualified
to the finals, defeating some of the seeded players. One of the
players I beat was the regular chess columnists in a newspaper in
Iceland. I do not remember his name, but I do remember the opening. It
was a line I used to play that I found in Barden's book on the Ruy
Lopez. It goes:
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. d4 b5 7. Bb3
d5 8.dxe5 Be6 9.Qe2 Be7 10.Rd1 O-O 11.c4 bxc4 12. Bxc4
I was then staying with a lady friend named Inga and when I got back
to Inga's apartment, I held up the newspaper showing the chess column
that had been written by the man I had just defeated. Inga's
girlfriend, Hrepna, scoffed at this, saying that she did not believe
me. Immediately, all the other girls in the room jumped at her, saying
that I was the best friend of Bobby Fischer.
Sam Sloan
|
| |
Date: 29 Dec 2008 04:44:18
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
|
When the story hit the World News about Americans in the Chess Playing
Room in the Dead of Night, every major newspaper carried the story. Of
course, nobody knew that there was a certain element of truth behind
it. Nobody knew that Fischer, Cramer and myself had actually entered
the playing hall at midnight to examine the boards. They just thought
that Spassky had gone crazy by alleging this. I never told anybody
until just now, and I am sure that Fischer would never tell anybody. I
am also almost certain that Cramer would never have told anybody.
However, the one person who knew for sure that we had been in there
was the Icelandic Night Watchman. He must have told his superiors, so
the Icelanders knew about it and one of them must have told the
Russians.
However, the Russians did not find out about it right away. We went
into the playing hall on the night of August 12. The Russians did not
complain about it until over a week later. There is also the
possibility that Fischer and Cramer went in there more than that one
time.
I have just confirmed with Don Schultz who briefly headed the American
delegation during this time that he never knew that somebody had
actually been in the playing hall late at night, until I just told him
about it. He says that Spassky believes, to this day, that somebody
put something in the chairs to affect his play. The truth is that we
never touched the chairs. We only changed the boards and, in the end,
we put the boards back the way that they had been originally.
This is the reason why, when the Russians started complaining about
it, everybody thought they had gone crazy, as in insane.
Here are some of the newspaper articles relating to this incident:
On August 23, 1972, the New York Times Reported:
Russians suggest Fischer Uses Electronics to Weaken Spassky
By HAROLD C. SCHONBERG
Special to The New York Times
REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Aug. 22-Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer adjourned
the 17th game in their match for the world chess championship tonight
amid assertions by the Russians that the Americans might be using
"electronic devices and a chemical substance" to weaken Spassky's
playing, ability.
A long statement to that effect was issued by Efim Geller, the
champion's second, in which he demanded that the referee, Lothar
Schmid, and the sponsors of the match examine the playing hall "with
the assistance of competent experts" to determine whether the
Americans are using "non-chess means" to influence Spassky.
"It is surprising that the Americans can be found in the playing hall
when the games are not taking place even at night," Geller's statement
said. Speaking of Spassky's lackluster performance in the games played
thus far Geller said:
"Having known [Spassky] for many years, it is the first time that I
observe such unusual slackening of concentration and display of
impulsiveness in his playing which I cannot account for by [Fischer's]
exclusively impressive playing."
On August 25, 1972, The New York Times reported:
The investigation turned up two dead flies in alighting fixture.
No Tampering Found
Sigmundur Gudbjarnason, a professor of chemistry, and Dadi Augustin,
an electronics engineer, were asked to survey the hall. Mr. Augustin
made a visual and- technical inspection of the lighting, about which
Geller was suspicious, and the only thing he discovered were the dead
flies.
He concluded that there had been no tampering with the lights.
Mr. Augustin also brought X-ray equipment to the stage and took
pictures of the chairs, especially Fischer's. teller had wondered why
Fischer always insisted on his own chair. After the X-ray report, Mr.
Augustin was able to testify that Fischer's chair was identical in
every respect with Spassky's. There was nothing unusual inside either
chair.
After subjecting scrapings of both chairs to chemical analysis and gas
chromography, Mr. Gudbjarnason decided that no alien or toxic
chemicals were present in any body residue of either player.
=93No Russians were present white the chemical and electronic analyses
were being made, but Donald Schultz of the United States delegation
was on hand.=94
[NOTE] I have just confirmed with Don Schultz that he had no idea,
until I just told him, that Fischer, Cramer and myself had, in fact,
been in the playing hall in the middle of the night.
[NOTE] Nobody else believed it either. Even some of the Russians
thought it was funny. The same article in The New York Times
continued:
=93Laughter In the Hall
As soon as the statement was circulated, there was unbelieving
laughter in Exhibition Hall.
"It's .funny!" said Svetozar Gligoric, grandmaster of Yugoslavia,
about it. From the American side, he said, "we have had fantastic
things, so why not from this side also?=94 He added that as yet he had
no time to study the Russian charges.
