Bobby Fischer: The greatest chessplayer of all time?
Chess
With Errol Tiwari
Stabroek News
January 28, 2007
Of the twenty-one games that were played, Spassky won one other, the 11th., when he produced a novelty, or, as the Russians say, a novinka, winning Fischer's Queen. But Fischer did not deviate from the task at hand. He had all kinds of surprises in store for Spassky during the match. For one, he did not invariably open with his usual King Pawn. The Russians had prepared well for him in that area. Rather, he mixed his openings thereby throwing Spassky completely off-balance. Fischer had departed from his normal routine of regular moves for the match. Chessplayers, perhaps like boxers, are trained to accept and absorb punishment without showing signs of strain or stress. But as the match went on and Fischer drew inexorably ahead, Spassky seemed to crack under the strain, according to Grandmasters who witnessed the encounter. He had begun to make blunders almost of an elementary nature. Spassky, apparently, was suffering from Fischer-fear.
Some people are of the view that Fischer had set the stage for a Spassky crash during the match with his hysterics and long list of demands. These included a demand for a new Mercedes-Benz automatic to be placed at his disposal for the duration of the match; a demand that the chessboard and pieces be changed--the Icelandic Chess Federation had engaged an artisan to make a heavy table with inlaid marble squares between 2¼ and 2? inches wide. Fischer wanted the size to be exactly 2? inches. But Spassky had also said the squares were too large in relation to the size of the chess pieces. Experienced chessplayers have a spatial relationship between the pieces and the squares they rest on.
There was also demands that the swimming pool at the Loftleider hotel be closed to the public at all times and reserved for the exclusive use of Bobby Fischer; for children in the playing hall to be forbidden candy with noisy wrappers; for children to be banned from the hall entirely; for an indoor tennis court; for the marble chessboard to be replaced by one made of wood - and so it went on and on.
For a delirious period of time, chess was front page news in civilized countries. People were entranced as two great players fought each other, tried to outmanoeuvre each other, tried to dominate and psychically destroy each other. The match between Fischer of the United States and Spassky of the Soviet Union became much more than a match between two players. It became an international incident, a struggle between two societies, a symbol of confrontation between East and West. Both players denied any political implications. But the world ignored their remarks. America and the Soviet Union were facing each other in the persons of two great chessplayers.
More than anyone else Fischer seemed to know what he represented in relation to the spirit of the time. No one had paid attention to chess before Fischer. When Spassky won the World Championship title in 1969, he received US$1400 as his prize money. Before his match with Spassky, Fischer let it be known that he would not play unless the purse was at least US$50,000. There was tolerant laughter. Everybody thought Fischer was out of his mind. US$50,000 for a chess match? Who on earth would be willing to put up that sum?
But when it was all over and he was declared chess champion of the world, Fischer walked away with the winner's share of a purse of US$250,000, worth certainly more than a million dollars today. It was, prizefight purses excepted, the largest single purse for a sporting event ever recorded. For the first time in the 2,000-year history of the game, chess had entered the Age of Opulence.
Fischer's 21 games that he played with Spassky to this day are beauties to behold. Fischer played the Queen's Gambit Declined as White in round six of the championship for the first time in his life. Fischer had senselessly, so we thought, wandered into Spassky's milieu. The result was a total defeat for the Russian. Experts felt Fischer kept the improvements he had worked out in that game for perhaps a decade to unleash them at the right moment and at the right time. Harry Golombek, covering the match for the London Times likened the game to a "Mozart Symphony" so perfect was it in its execution.
Fischer possessed an extraordinary memory. It is said he has never forgotten a game he has played or an analysis he has read. He had the ability to merely glance at a chess position and grasp its nuances and difficulties. In a flash he knew what was true and should be ravenously absorbed, and what was false and should be ruthlessly discarded. Frank Brady told a story of Fischer's extraordinary mental capacity.
