Bobby Fischer - Beautiful Chess.pdf

BOBBY FISCHER   BEAUTIF  BEAUTIFUL UL CHESS GAMES, WEIRD WEIRD STUFF AND COOL ARTICLES.

 BRENDAN  BREN DAN J. NORMAN  NORM AN 

BOBBY FISCHER   BEAUTIF  BEAUTIFUL UL CHESS GAMES, WEIRD WEIRD STUFF AND COOL ARTICLES.

 BRENDAN  BREN DAN J. NORMAN  NORM AN 

Copyright © 2014, 2015 by BJN Publishing.

Join the FREE training course “Chess Tactics Essentials” at: OnlineChessCourse.com

INTRODUCTION I remember when I first got hold of “My 60 Memorable Games” (it was lent  by one of my mother’s friends) as a teenager, I studied it every night for  months and got to know the guy who was a chess genius, pioneer and finally lone dominator of the world chess scene. As a result of studying his games I switched from the Caro Kann Defence to the Sicilian Najdorf as my main opening and I learnt so much from his approach to the game… Especially his infamous light-squared bishop endings! His games seem so simple while his annotations make them seem eve simpler, yet underneath there is great complexity and brilliance at work. As GM Teimor Radjabov said “His games are very clean and very clear,  precise chess. Not yet at his level are my chess games, but I will do my  best”.  Not bad praise from a 2750 GrandMaster, 40 years after Bobby’s retirement, wouldn’t you say? So what happened to him? The enormous toll which chess takes on chess grandmasters has, in several instances caused them to lose their sanity (Stenitz was one, not to mentio  poor Rubinstein). So was Fischer just another “victim” of this? We all know he was certainly “different” when he reemerged in 1992. This book is part biography, part magazine and part games collection, so I’ve packed a lot of very interesting stuff for you Fischer fans to enjoy whilst travelling or even just relaxing on the sofa.

I have endeavoured to provide enough diagrams for the reader to be able to follow the games provided without having to set them up, but it would be a great experience to set up the board anyway and follow the games as there is really a LOT to learn! Observe for example how his minor pieces were ALWAYS better! When he had a bishop, it dominated their knight and when he had a knight, it dominated their bishop! Such amazing strength and such useful instruction for us lesser mortals. I hope that you will take from this book a deeper appreciation of Robert (Bobby) Fischer and you’ll respect him for the man and chess Goliath that he was. With some words herein I have judged him harshly, but the reader can be assured that I am judging the behaviour, and not scorn for Bobby himself… Well, mostly. I hope that his pained soul rests in peace and thank him for the beautiful chess legacy he has left behind as well as the innumerable lessons he has given me in chess.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. WHO WAS BOBBY FISCHER? 2. QUOTES ABOUT FISCHER  3. QUOTES BY FISCHER  4. WAS FISCHER THE GREATEST EVER? 5. WHY WAS FISCHER SO SUCCESSFUL? 6. HOW WOULD FISCHER HAVE DONE AT POKER? 7. FISCHER’S OTHER INTERESTS 8. WTF HAPPENED IN PASADENA? 9. FISCHER SENSATIONALISTIC? 10. FISCHER A PSYCHOPATH? 11. REVIEW OF “ENDGAME BY FRANK BRADY” 12. FISCHER’S AMAZING WINNING STREAK  CONCLUSION ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

1. WHO WAS BOBBY FISCHER? Robert James Fischer was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1943 and died 3000 miles away in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2008. He was 64, the number of squares on a chessboard. He ended his life the way he began it, rootless and nomadic. He was raised in an apartment in Brooklyn, New York, by his mother, Regina Fischer, an American of Polish Jewish stock. The man listed as his father on his birth certificate was Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, a German scientist whom Regina had met while studying medicine in Moscow. It is almost certain, however, that Bobby’s actual father was Paul Nemenyi, a Hungarian Jew and also a scientist. Bobby knew Nemenyi only as a friend of his mother who would occasionally visit and take him out. Regina never told her son the truth about his father, despite Nemenyi’s dying wish that he be told. Young Bobby was the type of child who today would probably end up o Ritalin. Despite scoring a stunning 180 on a school-administered IQ test, his homework had to be dragged out of him. He never made friends with his classmates, whom he found himself unable to relate to. Instead of studying or socializing, he solved puzzles and made up games to challenge himself; once he leapt off his bed so many times, trying to soar farther and farther, that the downstairs neighbors complained. He liked board games, but he would become enraged if he lost due to chance. There has been much speculation about how Fischer would have turned out if he and his sister had never come across a plastic chess set in the candy store below their apartment. Contrary to popular belief, he was not an idiot savant who would have been hopeless had he not found his one true niche.  Not only was his high level of intelligence generally applicable to the world outside of chess, he also inherited a marked talent for languages from his mother (who was herself quite bright and well educated). My opinion is that if it hadn’t been chess, it would have been something else: Bobby Fischer’s brain wasn’t built for chess, but for things like chess.

He was destined to end up devoted to a solitary intellectual pursuit, the  practice of which provides strong feedback. If he’d been born two decades later and come across a Kenbak-1 as a child, he would have become a great computer programmer. If he’d come across a copy of The Moscow Puzzles, he would have become a great mathematician. In a way, it’s a shame that Caissa found him first. Still, find him she did, and his life would never be the same again. Well, not quite: he actually set chess aside for a while due to a shortage o opponents. The true point of no return came when his mother--always wit his best interest at heart if not always physically present--tried to place a  personal ad in the paper to find opponents for her restless son. In a pivotal moment for Bobby and for chess, the ad was never published,  but instead forwarded to a man who would take the young prodigy under his wing. When Regina Fischer tried to post an ad in the paper seeking chess partners for her seven-year-old son, she was hoping to find not only a way for her  son to play chess with someone--anyone--other than herself, but also a way for him to socialize with other kids his age. She found the first in a big way,  but the second was something she’d never find. The man at the newspaper who received her ad didn’t know how to categorize it, so instead of posting it he advised her to take her son to a local library that was staging a simultaneous exhibition to be given by several masters. Bobby lost quickly to his master opponent, but he caught the eye of Carmine  Nigro, the president of the Brooklyn Chess Club.  Nigro was impressed by how seriously the seven-year-old took his game, and he thought that his play hinted at some talent. He invited Bobby to be his guest at the club, and subsequently allowed him to play there without paying any dues. This latter consideration was a godsend, since Regina and her two childre were virtually impoverished. At this point Fischer’s obsession with chess took hold and began to grow. He lost nearly every game he played at the Brooklyn Chess Club, but he kept coming back for more. When he wasn’t at the club, he practically lived in the library, devouring every book on chess in their catalogue.