=93An official of the Icelandic Chess Federation said after the game was
over that as a result of the Soviet charges, guards would be places
back-stage and on the stage during the night, and that specialists
would be asked to investigate the charges.=94
On August 27, 1972, the New York Times published an editorial-type
article entitled, =93Fischer vs. Spassky: Who Killed Those Two Flies -
And Why?=94
REYKJAVIK-The most bizarre episode in this most bizarre of chess
matches was enacted last week with the Case of the Two Dead Flies.
On Tuesday, the Russian delegation issued a statement accusing the
Americans in general and Bobby Fischer in particular of using chemical
and electronic means to overpower Boris Spassky. In effect, the
Russians said, the hall was Bobby-trapped.
Why, they asked, had Fischer put in his own lighting? Why did Fischer
always insist on using his own chair?
What were the Americans doing so often in Exhibition Hail at the dead
of night, when all honest, respectable chess players should be in bed
dreaming happily of the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez?
Everybody thought that the Russian charge was the funniest thing they
had heard. Even the Russians went around with repressed grins. The
suave and elegant Ivo Nei, Spassky's trainer, pretended that he had
not seen the statement. Efim Geller, Spassky's second, had signed the
statement, but he was no-where to be seen. In any case, nobody here
believed he was the author.
It had to come from Moscow, where the bureaucracy was preparing the
Soviet public for a Spassky defeat.
But so spectacular an allegation of cheating and trickery could not be
dismissed out of hand by the organizers of the match. Straight-faced,
the Icelandic Chess Federation brought in a chemist and an electronics
engineer. The lighting was immediately inspected.
All that could be found in the works was two dead flies. Wags said
that the flies should be dissected. Did they die a natural death? Or
had an American death ray put an end to them? Or was their death a
result of tasting the Poisoned Pawn Sicilian?
Spassky's chair was X-rayed. A foreign body turned up in the picture.
Aha! The chair was field-stripped, prodded, unglued, dismembered but
nothing was found except a variation in the wood of the seat where
filler had been used.
Fischer's chair was then X-rayed. There were no dead flies in it but
neither was there any electronic equipment hooked up to a computer in
New York.
The chemist was busy. If Spassky was being chemically manipulated, the
chemicals could enter his, body via food, drink, through the air, or
by injection through the skin. Air samples were tested. Negative.
Scrapings were taken from both chairs and analyzed by gas
chromatography. Negative.
The idea of penetration through Spassky's skin was Clearly
impractical. Nor was his food analyzed. Spassky, since his wife
arrived in Iceland, has been coming to the stage in Exhibition
Hall ,clutching two thermos jugs. The investigating commission did not
believe Spassky's wife would drug his tea.
In one fell swoop the Russians had undercut all the sympathy that had
been built up by Spassky. Everybody admires the champion. He is a
gentleman, a true sportsman who has consistently acted with grace
under pressure. Now he has been associated with an effort to find an
excuse-in most people's opinion a preposterous excuse-for his being
outplayed by Fischer. The statement was none of Spassky's doing, but
Icelanders were saying that the Russians were poor losers.
Submerged in the furor over chemical and electronic cheating was a
paragraph in the Russian statement that accused Fischer of
unsportsmanlike conduct. Fischer's numerous whims, his constant
demands, his late arrivals at games, his protests, his requests for a
private room-all - this, said the statement, has been "deliberately
aimed at exercising pressure on the opponent, unbalancing Mr. B.
Spassky and making him lose his fighting spirit."
There the Russians may have had a point. Certainly the conduct of the
American during the match, which after last week's play Fischer led by
10 1/2 games to 7 1/2, has been open in many ways to serious question.
But with the wild and unfounded allegations of chemical and electronic
cheating, the Russians had spoiled their case.
HAR0LD C. SCHONBERG
Published: August 27, 1972
Copyright =A9 The New York Times
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Date: 28 Dec 2008 08:29:11
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
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Games; Fischer vs. Spassky: Who Killed Those Two Flies -- And Why?
[PDF]
REYKJAVIK -- The most bizarre episode in this most bizarre of chess
matches was enacted last week with the Case of the Two Dead
Flies....View free preview
August 27, 1972 - -- HAROLD C. SCHONBERG - Editorial
Chess Play Adjourned [PDF]
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Date: 28 Dec 2008 07:24:36
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
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Now I will reveal my involvement in one of the most shocking episodes
of the match, something I have never revealed before, especially since
my friend Bobby was still alive.
When I got to the Hotel Loftleidir and announced my arrival (after
shooing off Brad Darrach) the word came down soon that Bobby would
like to see me. I was escorted up to Bobby's inner sanctum.
Bobby was sitting at a huge table in a large hotel suite and the table
was filled with all kinds of different foods. There were especially a
lot of different kinds of fruits such as bananas and oranges and some
things I did not even know the names of, plus a large pitcher of
orange juice. Bobby invited me to eat anything I wanted. He was
building himself up for the big chess matches.
By evening, Fred Cramer arrived in Bobby's hotel suite. They talked
for a while and then Bobby said, =93Let's go look at the boards=94.
