Sport: Back to the Tables

Looking like a morose but determined bantam rooster, small (5 ft. 2½ in.) Chess Grand Master Sam Reshevsky walked to the center of the crowded game room at Washington's Jewish Community Center. He acknowledged the applause with a faint smile, then turned to face the 42 opponents who were waiting for him. It was exactly 8 p.m. By midnight he had beaten 32 of his brooding opponents, fought the rest to a clucking draw.

Such mass chess fights were an old story to taciturn, 38-year-old, Polish-born Sammy Reshevsky. When he was nine, and a newcomer to the U.S., he had taken on the 20 best chessers at West Point simultaneously and beaten them all. He has competed for the U.S. championship six times since then, and won it each time.

Last week Sammy was taking on all comers. In the next six weeks, as Sammy made a coast-to-coast tour of 30-odd U.S. and Canadian cities, anyone with $2 and sufficient brass could have a go at him. In a really busy session, Sammy estimates that he trots 15 to 20 miles to make an average of 20 to 60 moves on each board. He likes to knock off 40 at a time, although recently at Germantown, Pa. he faced 75 in one evening.

If he makes enough on his tour, Sammy hopes to give up his job as a Manhattan accountant and become one of the first full-time U.S. chess pros. And he might decide to enter the U.S. biennial championship tournament this year, might even go to Russia, to challenge World Chess Champion Mikhail Botvinnik.

Sammy has two children, 7 and 2. They don't play chess; they like dolls and teddy bears.