His school work suffered, and over the next ten years he changed schools several times. His mother, though brilliant and loving, was unable to effectively discipline him. He essentially did what he wanted, and what he wanted was to play and study chess to the exclusion of all else. Over the next five years he did just that, playing the old duffers in the BCC and the young hustlers in Washingto Square Park until one day he and his mentor Nigro wandered into the Manhattan Chess Club, a definite step up from his previous second home and in fact one of the strongest clubs in the country. He made such a impression that he was allowed to join the adults-only club, where he could now play chess 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (whereas the BCC only met a couple of times a week for a few hours each night). It did not bode well for his grades. Just over a year later, Bobby Fischer had become the youngest chess master  in the history of the title. After he played in the 1956 US Open, his USCF rating was 2375, well over  the National Master cutoff (2200) and just shy of the Senior Master level (2400). Later that year, he defeated Donald Byrne, a strong master, with the blac  pieces. The game involved a brilliant queen sacrifice, and it was given the (exaggerated) title of The Game of the Century. Yuri Averbakh, a Soviet Grandmaster, says that he hadn’t realized that the multi-decade hold on the World Chess Championship enjoyed by the USSR  might be in danger until he saw this game. Fischer, on the other hand, had, at thirteen, been convinced that he was destined to capture the world championship for some time. Over the next few years he behaved and performed accordingly, winning the 1957 US Championship at the age of fourteen and becoming the youngest International Grandmaster ever at the age of fifteen. At sixteen, his mother moved out of their apartment and left him to live alone (while still covering the rent). With characteristic suddenness, he stopped dressing like a carefree young  boy and began wearing hand-tailored suits. It’s likely that he lost his virginity during a tournament in Buenos Aires i which he performed quite poorly. After that he didn’t show much interest i the opposite sex for a long time. He’d also become a minor celebrity, owing in part to his appearance on the

$64,000 Question (his secret was that he was the US Chess Champion). At first he liked the attention, but the novelty soon wore off; he hated media attention for the rest of his life. Over the next ten years, Fischer won the US Championship eight times, once with an incredible perfect score of 11/11. He let multiple shots at the world championship slip through his fingers, not  because of poor play but because of his difficult personality. He published an article in Sports Illustrated publicly accusing Soviet grandmasters of colluding to keep the title “in the family” (surprisingly, FIDE responded by changing the format of the world championship cycle to  pre-empt such collusion). He became involved with the Worldwide Churc of God, a church similar to Scientology in its walking the fine line betwee religion and cult. At one point he took an eighteen-month hiatus from competitive chess. Fischer, as always, took his sweet time as he meandered toward the ultimate  prize. When, in 1970, he decided he was ready to go for it, the chess world wasn’t ready for him. Statistician Jeff Sonas, creator of the Chessmetrics rating system, believes that from the end of his candidates match with Bent Larsen to just before his championship match with Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer was the most dominant chess player on record. In addition, he says, his 6-0 pummelling of world #3 Larsen was the strongest performance ever in a single match. This came on the heels of his 6-0 sweep of world #9 Mark Taimanov and,  before that, his 7-0 run to finish the 1970 Palma de Mallorca Interzonal. Finally, after winning the first match game, he lost the second wit Petrosian, ending his unprecedented 20-game winning streak (For those less familiar with high-level chess, such a streak is so amazing in part because games between strong grandmasters often end in draws. Fischer also had to win many games with the black pieces, whereas most top players count a draw with black as a partial victory.) Fischer was back, and in frighteningly good form. More importantly, his dazzling victories i his candidate’s matches meant that he had qualified to challenge Boris Spassky in the 1972 World Championship match. The match itself was an ordeal like none the chess world had ever seen. Books about the melodrama have been written and can be enjoyed even by those who have never played a game of chess. The match had many

dimensions. It was, of course, a great contest between two brilliant chess  players. It was an opportunity for Bobby Fischer to be his childish, demanding, paranoid self in front of millions of onlookers. It was romanticized by the Western and Soviet media alike as a clash of capitalist democracy versus communism. Finally, though the world didn’t know it yet, it was the last top-level chess that Bobby Fischer would ever play. Fischer won the match, 12.5-8.5, even after losing the first game when he  played a dubious sacrifice in an effort to win a drawn position and forfeiting the second game when he failed to show up. Spassky’s team bent over backwards making excuses for their man’s performance, at one point demanding that the playing area be forensically examined for anything that might be sabotaging him. The truth is, Spassky lost because Fischer played  better moves than he did. The challenger was also better prepared despite not having a team of grandmasters to support him, and he worked harder and longer between games. To Spassky’s credit, he was a gracious loser. Some commenters have speculated that, deep down, Spassky wanted Fischer to win. While there’s no way to confirm such a theory, it does appear that Spassky engaged in what is called “self-handicapping”. Self-handicapping is when a person deliberately puts himself at a disadvantage in order to  protect his ego in the event of failure. In Spassky’s case, he deliberately deviated from his team’s preparation and at least once played an opening that he was not very familiar with. He also didn’t work as much or as hard as he knew he should have. Given Fischer’s apparent form and the aura o invincibility surrounding him, Spassky could be forgiven for believing in his heart of hearts that losing the title was inevitable. In any event, Fischer was now the world champion--and he promptly dropped off the face of the earth. It’s likely that, having achieved his only real goal, he began to feel lost or even depressed. He withdrew from the chess scene and moved to California. He received a plethora of offers from  businesses to capitalize on his new title, but he rejected almost all of them. He gave a large chunk of his winnings--about $60,000 of about $200,000-to the Worldwide Church of God, before having a falling out with them. When FIDE tried to arrange for him to defend his title against Anatoly Karpov in 1975, Fischer responded with a list of over 100 conditions. FIDE at once agreed to almost all of them, but the match fell through when they refused a condition that would have meant that the challenger would have to win by two full points to take the title. The prize fund would have been $5 million, but as far as Fischer was concerned FIDE had decided that there would be no match when they failed to meet each of his demands. Since no

