AJuly 07 1955
The Des Moines Register, Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, July 07, 1955
Russia Beats U.S. In Chess
By Clifton Daniel.
Leased Wire From N. Y. Times.
Moscow, Russia—United States chess players ended their Moscow match in a crushing defeat Wednesday night.
They lost to a Soviet team by an even worse score than they did last year. The count was 25 to 7 in favor of the Russians; in 1954 in New York it was 20 to 12.
Compensations.
There were compensations, however. The leading American, Samuel Reshevsky, defeated world champion Mikhail Botvinnik of the Soviet Union by 2½ to l½ points. Soviet sports officials were extremely hospitable and the visitors had a good time—except at the chess tables.
Most of them met Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin and other Soviet leaders at the United States embassy's Fourth of July party.
In spite of the score, the Americans performed creditably against the best players in the world. Probably no other country could have done so well. Every Soviet player was a grand master of chess, every one a challenger or potential challenger for the world title.
Two of them, Vassily Smyslov and David Bronstein, actually have played Botvinnik to draws in championship matches. The American team had only two grand masters, Reshevsky and Isaac I. Kashdan. The rest were merely masters.
Even so, Larry Evans, only 23 and the youngest member of the United States team, forced Bronstein to draws in three games out of four. Bronstein won the fourth.
Highest Scores.
Next to Reshevsky, Evans and Kashdan had the highest scores on the United States team, 1½ each. Donald Byrne won one game to collect a point, and Robert Byrne scored a half point with one draw.
