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Jim Slater
November 20, 2014
Almost every chessplayer of a certain age has a copy of Gligoric’s Fischer v Spassky The World Chess Championship Match 1972.
From the Introduction:
When Fischer was due to be in Iceland to start the match, he was instead in New York, repeating his claim for thirty per cent of the gate money for each of the players. This demand, for financial reasons, could not be accepted by the organizers.
Even Spassky, who had been in Reykjavik for about two weeks before the match was due to begin, believed that all possibility of the match taking place was over. Fischer was not present at the big opening ceremony on the night of Saturday July 1st, nor the next day when the first game should have been played. Probably Fischer, still in New York at the twenty-fifth hour, had the same pessimistic opinion as Spassky. Was he reasoning that (Cassius) ‘Clay would never agree to be deprived of his percentage of the gate money’? (Why should chess champions be treated on a lower level than boxers?) Perhaps Fischer had instinctively lost the will to play Spassky at the moment when the title holder might still be in his prime and it was this that made him stay away. We shall never know.
In order to bring the Icelandic organisers out of their consternation (so much money had been spent on preparing for the match) and to save the interests of world chess, the President of FIDE, Dr. Euwe, took the risk of making the (perhaps judicially wrong) decision to delay the first game for two days. This unexpected decision gave Fischer a little more time in the hope that he would come to his senses’. This would not have helped much if, on the same day, the deus ex machina had not appeared in the person of British chess sponsor Jim Slater who simply added £50,000 to the Icelandic prize fund of 125,000 dollars. His message to Fischer was: ‘If money is the question, here it is. Now come out and play, chicken!’
Robert Fischer landed on Icelandic tarmac early on the morning of Tuesday July 4th and before Dr. Euwe’s noon deadline. But the first game was delayed again because the champion did not agree to the drawing of lots until Fischer apologized for ‘having violated the rules’ by his late arrival.
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Jim Slater, born March 13 1929, died November 18 2015
His obituary in The Telegraph doesn’t mention Fischer-Spassky at all. Excerpts:
Jim Slater, who has died aged 86, was a brilliant and ruthless financier whose fortunes came to grief in the stock market collapse of the mid-1970s; afterwards, having faced fraud charges and found himself a “minus millionaire”, he turned his hand to writing children’s books.
Slater might have become a top executive in the British car industry, but worries about his health prompted him to seek a less stressful life in the investment world.
The key to Slater Walker’s early rise was its ability to use clients’ money to acquire control of companies and to make quick profits out of those companies by disposing of under-performing assets – the practice known as “asset-stripping”. In an interview in 1992 Slater said: “I don’t deny asset-stripping, though the phrase is used as a smear, usually by spineless people who cannot manage their companies. If a firm has its assets stripped it means they have not been properly used.”
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The obituary traces the rise and fall of his fortunes and includes this paragraph at the end:
Jim Slater remained a chess enthusiast all his life, and counted his sponsorship of British chess as one of his proudest achievements. Through his charitable foundation he also sponsored young British tennis players, though he preferred playing table tennis. He was also a competitive bridge player and keen fisherman.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obit...-obituary.html
The Times obit does repeat what Gligoric wrote:
Backgammon, bridge and chess were his favourite pastimes. He claimed that the latter helped him to outwit business competitors; investing was, to him, another game. When the world chess championship contest between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer was threatened in 1972, Slater added £50,000 to the prize money to ensure it went ahead. “Fischer has said that money is the problem. Well, here it is. My message to Fischer is, ‘Come out, chicken’.”
He also fostered interest in UK chess: that same year he offered £5,000 to the first Briton to become a grandmaster and £2,500 to each of the next four. Of his contribution, he said laconically: “It’s marvelous what a bit of money will do.”
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Note added: Richard James gave this quote in the EC Forum:
(After hearing that Bobby Fischer was demanding more money for the Match) Slater recalls what happened next:
“I was driving into London early one Monday morning in mid-July feeling disappointed that after all this build-up Fischer might not be taking on Spassky, when it suddenly occurred to me that I could easily afford the extra prize money personally. As well as providing me with a fascinating spectacle for the next few weeks it would give chess players throughout the world enormous pleasure for the match to proceed.”