agreement could be reached, the title passed to Karpov. For the next 17 years, Fischer lived the life of a recluse. When he finally reemerged, it would be to play in the World Chess Championship--i Yugoslavia, against Boris Spassky. In 1992, Bobby Fischer returned to chess to play a rematch against Boris Spassky for a purse of $5 million. Held in Yugoslavia, Fischer insisted that it be billed as the World Chess Championship. Before the match began, Fischer received a letter from the US Department of the Treasury informing him that the match violated sanctions currently in place against engaging i economic activities in Yugoslavia. If he went ahead with the match, he could face up to ten years in prison and a quarter-million dollar fine. Fischer, who hadn’t paid federal income taxes in years and had developed strong antiAmerican beliefs, ignored the warning. He won the match 10 to 5 with 15 draws, and managed to get his winnings to a Swiss bank account. A warrant was issued for his arrest. Fischer lived most of the rest of his life as a nomad, traveling--once he determined that he wouldn’t be arrested at various borders--to Germany, Hungary, the Philippines, and Japan. He all but stopped playing normal chess, preferring a variant he invented and named Fischerandom, in whic the pieces are arranged semi-randomly on each player’s home rank. (It is now called Fischer Random Chess or Chess 960, owing to the 960 possible starting positions.) He began broadcasting radio interviews in which he ranted against Jews, communism, American imperialism, and the corrupt US government. He had been interested in conspiracy theories for some time-and he had always been a bit unstable--but in his later years he plunged even deeper into his hatred and delusion. A few years after his rematch wit Spassky he lost his mother and then his sister in quick succession, whic  probably contributed to his mental breakdown. For fear of being arrested, he was unable to attend either funeral. He pursued a young Hungarian chess master, Zita Rajcsanyi, but she didn’t return his feelings. He stayed for a time with the Polgar family in Hungary, eventually wearing out his welcome with his anti-Semitic ranting. (The Polgars are Jewish.) While visiting Japan, he fell in love with a Japanese woman, Miyoko Watai, two years his junior, and maintained a relationship with her until his death. He also had a relationship with Marilyn Young, a Philipino woman less than half his age. She had a girl, Jinky Young, and told Fischer that the child was his. Fischer probably never truly believed her, but

he treated Jinky as his daughter and supported both mother and daughter  financially. Posthumous DNA testing later proved that Jinky was not his daughter. In July, 2004, Japanese immigration authorities arrested and detained Fischer for a period of eighteen months. His defiance of the US government had come back to haunt him; the Japanese government wanted to deport him to the US, where he would have almost certainly gone to prison. A group o (surprisingly) loyal (given Fischer’s treatment of others) fans and friends  protested and agitated for his release, but it wasn’t clear where he should go afterwards. After being denied asylum by several countries, he and his lawyers finally convinced Iceland to grant him full citizenship, i consideration of the publicity and prestige he’d helped bring to their country thirty years prior. While living in Iceland, he ignored what turned out to be a urinary tract blockage and later refused treatment. He died of kidney failure on January 17, 2008.

2. QUOTES ABOUT FISCHER  A great mystique has risen up around Bobby Fischer, and especially his unprecedented run from late 1970 to winning the world championship i 1972. What did his peers actually think of him? What was it like to face of  against the man? Here are some interesting quotes about the enigmatic champion from his peers, the grandmasters who battled him over the board. “It’s not if you win or lose against Bobby Fischer; it’s if you survive.” Boris Spassky

Spassky was, of course, the world champion who Fischer dethroned i 1972. It’s not clear whether this was simply hyperbole meant to underscore Fischer’s strength, or a tongue-in-cheek reference to Fischer’s  psychological tactics. Ironically, Fischer said that of all the people he  played matches against, Spassky was the only one who didn’t simply crumple at some point. “It’s simply unbelievable with what superiority he played in the Interzonal. There is a vitality in his games, and the other grandmasters seem to develop an inferiority complex.” - Wolfgang Uhlmann, International Grandmaster

Fischer won his last seven games in the tournament referred to here by Uhlmann, before going on his legendary tear through the Candidates matches. The other grandmasters felt inferior to Fischer because, in 1970, they were. “He is too deeply convinced that he is a genius. Self-confidence that borders on a loss of impartiality in assessing one’s potentialities is a poor ally in a difficult contest.” - Mark Taimanov, grandmaster and concert pianist, before losing his Candidates match to Fischer 6-0 with no draws “Well, I still have my music.” -  Taimanov to Fischer, after their match

Even the most stalwart Fischer-haters can’t help but feel that Taimanov got his comeuppance--at least, those for whom the story ends here. Sadly, whe Taimanov returned to the Soviet Union he was virtually excommunicated. He lost his monthly stipend, and his passport was revoked for two years as  punishment for losing to perhaps the greatest chess player of all time. The only person to stand up for Taimanov was Boris Spassky, the man who knew that he must eventually face Fischer to defend his title. The next (and final) quote not only sums up the injustice suffered by Taimanov, but also captures the feeling at the time that Fischer had become an unstoppable force. “When we’ve all lost to Fischer, will all of us be dragged on the carpet?” - Boris Spassky

There was no shame in losing to Bobby Fischer, especially at that time. They all did.

3. QUOTES BY FISCHER  Bobby Fischer wasn’t known for being talkative. He would sometimes as autograph-seekers if they played chess; if they didn’t, he’d promptly wal the other way. When he did speak, the result was sometimes shocking and almost always interesting. Here are some of his more memorable quotes. “My mother has an anti-talent for chess. She’s hopeless.”

Oh, sweet child of mine. I love you too, Bobby. “He crushed me.”

Seven-year-old Bobby spoke these words to no one in particular after  losing his first game against a master during a simultaneous exhibition. He then burst into tears. “You’ve ruined it!”

This was Fischer’s reaction upon learning that a collector had cleaned his first chess set. Apparently, the filthiness of the pieces was an important part of their charm. “I just made the moves I thought were best. I was just lucky.”

This was young Bobby’s uncharacteristically humble explanation of how he won the famous Game of the Century. “Ask me about something usual instead of making me look unusual.”

An exasperated teenaged Bobby said this to a reporter after hearing one too many questions along the lines of, “Are all chess players crazy?” “I watch what your grandmasters do. I know their games. They are sharp, attacking, and full of fighting spirit.”

Bobby said this to an interviewer for a Russian chess magazine. This was

no vague praise: at fourteen, Bobby had undoubtedly analysed hundreds i not thousands of games played by the Soviet grandmasters. “One thing is certain--I am not going to be a professional chess player.”

This sounds strange coming from a fifteen-year-old Bobby, until you know the context. He had been asked if he believed that he was destined to  become world champion. This was his clever way of saying that, for him, it was all or nothing. “Every chess game is like taking a five-hour final exam.”