In 1963, at age 20, Fischer won the New York Open State Championship. During the final round Brady was playing Frank Meyer. Fischer passed the table with the game in progress and glanced momentarily - Brady said for about five seconds - at a difficult ending he was playing with Meyer. Months later Fischer met Brady in his office and inquired how the game turned out. Brady said he had won, but with difficulty. Then Fischer asked if he had played Q-B5. Quite frankly, Brady said, he could not remember what he had played. Fischer immediately set up the exact position to "help" Brady remember, and demonstrated the variation he should have played to gain the most economical win.
Fischer could also recall most of his speed games in which both players are limited to five minutes to make all the moves. After the World Speed Chess Championship in Yugoslavia in 1970, which he won, Fischer replayed all 22 of his games which he had played in the tournament from memory. Not only did he remember speed games directly after a match, he remembered them for years and could replay a particular game at a moment's notice. Fischer met the Russian chess player Vasiukov and showed him a speed game that the two had played in Moscow 15 years before. Fischer recalled the game move by move.
Fischer's IQ was in the range of 180 - genius level. But this is not exceptional to Fischer alone. Brilliant chess players have been known to have high IQs. However, there is probably no topic that intrigues chess players as much as the inner workings of the mind of Bobby Fischer. Chess players universally feel they can improve their own game by understanding how Fischer's mind worked.
But Fischer's incredible retention was not restricted to chess alone. One day when he was in Iceland, Fischer called Frederick Olaffson, Iceland's only Grandmaster. Olaffson's Icelandic-speaking daughter answered the phone and explained her parents were out and would return at suppertime. Fischer understood nothing that was said because he did not know the language. But he listened, apologized and hung up. Later that day Fischer met with another Icelandic player who spoke English. He explained what had happened and repeated every Icelandic word he had heard on the phone, imitating the sounds with perfect inflection. The Icelandic player translated the message word for word for Fischer.
Following his match with Spassky, Fischer had achieved the highest rating of any player in history. Professor Arpad Elo's International Rating System, a thoroughly reliable system that is used to this day, rated Fischer at 2805. He was the only player in the history of the game to have reached the magic 2800 mark. Rating points are given for wins against strong Grandmasters and are taken away for draws and losses. Fischer's record remained unbroken for twenty years. And to this day only two players have succeeded in reaching 2800--Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov. Although he is the current world champion, Vladimir Kramnik is rated at 2750 and Viswanathan Anand the number two in the world, is rated at 2779. Kasparov has retired from chess and is not active, so he is not rated. And by the way, Professor Elo had correctly predicted that Fischer would beat Spassky by a 12½ to 8½ margin, and that the contest would end on the twenty-first game.
Fischer had produced an energy over the chess board that apparently disturbed his opponents. Some people called it the Fischer "aura," implying that like Tal, Capablanca and Alekhine before him, he virtually hypnotized his opponents by striking fear into their hearts, thus making them play below their usual standard.
It is hard to describe the Fischer aura. Harold Schonberg attested in the New York Times that: "…the Fischer aura is the will to dominate, to humilate, to take over an opponent's mind." When the Fischer aura enveloped an opponent terrible things happened. Combinations turned out faulty. Exchanges were lost. Players ended up in Zugzwang (chess term for a hopeless position). Well-tested openings developed flaws and outright blunders were made.
No one really knew what the Fischer aura was but it terrified seasoned Grandmasters. It was relentless, merciless and pitiless. It was the aura of a killer. Some accused him of psychic murder. He took the Alekhine Defence as Black in Game 13 of his championship match against Sapssky, chess champion of the world, the player supposedly without nerves, the suave gentleman admired by all, and destroyed him. Alekhine's Defence had been unplayed in World Championship matches since 1932 and was considered a suspect defence against the White King Pawn. But Fischer adopted it nevertheless, and the loss of that game produced a psychological shock from which Spassky never recovered. He was finished forever; psychologically ground down by a strange, mysterious young man from America.