I had no idea where we were going but we all got in a car together,
which took us to the chess playing hall. There was an Icelandic
watchman there standing guard. Fred Cramer told the watchman that we
wanted to enter the building to check out the playing site. The
watchman protested but he finally let us in after some discussion.
By now it was nearly midnight. There was nobody in the playing hall
but us.
On the stage where the match was being played, there were six chess
tables. Each table had an inlaid chess board in it and around each
board was a ring. All these parts were removable. You could take out
the chess board in the center of the table and put one of the other
boards in. You could take out one of the rings and put another ring
in. So, in other words you had 6 x 6 x 6 possible combinations or 216
possibilities. Each of the six possible tables had six possible rings
and six possible boards inside.
So, we proceeded to try everyone of the possible combinations. We
would take out the board that was inside the main table and put in one
of the other boards. We would take out the ring and put in one of the
other rings. We just kept at this until every possibility was tried.
Fred Cramer and I had the opposite approach. With every combination
Fred would say, =93This is really nice Bobby. Just perfect. We should
use this one.=94
I knew that this would not work. Trying to get Bobby to agree to
something is just going nowhere, so I would always try to find
something wrong with the combination that was being suggested. I would
say, =93Oh. This in no good. No good at all. Why in this one the grain
runs right to left whereas the grain ogf the wood in the ring runs
vertically whereas the grain of the wood on the table runs diagonally.
The players will get the grain of the wood mixed of with the moves of
the chess game and start blundering.=94
Or, I might say, =93Wait a second. This board has a knot in the wood.
That is no good at all.=94 I would point to the knot in the wood to make
sure that Bobby saw it.
This process continued for several hours. For every combination, Fred
Cramer said that it was =93just perfect=94 but I said that it was =93no
good=94.
By the way, each of these tables had been made by fine artists and
craftsmen.
So, after trying all these possibilities we came back to the original
one, the one that was actually being used in the chess match. I could
see that the original one was the one that was actually the best of
all 216 possibilities. So, Bobby looked at it again, stroked his chin
and said, =93Let's come back to this later=94.
So, without ever agreeing to continue the match on the same board that
was already being used, Bobby decided that we should leave, so we all
went back to the Hotel Loftleidir.
Two days later (after missing my flight back which is another story I
will tell later) I flew back to New York. It was then that I was
sitting in my Wall Street stock brokerage office where I had set up a
TV so that I could watch the match while trading stocks, that the news
story broke world wide.
=93The Chess Boards have been Bobby-Trapped=94, Headlines screamed.
Grandmaster Geller, Spassky's second, wrote a letter dated August 22,
1972 to the Icelandic organizers of the Fischer-Spassky Match,
stating:
"It is surprising that the Americans can be found in the playing hall
when the games are not taking place even at night =85".
This led to what became known internationally as =93The Case of Two Dead
Flies=94. Everything in the playing hall had to be taken apart, examined
and even x-rayed. Not only the chess boards and tables but the pieces,
the chairs, the lighting fixtures and everything else. The end result
of all this investigation and examination was that it was officially
announced to the press and to the world that two foreign objects has
been found in the lightning fixtures. They were:
Two Dead Flies
While this was blaring on the international news, I was sitting in my
Wall Street stock market office in New York trading stocks and
watching it on TV. Since I had come to Reykjavik and left so quickly
only two days later, without ever allowing that intrepid reporter Brad
Darrach to interview me, nobody had the slightest idea that I was the
mysterious American involved in this. Of course, I was not going to
tell anybody either.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 28 Dec 2008 04:04:17
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Brad Darrach in Iceland in 1972
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I was only there for a weekend as I was the principal of a Wall Street
securities broker-dealer at the time and I was the only person with
the authority to sign checks, so it was absolutely necessary that I be
back in my office in New York by Monday morning.
I had come to Iceland on that day because I had received a call from
Andy Davis, one of Bobby Fischer's lawyers, who told me that Bobby was
interested in having me come over for the match. I had just received
my first passport and had never been to Europe before. So, as soon as
the Stock Market closed, I went out to Kennedy Airport and caught a
Loftleidir flight to Iceland.
Loftleidir was the name of the Icelandic Airlines and also the name of
the Hotel in Reykjavik that the airlines owned. There was an airplane
landing strip right behind the hotel where airplanes used to take off
and land in earlier years. However, with the advent of larger
aircraft, the International Airport had been moved out to Keflavik Air
Base, which was a NATO military base maintained primarily by American
Military Personnel.
As I was soon to learn, at that time the Loftleidir flights followed
no particular schedule. They were supposed to depart from JFK Airport
in the evenings, but they always left late. Eventually, I went to
Iceland eleven times. I never bothered to make a reservation. I just
went out to JFK Airport some time in the evenings. The flight would
always be late. Usually, the airline staff would tell me that the
flight was full. However, I found that if I just waited around long
enough, a seat would materialize even after the staff told me that it
was =93impossible, impossible=94 to get on the flight. It never happened
even once that I missed a flight that I was trying to get on.
Now I will reveal my involvement in one of the most shocking episodes
of the match, something I have never revealed before, especially since
Bobby was still alive.
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