Fischer said this in part as an expression of his frustration at how little money a professional chess player could make (outside of the Soviet Union). Of course, Fischer almost certainly never actually took nearly so arduous a final exam, having dropped out of high school at sixteen. That the irony was lost on him is also almost certain. “I don’t believe in psychology. I believe in good moves.”

As was often the case, here Fischer stated how he was feeling at the moment as if it were an unshakable pillar of his philosophy. There is a great deal o evidence to the contrary, that is, that he believed that psychology was a important aspect of chess. “Chess is better.”

In 1962, when Fischer was 18, a fellow chess player and journalist too him to a brothel. After spending an hour inside, this was his take on the experience. “I’m not worried. The odds should be twenty to one.” This was how Fischer felt about his upcoming match with Boris Spassky for  the world championship. This statement is interesting for several reasons. First, many who have studied Fischer believe that he was in fact extremely anxious about the match and about playing in general. His later antics, they say, were merely ways to put off the moment of truth. Second, Fischer hated gambling and was rarely exposed to anything other than chess. The fact that he would choose to phrase his statement of confidence the way he did says a lot about the artificiality of his interactions with others. Finally, based o

the rating gap between Fischer and Spassky at the time, as well as the lengt of the match, Fischer was almost certainly a GREATER than 20-to-1 favourite. The first FIDE rating list had come out less than a year earlier, though, so he probably didn’t know how favoured he really was to win the match. “I want to meet girls--vivacious girls with big breasts.”

After winning the world championship and moving back to LA in 1973, Fischer had a specific goal in mind. Of course, he went on to live like a hermit for the next 20 years and probably had little contact with the opposite sex, vivacious and big-breasted or otherwise. This is yet another example o Fischer blurting out whatever he felt at the moment without qualifying it appropriately. “I am a genius--not just a chess genius but a genius in other things as well.”

Spoken near the end of his life, there’s a sadness in this statement. Fischer  gave his life to chess, and in the end he may have regretted it--if only for a moment. After he settled down in Iceland he began to read constantly, at first at a local book store and later at the public library. Icelanders who spoke with him said that there was nothing he couldn’t discuss at length. “Nothing soothes as much as the human touch.”

Fischer said this to a friend who visited him in the hospital near his death. Once again, it’s hard to reconcile this statement with who Fischer was. While it may be true for most people, Fischer was never a “touchy-feely” kind of guy. For him, nothing soothed as much as playing through a great game of chess in the middle of the night, listening to rhythm and blues and nursing a soda. There are two competing impulses at play in interpreting this quote: the cynical desire to chalk it up to Fischer’s penchant for making grand statements based on his momentary feelings and whims; and the sentimental desire to conclude that Fischer was just a scared little boy all along, that maybe if he’d only been hugged his life would have turned out differently. I don’t know which is worse. “I’ve thought of giving it up, off and on, but I always considered: What else could I do?”

What else, indeed. Actually, Fischer sells himself a bit short here. He eventually became fluent or nearly so in three foreign languages--Spanish, Russian, and German--and had various other talents. A more truthful statement would have been, “What else could I do without wanting to kill myself or go on a shooting spree?” and the answer was, of course, “Nothing.” “Spassky has committed an enormous error in getting married.”

Classic Fischer. The truth is, Fischer’s greatest mistake in life was never  letting anyone get close to him. “I am only interested in chess and money.”

As always, it’s hard to take Fischer’s statements at face value. If he’d stopped after the word ‘chess’, this statement would be quite easy to  believe--but Fischer never showed any real interest in anything expensive. He did wear specially tailored suits, but this had more to do with his desire to fit in with other grandmasters than anything else. It’s likely that if he truly were interested in money, it was the kind of negative interest often found i  people who grow up poor: far from dreaming of having too much of it,  perhaps he wanted to make sure that he never had too little. “I felt Petrosian’s ego crumbling after the sixth game.”

Fischer famously demolished his three opponents in the Candidates matches leading up to the 1972 World Championship. Of the three, Petrosian actually  put up the best fight, losing 6.5 - 2.5. (Fischer’s other opponents both lost 6 - 0.) “I have decided that the interests of my nation are greater than my own.”

This one is a head-shaker. After receiving two calls from Henry Kissinger  urging him to play against Spassky (rather than continue to drag his feet like a child), Fischer gave this as his reason for going ahead with the match. One can only imagine that, at that moment, he felt like a national hero, going to war for the glory of his people. A moment later, of course, he’d forgotte about “his nation” and was set on crushing Spassky’s ego for his ow  personal gratification. Later in life he would come to despise the United States, viewing it as an illegitimate country built on stolen land.

“It is really the free world against the lying, cheating, hypocritical Russians. …This little thing between me and Spassky. It’s a microcosm of the whole world political situation. They always suggest that the world leaders should fight it out hand to hand. And this is the kind of  thing that we are doing--not with bombs, but battling it out over the board.”

This was Fischer’s way of framing his match against Spassky as he  presented it to James Burke from the BBC. Neither the leaders of the Soviet Union nor those of the United States saw the match in the same light. I hope this has demonstrated, if nothing else, that you sometimes can’t take the words of a genius at face value. If the hallmark of genius is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in one’s mind without going mad, then Fischer  was a great genius indeed. Although he did go mad. Hmmm.

4. WAS FISCHER THE GREATEST EVER? It’s a question that chess players have argued over for the last forty years. Was Bobby Fischer the greatest chess player of all time? It’s hard to eve know what the question is asking. What is meant by “best”--that his moves agree most closely by those selected by today’s super-engines when fed his  positions? Such a definition is problematic for at least two reasons. First, there are many positions in which a few different moves are of roughly the same value, and a given engine will pick the one that it “likes” the best. I we use the same engine to evaluate several different players, the player  whose style is most similar to the engine’s will come out on top, and vice versa. Second, this method of evaluating strength doesn’t take into account the strength of a player’s opponents. Suppose that one player plays most o his games against experts, and another player plays most of his games against grandmasters. It will be harder for the latter player to play enginestrength moves, because he will be in more difficult positions more often. Another way of answering the question is to simply look at ratings, or, to be more precise, at the gap between #1 and #2. This sidesteps the question o objective strength of play entirely, in effect changing the question to, “Who was the most dominant player of all time?” Sports fans should find suc sleight of hand familiar, since it’s a truism that you can’t compare sportsme of different eras. Using this criterion, Fischer was clearly the most dominant  player ever, at least at this peak. In 1972, his rating of 2785 was a whopping 125 points higher than world-number-two Spassky’s rating of 2660. Such a large gap is almost inconceivable today. On the other hand, Fischer dropped out of competitive chess almost immediately after reaching his peak; Kasparov was dominant for twenty years. Should the period of dominance count for something, or should we only look at a player’s absolute peak? I that’s the case, why stop at one year? Why not crown as the greatest the  player who played the best game, or even the best move? Clearly, longevity does count for something. We will probably never be able to answer the question of who was the

greatest ever to everyone’s satisfaction. Maybe we should just enjoy the  brilliance of the great players without worrying about who would have wo matches that never took place and can never take place. In that vein, here are some of my favourite Fischer games. Enjoy!

