Lyman, Freeman Spring Upsets in Collegiate Chess Championship Meet

Two freshman chess players, Selby Lyman and Arthur Freeman, played the parts of giant-killers at the biennial intercollegiate chess championship tournament at Columbia last December (26-30). Lyman, who finished seventh out of 26 entrants, defeated Andy Mednis of NYU, the eventual winner of the tournament, and Freeman in turn defeated Lyman to end in eighth place.

Lyman is described in the current issue of Sports Illustrated as a "a brilliant but uneven player who has a disconcerting habit of jumping up after he has made a move, as though he suddenly remembered that he had to catch a train."

His upset victory over Mednis gave him a chance for the championship which he lost the next day when defeated by his team-mate Freeman. Lyman came back, however, to hold Charles Witte of Columbia to a tie, and ruin Witte's chance of winning.

Freeman tied for first going into the final round of the tournament, then met and lost to Mednis in what he termed "a swift and not very beautiful debacle." "My win over Lyman was very unfortunate," Freeman said, "for I had no chance of winning and he did."

Both Lyman and Freeman belong to the chess club and have been playing the game for over ten years. Malcolm Wiener '57, president of the chess club said, "On the basis of Lyman and Freeman's showing in this tournament, we will enter next year's team intercollegiate championships." (The intercollegiates in chess alternate from an individual tournament one year to a team championship the next.)