Did Fischer beat Spassky by chess alone, or had he 'psyched' him out of the title? Did the commotion throw Spassky off-balance and make it impossible for him to wage the struggle with the attention it required? I believe Fischer won by playing superior chess. All who have replayed and studied Fischer's games realize that he knew more about chess theory than any other player in history. He demonstrated his superiority over his opponents by out-thinking, out-witting and out-playing them in every phase of chess, from the maze-like complications of modern opening theory, into the terrible tension of the middlegame and finally to the experimental precision of the ending, where the loneliness of logic prevails. Fischer once said that if he had a backward Pawn and felt a disadvantage in the position, he felt great pain. He would become the Pawn if he could, and march himself, rank by rank, to the ultimate promotion square. He approached each chess battle with the solemnity of an examination, paying attention to every miniscule detail. Bobby Fischer was chess itself.
In 1992, Fischer violated a US ban to play chess in Yugoslavia . It was reported he was offered a US$5 million purse to play a return match with Spassky, which he accepted and won. After that match he took up residence outside the US and went into seclusion. In 2004, he was detained in Japan. He currently resides in Iceland .
Fischer had refused to defend his championship title against Anatoly Karpov in 1975 and lost it by default because the rules of championship play did not suit him. FIDE changed the rules of play after the Spassky match. According to the FIDE provisions, the title would go to the first player who scored ten victories. Draws would not count. A match limit of 36 games was set. After 36 games the title would go to the player with the most won games. No, said Fischer. The title should revert to the champion in the event of a 9-9 draw. In other words, the challenger would have to win by a minimum spread of 10-8. And there should be no limit to the number of games.
Fischer's proposals were turned down and he retaliated by resigning his championship. FIDE refused to accept his resignation. The world governing body of chess was still hoping Fischer would change his mind and agree to their rules for the match. Fischer would not change his mind. He said it was a matter of principle. The Phillipines bid to host the match was awesome - a superspectacular US$5 million, making the US$250,000 Icelandic purse look like peanuts. But Fischer would not play under the FIDE conditions.
Fischer became a recluse. If he had continued to play, chess, I believe, would have remained a glamorous, intoxicating, internationally publicized sport /art/science/game. It was Bobby Fischer who had singlehandedly made the world recognize that chess on its highest level was as competitive as soccer, as thrilling as a duel to the death, as aesthetically satisfying as a fine work of art, and as intellectually demanding as any other form of human activity. It was Fischer and Fischer alone.
When Fischer disappeared in the seventies, people were devastated. Some cried openly when they spoke of him. There was something ignoble about his refusal to play and something pathetic about it. Slowly, sadly, people came to the realization that he would never play again. Fischer, possibly the greatest chess player who has ever lived, had retired not only from chess. The King had retired from the human race.
Fischer's IQ was in the range of 180 - genius level. But this is not exceptional to Fischer alone. Brilliant chess players have been known to have high IQs. However, there is probably no topic that intrigues chess players as much as the inner workings of the mind of Bobby Fischer. Chess players universally feel they can improve their own game by understanding how Fischer's mind worked.
But Fischer's incredible retention was not restricted to chess alone. One day when he was in Iceland, Fischer called Frederick Olaffson, Iceland's only Grandmaster. Olaffson's Icelandic-speaking daughter answered the phone and explained her parents were out and would return at suppertime. Fischer understood nothing that was said because he did not know the language. But he listened, apologized and hung up. Later that day Fischer met with another Icelandic player who spoke English. He explained what had happened and repeated every Icelandic word he had heard on the phone, imitating the sounds with perfect inflection. The Icelandic player translated the message word for word for Fischer.
Following his match with Spassky, Fischer had achieved the highest rating of any player in history. Professor Arpad Elo's International Rating System, a thoroughly reliable system that is used to this day, rated Fischer at 2805. He was the only player in the history of the game to have reached the magic 2800 mark. Rating points are given for wins against strong Grandmasters and are taken away for draws and losses. Fischer's record remained unbroken for twenty years. And to this day only two players have succeeded in reaching 2800--Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov. Although he is the current world champion, Vladimir Kramnik is rated at 2750 and Viswanathan Anand the number two in the world, is rated at 2779. Kasparov has retired from chess and is not active, so he is not rated. And by the way, Professor Elo had correctly predicted that Fischer would beat Spassky by a 12½ to 8½ margin, and that the contest would end on the twenty-first game.