Donald Byrne vs Bobby Fischer [D97] Third Rosenwald Trophy New York USA (8), 17.10.1956

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.d4 0–0 5.Bf4 d5 6.Qb3 dxc4 7.Qxc4 c6 8.e4 Nbd7 9.Rd1 Nb6 10.Qc5 Bg4 11.Bg5

11. Be2 followed by 12 O-O would have been more prudent. The bishop move played allows a sudden crescendo of tactical points to be uncovered  by Fischer. -- Wade 11…Na4 ! 12.Qa3  On 12. Nxa4 Nxe4 and White faces considerable difficulties. 12…Nxc3

At first glance, one might think that this move only helps White create a stronger pawn centre; however, Fischer’s plan is quite the opposite. By eliminating the Knight on c3, it becomes possible to sacrifice the exchange via Nxe4 and smash White’s centre, while the King remains trapped in the centre. 13.bxc3 Nxe4  The natural continuation of Black’s plan. 14.Bxe7 Qb6 15.Bc4 Nxc3 16.Bc5 Rfe8+ 17.Kf1 Be6 !!

If this is the game of the century, then 17…Be6!! must be the counter of the century. Fischer offers his queen in exchange for a fierce attack with his minor pieces. Declining this offer is not so easy: 18. Bxe6 leads to a ‘Philidor Mate’ (smothered mate) with …Qb5+ 19. Kg1 Ne2+ 20. Kf1  Ng3+ 21. Kg1 Qf1+ 22. Rxf1 Ne2#. Other ways to decline the queen also run into trouble: e.g., 18. Qxc3 Qxc5 18.Bxb6 Bxc4+ 19.Kg1 Ne2+ 20.Kf1 Nxd4+ This tactical scenario, where a king is repeatedly revealed to checks, is sometimes called a “windmill.” 21.Kg1 Ne2+ 22.Kf1 Nc3+ 23.Kg1 axb6 24.Qb4 Ra4 25.Qxb6 Nxd1 26.h3 Rxa2 27.Kh2 Nxf2 28.Re1 Rxe1 29.Qd8+ Bf8 30.Nxe1 Bd5 31.Nf3 Ne4 32.Qb8 b5

Every piece and pawn of the black camp is defended. The white queen has nothing to do. 33.h4 h5 34.Ne5 Kg7 35.Kg1 Bc5+ 36.Kf1 Ng3+ Now Byrne is hopelessly entangled in Fischer’s mating net. 37.Ke1 Bb4+ 38.Kd1 Bb3+ 39.Kc1 Ne2+ 40.Kb1 Nc3+ 41.Kc1 Rc2# 0–1

Robert James Fischer vs Boris Spassky [D59] Reykjavik WCh Reykjavik WCh (6), 23.07.1972

1.c4 e6 2.Nf3 d5 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bg5 0–0 6.e3 h6 7.Bh4 b6 8.cxd5  Nxd5 9.Bxe7 Qxe7 10.Nxd5 exd5 11.Rc1 Be6 12.Qa4 c5 13.Qa3 Rc8 14.Bb5 a6 15.dxc5 bxc5 16.0–0 Ra7 17.Be2 Nd7 18.Nd4 Qf8 19.Nxe6 fxe6 20.e4!

d4 21.f4 Qe7 22.e5 Rb8 23.Bc4 Kh8 24.Qh3 Nf8 25.b3 a5 26.f5 exf5 27.Rxf5 Nh7 28.Rcf1 Qd8 29.Qg3 Re7 30.h4 Rbb7 31.e6 Rbc7 32.Qe5 Qe8 33.a4 Qd8 34.R1f2 Qe8 35.R2f3 Qd8 36.Bd3 Qe8 37.Qe4 Nf6 38.Rxf6!!

gxf6 39.Rxf6 Kg8 40.Bc4 Kh8 41.Qf4 1–0

Robert Eugene Byrne vs Robert James Fischer [D71] US Championship 1963/64 New York City, USA (3), 18.12.1963

1.d4 Notes from various sources. 1…Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 c6 4.Bg2 d5 5.cxd5 5.Qb3 maintains more tension. -- Fischer 5…cxd5 6.Nc3 Bg7 7.e3 0–0 8.Nge2 Nc6 9.0–0 b6 10.b3

It’s hard for either side to introduce an imbalance into this essentially symmetrical variation. Deadeye equality also ensues after 10.Nf4 e6 11.b3 Ba6 12.Re1 Rc8 13.Ba3 Re8 14.Rc1 (Stahlberg-Flohr, Kemeri 1937) –  Fischer  10…Ba6 11.Ba3

After White’s 11th move I should adjudicate his position as slightly superior, and at worst completely safe. To turn this into a mating position i eleven more moves is more witchcraft than chess! Quite honestly, I do not see the man who can stop Bobby at this time. -- K.F. Kirby, South Africa Chess Quarterly 11…Re8 12.Qd2 e5!

I was a bit worried about weakening my QP, but felt that the tremendous activity obtained by my minor pieces would permit White no time to exploit it. 12…e6 would probably lead to a draw. -- Fischer  13.dxe5 Nxe5 14.Rfd1

“Add another to those melancholy case histories entitled: The Wrong Rook.” -- Fischer ~ “This is very much a case of ‘the wrong rook’. One ca understand Byrne’s desire to break the pin on the e2-knight, but this turns out to be less important than other considerations. Fischer spends a lot of time and energy analysing the superior 14. Rad1!, but still comes to the conclusion that Black can keep the advantage.” -- John Nunn 14…Nd3  Now it’s all systems go for the Fischer rocket. -- Robert Wade 15.Qc2 There is hardly any other defense to the threat of …Ne4. -- Fischer  15…Nxf2!