November 20, 2014
Almost every chessplayer of a certain age has a copy of Gligoric’s Fischer v Spassky The World Chess Championship Match 1972.
From the Introduction:
When Fischer was due to be in Iceland to start the match, he was instead in New York, repeating his claim for thirty per cent of the gate money for each of the players. This demand, for financial reasons, could not be accepted by the organizers.
Even Spassky, who had been in Reykjavik for about two weeks before the match was due to begin, believed that all possibility of the match taking place was over. Fischer was not present at the big opening ceremony on the night of Saturday July 1st, nor the next day when the first game should have been played. Probably Fischer, still in New York at the twenty-fifth hour, had the same pessimistic opinion as Spassky. Was he reasoning that (Cassius) ‘Clay would never agree to be deprived of his percentage of the gate money’? (Why should chess champions be treated on a lower level than boxers?) Perhaps Fischer had instinctively lost the will to play Spassky at the moment when the title holder might still be in his prime and it was this that made him stay away. We shall never know.
In order to bring the Icelandic organisers out of their consternation (so much money had been spent on preparing for the match) and to save the interests of world chess, the President of FIDE, Dr. Euwe, took the risk of making the (perhaps judicially wrong) decision to delay the first game for two days. This unexpected decision gave Fischer a little more time in the hope that he would come to his senses’. This would not have helped much if, on the same day, the deus ex machina had not appeared in the person of British chess sponsor Jim Slater who simply added £50,000 to the Icelandic prize fund of 125,000 dollars. His message to Fischer was: ‘If money is the question, here it is. Now come out and play, chicken!’
Robert Fischer landed on Icelandic tarmac early on the morning of Tuesday July 4th and before Dr. Euwe’s noon deadline. But the first game was delayed again because the champion did not agree to the drawing of lots until Fischer apologized for ‘having violated the rules’ by his late arrival.
_________
Jim Slater, born March 13 1929, died November 18 2015
His obituary in The Telegraph doesn’t mention Fischer-Spassky at all. Excerpts:
Jim Slater, who has died aged 86, was a brilliant and ruthless financier whose fortunes came to grief in the stock market collapse of the mid-1970s; afterwards, having faced fraud charges and found himself a “minus millionaire”, he turned his hand to writing children’s books.
Slater might have become a top executive in the British car industry, but worries about his health prompted him to seek a less stressful life in the investment world.
The key to Slater Walker’s early rise was its ability to use clients’ money to acquire control of companies and to make quick profits out of those companies by disposing of under-performing assets – the practice known as “asset-stripping”. In an interview in 1992 Slater said: “I don’t deny asset-stripping, though the phrase is used as a smear, usually by spineless people who cannot manage their companies. If a firm has its assets stripped it means they have not been properly used.”
______
The obituary traces the rise and fall of his fortunes and includes this paragraph at the end:
Jim Slater remained a chess enthusiast all his life, and counted his sponsorship of British chess as one of his proudest achievements. Through his charitable foundation he also sponsored young British tennis players, though he preferred playing table tennis. He was also a competitive bridge player and keen fisherman.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obit...-obituary.html
The Times obit does repeat what Gligoric wrote:
Backgammon, bridge and chess were his favourite pastimes. He claimed that the latter helped him to outwit business competitors; investing was, to him, another game. When the world chess championship contest between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer was threatened in 1972, Slater added £50,000 to the prize money to ensure it went ahead. “Fischer has said that money is the problem. Well, here it is. My message to Fischer is, ‘Come out, chicken’.”
He also fostered interest in UK chess: that same year he offered £5,000 to the first Briton to become a grandmaster and £2,500 to each of the next four. Of his contribution, he said laconically: “It’s marvelous what a bit of money will do.”
_______
Note added: Richard James gave this quote in the EC Forum:
(After hearing that Bobby Fischer was demanding more money for the Match) Slater recalls what happened next:
“I was driving into London early one Monday morning in mid-July feeling disappointed that after all this build-up Fischer might not be taking on Spassky, when it suddenly occurred to me that I could easily afford the extra prize money personally. As well as providing me with a fascinating spectacle for the next few weeks it would give chess players throughout the world enormous pleasure for the match to proceed.”