Fischer had produced an energy over the chess board that apparently disturbed his opponents. Some people called it the Fischer "aura," implying that like Tal, Capablanca and Alekhine before him, he virtually hypnotized his opponents by striking fear into their hearts, thus making them play below their usual standard.
It is hard to describe the Fischer aura. Harold Schonberg attested in the New York Times that: "…the Fischer aura is the will to dominate, to humilate, to take over an opponent's mind." When the Fischer aura enveloped an opponent terrible things happened. Combinations turned out faulty. Exchanges were lost. Players ended up in Zugzwang (chess term for a hopeless position). Well-tested openings developed flaws and outright blunders were made.
No one really knew what the Fischer aura was but it terrified seasoned Grandmasters. It was relentless, merciless and pitiless. It was the aura of a killer. Some accused him of psychic murder. He took the Alekhine Defence as Black in Game 13 of his championship match against Sapssky, chess champion of the world, the player supposedly without nerves, the suave gentleman admired by all, and destroyed him. Alekhine's Defence had been unplayed in World Championship matches since 1932 and was considered a suspect defence against the White King Pawn. But Fischer adopted it nevertheless, and the loss of that game produced a psychological shock from which Spassky never recovered. He was finished forever; psychologically ground down by a strange, mysterious young man from America.
Did Fischer beat Spassky by chess alone, or had he 'psyched' him out of the title? Did the commotion throw Spassky off-balance and make it impossible for him to wage the struggle with the attention it required? I believe Fischer won by playing superior chess. All who have replayed and studied Fischer's games realize that he knew more about chess theory than any other player in history. He demonstrated his superiority over his opponents by out-thinking, out-witting and out-playing them in every phase of chess, from the maze-like complications of modern opening theory, into the terrible tension of the middlegame and finally to the experimental precision of the ending, where the loneliness of logic prevails. Fischer once said that if he had a backward Pawn and felt a disadvantage in the position, he felt great pain. He would become the Pawn if he could, and march himself, rank by rank, to the ultimate promotion square. He approached each chess battle with the solemnity of an examination, paying attention to every miniscule detail. Bobby Fischer was chess itself.
In 1992, Fischer violated a US ban to play chess in Yugoslavia . It was reported he was offered a US$5 million purse to play a return match with Spassky, which he accepted and won. After that match he took up residence outside the US and went into seclusion. In 2004, he was detained in Japan. He currently resides in Iceland .
Fischer had refused to defend his championship title against Anatoly Karpov in 1975 and lost it by default because the rules of championship play did not suit him. FIDE changed the rules of play after the Spassky match. According to the FIDE provisions, the title would go to the first player who scored ten victories. Draws would not count. A match limit of 36 games was set. After 36 games the title would go to the player with the most won games. No, said Fischer. The title should revert to the champion in the event of a 9-9 draw. In other words, the challenger would have to win by a minimum spread of 10-8. And there should be no limit to the number of games.
Fischer's proposals were turned down and he retaliated by resigning his championship. FIDE refused to accept his resignation. The world governing body of resigning his championship. FIDE refused to accept his resignation. The world governing body of chess was still hoping Fischer would change his mind and agree to their rules for the match. Fischer would not change his mind. He said it was a matter of principle. The Phillipines bid to host the match was awesome - a superspectacular US$5 million, making the US$250,000 Icelandic purse look like peanuts. But Fischer would not play under the FIDE conditions.
Fischer became a recluse. If he had continued to play, chess, I believe, would have remained a glamorous, intoxicating, internationally publicized sport /art/science/game. It was Bobby Fischer who had singlehandedly made the world recognize that chess on its highest level was as competitive as soccer, as thrilling as a duel to the death, as aesthetically satisfying as a fine work of art, and as intellectually demanding as any other form of human activity. It was Fischer and Fischer alone.
When Fischer disappeared in the seventies, people were devastated. Some cried openly when they spoke of him. There was something ignoble about his refusal to play and something pathetic about it. Slowly, sadly, people came to the realization that he would never play again. Fischer, possibly the greatest chess player who has ever lived, had retired not only from chess. The King had retired from the human race.