The key to Black’s previous play. The complete justification for this sac does not become apparent until White resigns! -- Fischer  16.Kxf2 Ng4+ 17.Kg1 Nxe3 18.Qd2

Byrne: As I sat pondering why Fischer would choose such a line, because it was so obviously lost for Black, there suddenly comes… 18…Nxg2!! This dazzling move came as the shocker… the culminating combination is of such depth that, even at the very moment at which I resigned, both grandmasters who were commenting on the play for the spectators in a separate room believed I had a won game! -- Robert Byrne 19.Kxg2 d4! 20.Nxd4 Bb7+

The King is at Black’s mercy. -- Fischer  21.Kf1 In a room set aside for commentaries on the games in progress, two grandmasters were stating, for the benefit of the spectators, that Byrne had a won game. Byrne’s reply to Fischer’s next move must have been jaw dropping! -- Wade 21…Qd7

And White resigns. Fischer writes: “A bitter disappointment. I’d hoped for  22.Qf2 Qh3+ 23.Kg1 Re1+!! 24.Rxe1 Bxd4 with mate to follow shortly.” 0–  1

Robert James Petrosian [B13]

Fischer

vs

Tigran

Vartanovich

USSR vs. Rest of the World Belgrade SRB (1.2), 29.03.1970

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 Nf6 6.Bf4 Bg4 7.Qb3 Na5 8.Qa4+ Bd7 9.Qc2 e6 10.Nf3 Qb6 11.a4 Rc8 12.Nbd2 Nc6 13.Qb1 Nh5 14.Be3 h6 15.Ne5

 Nf6 16.h3 Bd6 17.0–0 Kf8 18.f4 Be8 19.Bf2 Qc7 20.Bh4 Ng8 21.f5

 Nxe5 22.dxe5 Bxe5 23.fxe6 Bf6 24.exf7 Bxf7 25.Nf3 Bxh4 26.Nxh4

 Nf6 27.Ng6+ Bxg6 28.Bxg6 Ke7 29.Qf5 Kd8 30.Rae1 Qc5+ 31.Kh1 Rf8

32.Qe5

Rc7 33.b4 Qc6 34.c4 dxc4 35.Bf5 Rff7 36.Rd1+ Rfd7 37.Bxd7 Rxd7 38. Qb8+ Ke7 39.Rde1+ 1–0

5. WHY WAS FISCHER SO SUCCESSFUL? Bobby Fischer was one of the greatest chess players of all time. What was it that made him so good? An easy answer is that it was just raw talent. While there’s no doubt that Fischer was extremely talented, talent alone is not enough. There are many very talented people who never accomplis anything, in chess or any other field. What other factors could have contributed to Fischer’s success? One disturbing hypothesis is that the conditions that allow for achievement in chess overlap with the conditions that contribute to failure in life. Fischer  came from a poor, single-mother household; he lacked social skills; he didn’t do his schoolwork, and there wasn’t a disciplinarian around to help change his mind. His level of interest in the opposite sex was far below normal for his entire life. All of these things crippled his development as a  person but were vital to his development as a chess player. After all, life all too often gets in the way of chess. A more positive way of looking at the same overall picture might highlight his self-reliance, independent spirit, focus, and drive. In any case, a particular aspect of Fischer’s approach to studying the game deserves special attention. At an early point in his chess development, he  played many games against himself, mainly due to a lack of opponents. Most formal chess study programs involve analysing games, but not necessarily  playing entire games against oneself. Fischer would literally rotate the  board as he played, attempting after each move to clear his mind of one side’s plans and think instead of the other side’s counter. Later in his career, the Dutch grandmaster J.H. Donner described his positional judgment as “dispassionate; nearly pessimistic”. It’s conceivable that such objectivity had its roots in the many hours he spent literally putting himself in his opponent’s shoes. Many players, even very strong ones, have difficulty wit the idea of mentally playing their opponents’ positions. The difficulty doesn’t lie in the process of planning and evaluating, but in honestly putting as much effort into their opponents’ possibilities as they put into their own.

Anyone who’s earnestly tried to do so knows that it feels unnatural and unpleasant, like trying to prove yourself wrong. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that he simply got lucky at a few crucial moments. If his mother’s attempt to find chess partners his own age had succeeded, he might not have started his chess career by playing muc stronger opposition at the Brooklyn Chess Club. If he hadn’t wandered into the Manhattan Chess Club one day, he might not have become its only child member and gained access to a constant stream of even stronger opponents. And, of course, if his mother had settled in, say, Wyoming instead of New York, with access to a much smaller and weaker pool of opponents, he might have ended up as just another master. It’s difficult to say what distinguishes a run-of-the-mill prodigy from someone like Bobby Fischer. The greatest geniuses tend to be the most single-minded and hardest working, making it difficult to untangle the various factors contributing to their success. Maybe it’s best not to worry about such unsolvable problems, and simply enjoy the gifts given to us by the world’s geniuses, chess and otherwise.

6. HOW WOULD FISCHER HAVE DONE AT POKER? While reading Bobby Fischer Goes to War by David Edmonds and Joh Eidinow, I came across an interesting passage. Apparently, when Fischer  was preparing for his 1972 match with Spassky, one of the people who helped him prepare was a guy named Ken “Top Hat” Smith. Smith, a worldclass No Limit Holdem player, delivered boxes full of specially-ordered chess books and periodicals to the challenger. It’s not clear when or how they met, since Fischer didn’t particularly like gambling, but that’s beside the point. The book goes on to discuss the game theoretical aspects o Fischer’s seemingly irrational negotiating tactics leading up to the match. One of the things that game theory has taught us is that it can pay to have a reputation for being irrational. The example given in the book is of two  people playing chicken, one of whom removes the steering wheel and throws it out the window. His opponent has no choice but to swerve himself. This all got me thinking about how Fischer would have done at poker. One obvious problem with such a thought experiment is that Fischer himsel hated games of chance. As a child he would become enraged if he lost at a game due to a poor roll of the dice. So, before anything else, someone would have had to explain to him variance and the idea of the “long run”. Even so, Fischer was not the most laid-back guy--going on tilt would have  been an issue for him. Still, if he could overcome his prejudice against chance, imagine how strong he might have been. He had a legendary memory and an almost perverse drive to understand his chosen game, bot of which are probably necessary in order to become a world-class poker   player. He also had an intimidating presence at 6’2” with dark, hooded eyes and a burning glare. When he went on his rampage through the 1972 candidates matches, all three of his opponents stopped the match at one  point or another, claiming illness. Some grandmasters believed that he worked some kind of dark magic on his opponents. Still, poker is not chess; perhaps Fischer was an idiot savant. The evidence

suggests otherwise: he was a voracious reader, and near the end of his life he spoke fluent Spanish and near-fluent Russian and German. He was, o course, crazy, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is that he was not a chess robot. In fact, he kept his emotions close to the surface, and this may have prevented him from excelling at poker. Even as an adult, he would sometimes break down in tears after losing a game. The only thing that  prevented this from ruining his chess career was his ability to keep losses to a minimum. In poker, while you can ensure long-term success with strong  play, you can’t avoid losing many hands, even ones that you thought yo were very close to winning. I’m not sure Fischer could’ve handled that. Overall, I’m glad that Fischer became a chess player. If he had become a world-class poker player, we’d never be able to share in his brilliance. A great hand of poker requires too much context to truly appreciate; its greatness sometimes depends on entire histories between players. Watching even the best poker players is like listening to one side of a conversatio that someone’s having on the phone: you never get the full story. Fortunately, Fischer’s games are an open book that anyone can enjoy. In fact, I might go  play through the Game of the Century right now. Well, after this hand.

7. FISCHER’S OTHER INTERESTS Bobby Fischer’s life revolved around chess. It’s no secret that for most o his life he had little interest in anything else, or that he sometimes spent 12 hours a day or more immersed in his study of the game. Nevertheless, there was more to the man than a board game. No human being can be summed up in a few paragraphs, but it’s certainly possible to dispel the myth that Bobby Fischer was a soulless chess robot. What follows is a window into his interests outside of chess. Fischer had a knack for languages, which he inherited from his mother. By the time of his death, he was fluent in Spanish and semi-fluent in Germa and Russian. Had he lived longer, there’s no telling how many languages he could have mastered. It’s likely that he would have picked up at least some Japanese and some Icelandic, since he lived in Iceland and was married to a Japanese woman. With the exception of Spanish, which he studied in school, he learned languages by immersion and by reading (often chess-related)  books in other languages. His knowledge of Russian and German was extensive enough for him to get around and converse with people i Hungary, where he didn’t use a translator. He was also a natural athlete, although he unsurprisingly preferred individual sports such as swimming, tennis, bowling, and table tennis. During his match with Spassky he always had someone available to serve as a bowling or table tennis partner, day or night. When asked what he thought he would have become if he hadn’t found chess, Fischer replied that he’d  probably have turned to athletics. Given his swimmer’s build and natural obsessiveness, he may have gone quite far as a swimmer. A night owl, he would sometimes go for walks while no one else was out and about. Fischer also liked to listen to the radio late at night. Sometimes he would blare rock music as he and Larry Evans analysed positions, but more often he listened to rhythm and blues. He also liked radio shows, saying that he preferred the “intimacy of radio” to television. He did, however, enjoy some movies, especially westerns.

Fischer also had a complex spiritual life. Some of his favourite radio shows were sermons broadcast by fundamentalist preachers. At one point he was spending half of his waking hours studying scripture, but he eventually realized that chess was more important to him than theology. For a time he was involved with the Worldwide Church of God, a borderline cult that at one point housed and fed him but also managed to extract from him a third o his world championship winnings. He later denounced the church as liars and thieves, and eventually his mistrust of religion widened to include bot Judaism and Christianity. An ethnic Jew, Fischer would ultimately become a raging anti-Semite--but that’s another story.

8. WTF HAPPENED IN PASADENA? After reading a biography of Bobby Fischer, I did some research of my own. One of the easiest things to come across, thanks to the magic of the Internet and Google, was a (transcribed) copy of his 1981 pamphlet, “I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse!”, an 8500-word alleged account of his mistreatment by the Pasadena police. I already knew that Fischer wasn’t all there, having bought into anti-Semitic and anti-American conspiracy theories later in life, so I decided to read his account for myself and see if I could spot any inconsistencies in his story. First, some background. After becoming world champion in 1972 and the abdicating in 1975, Fischer moved to California and became a recluse. O May 26, 1981, around 2 PM, while out for a walk, he was stopped by the  police and asked for ID. They told him that there had just been a ban robbery, and that he matched the description of the suspect. Fischer told them that he didn’t have a driver’s license because he didn’t drive, and that he couldn’t recall his exact address. Eventually he was arrested and the held for 48 hours. His 14-page pamphlet purports to describe his treatment inside the jail. (Incidentally, hard copies of the pamphlet have become collectors’ items in chess circles.) A summary of the pamphlet follows. A cop car pulled up alongside Fischer while he was walking down the sidewalk on the afternoon of the 26th. Later, a second car arrived, and Fischer was “surrounded” by several officers. He answered their questions to the best of his ability, but they arrested him anyway. During his arrest, his right knee was badly bruised. On the way to the police station, the cops were informed via radio that the bank robbery suspect had bee apprehended, but they still took him in. Upon their arrival at the station he was interrogated, and during his interrogation one of the officers choked him. Fischer gives a detailed description of his assailant. He remained handcuffed during the interrogation, and the cuffs tore into his skin. After his interrogation, he was taken to an unfurnished cell and stripped

completely naked. Later, he was taken to an even more uncomfortable cell, still naked, and deprived of food for over 24 hours. This cell had a window overlooking the street through which he screamed for help at passers-by, but to no avail. After being taken back to his original cell, one of the guards threw water on him and on his bed. The next day, after being threatened wit  being sent to a mental institution, he was told that he was being charged wit interfering with a police investigation and that bail was set at $500. His ailers also claimed that he’d destroyed a prison mattress--which Fischer  claims was torn up when he got there--and that there would be an additional $500 bail set on the charge of destruction of prison property. He was finally released after being fingerprinted against his will and coerced into signing several documents without being allowed to read them. Fischer goes on to say that the jail tried to keep the pocket money he came i with, and that no written charges were filed against him. He says that he was never asked about the bank robbery, which proves that they never really suspected him. The pamphlet concludes with an apology for its roughness and the suggestion that a more thorough account might be forthcoming. It’s signed “Sincerely, Robert D. James (professionally known as Robert J. Fischer or Bobby Fischer, the World Chess Champion”. (In May of 1981, the world champion was Anatoly Karpov.) Fischer’s story is hard to believe. Besides simply appearing ridiculous o its face, it’s full of holes. Fischer claims that his right knee was badly  bruised and that the handcuffs dug into his flesh. Why, then, didn’t he take  photographs after his release and include copies of them with the pamphlet? Surely the idea couldn’t have simply slipped his mind, given his hig intelligence. He also claims that he was choked, which can leave marks for  days. Central to the narrative is the theme of the police wanting information from him and his refusal to cooperate. What did they want to know? The ban robber had been caught, and Fischer himself says that he wasn’t asked about the robbery. Later, he gives a list of six pieces of information that he was required to provide before he was allowed to leave: his name, his date o  birth, his birthplace, his address, his height, and his weight. Are we

supposed to believe that his interrogators wanted to know these things so  badly that they were moved to choke him? He claims that he was naked for the entire 48 hours, even during his transfers between cells. If he had indeed fallen victim to a gang of sadistic  police officers bent on torturing him for their own amusement, why would they risk getting caught by trotting him around naked in front of other   prisoners and department staff? He claims that one of his cells had a window through which he was able to shout at passers-by. Again, why would his captors put him in a position to expose them? More importantly, why would a jail have a cell with a window overlooking a public street? I can’t recall the last time I was walking around downtown in the vicinity of the local police department and heard someone wailing at me through a window. This is perhaps the most absurd part of the entire story. After reading and rereading the pamphlet and considering the possibilities, I’ve come to the conclusion that Fischer fabricated or greatly exaggerated the mistreatment he suffered. What’s truly sad is that none of his friends who read the pamphlet managed to get him some sort of mental health treatment. I don’t blame them, of course--I can’t imagine trying to get Bobby Fischer to do anything that he didn’t want to do. Still, this pamphlet was a giant neo sign reading, “HELP ME.” Sadly, no one could.

9. FISCHER SENSATIONALISTIC? Bobby Fischer once claimed that “communism is just a mask for  Bolshevism, which is just a mask for Judaism.” (He also thought that the KGB could send radio signals to the fillings in his teeth, but we’ll leave that to one side for now.) When he finally decided to play against Spassky for  the world championship, it was only after Henry Kissinger called him  personally and told him that his country was rooting for him. Fired by a sudden patriotism, he must have seen himself as a cross between Captai America and Hitler, standing alone against the international Jewishcommunist conspiracy. Just as Nixon’s army of conscripts was struggling to contain the material spread of the evil Soviet empire, he would contain its ideological spread by robbing the Soviets of their greatest claim to ideological superiority: the world chess championship title. There’s just one problem with this narrative: every aspect of it is completely absurd. His country was rooting for him, but only because he was a US citizen; the public largely viewed him as strange, antisocial, and unpleasant. They hardly saw themselves or their values reflected in him, especially since mainstream anti-Semitism had all but died in the US by 1972. On the other side of the contest, Spassky was better liked by the  public, but he was viewed with suspicion by the government and by his fellow grandmasters due to his lack of enthusiasm about communism. He admired the tsars of old and thought that the revolution in 1917 had been a disaster. In fact, he wasn’t even a member of the Communist Party. Thus the champion of the American way was an anti-social geek with fringe political views, and the champion of the Soviet system was a man who wished the Communist Revolution had never taken place!  Neither the US government nor the Soviet government considered the matc important. The Cold War theme was pasted on by the media as a way to spice up the story. In 1972, American-Soviet relations were better tha they’d been in twenty years. The war in Vietnam was winding down, and there were talks of the USSR opening itself to foreign trade. Nobody important cared about the outcome of a chess match.

The final irony is that neither of Spassky’s parents were Jewish, either  religiously or ethnically, whereas both of Fischer’s parents were Jews. Spassky’s father was not Jewish, as has been rumoured, but in fact the so of an Orthodox Christian priest. The champion was proud of his family’s ties to the church and even considered himself to be “an honourable antiSemite”. Fischer, a Jew (by Jewish law--he himself disclaimed his heritage), was, in his mind, fighting against “Jewish commie bastards” by  playing chess against the anti-Semitic, anti-communist grandson of a Orthodox Christian priest! The moral of the story is twofold. First, reality is stranger than fiction. Second, when it comes to the media, expect sensationalism.

10. FISCHER A PSYCHOPATH? Was Bobby Fischer a psychopath? Grandmaster Arthur Bisguier once recounted the following disturbing incident involving Bobby Fischer while they were both playing in a tournament in Curacao. “I used to look in on him every day to try to cheer him up. And I saw that there was a door open and he had a shoe in his hand. I said, ‘Why do yo leave the door open? You get all these tropical bugs in here.’ And he said, ‘That’s what I want.’ And it turned out he had captured some poor creature and was banging on each one of its legs.” Torturing small animals is one of the signs of psychopathy in children. Fischer showed other signs, as well. In fact, a quick look at the DSM-IV criteria for antisocial personality disorder--the modern name for   psychopathy--suggests that Fischer might have been a psychopath. 1. Callous unconcern for the feelings of others In the weeks leading up to his world championship match against Boris Spassky, Fischer stayed with his lawyer, whose father fell ill at one point. Fischer responded to the news by reassuring his lawyer that this didn’t  bother him. 2. Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations Fischer was responsible when it came to working on his chess game and doing well in tournaments, but not much else. 3. Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them The only people who had long-term relationships with Fischer were either  related to him or chose to remain his friend despite a complete lack of effort on his part. Near the end of his life, his rude behaviour and insane ranting

had alienated nearly all of his former allies. 4. Very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of  aggression, including violence Once he had the necessary clout, Fischer wouldn’t play in an event unless every little detail was just right. As a young teen, he bit a fellow chess  player in the arm hard enough to leave a scar. A journalist once reported that he assaulted a former co-religionist who he felt had betrayed him. 5. Incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly  punishment Fischer certainly learned from his chess games, but otherwise he never  matured beyond the level of a thirteen-year-old boy. One of the few pieces of evidence that he ever felt guilty about anything is a letter to Spassky apologizing for his disrespectful behaviour leading up to their match. David Edmonds, author of Bobby Fischer Goes to War, suspects that the letter was written in part by his lawyer. 6. Marked readiness to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behaviour that has brought the person into conflict with society Fischer, much like the Soviet grandmasters he despised, never too ownership of his own failures and shortcomings. When he lost some of his  belongings that had been sitting in a storage facility, he seriously entertained the notion that the loss was a result of a conspiracy against him involving his lawyer, “international Jewry”, and the storage company. Of course, I’m not a psychologist. Fischer’s behaviour can perhaps be explained away as that of a troubled, lonely man who never grew up.  Nevertheless, the evidence is hard to ignore.

11. REVIEW OF “ENDGAME BY FRANK BRADY” Review of Endgame, by Frank Brady Published in 2011, Endgame is a biography of Bobby Fischer written by a man who knew Fischer for most of the great chess prodigy’s life. This is not a biography of Fischer the chess player, but of Robert James Fisher, a troubled soul who played amazing chess. Written in the style of a novel, it neither pulls punches nor finds fault. The author’s affection for his subject is clear but doesn’t appear to cloud his view of Fischer’s darker side. The  picture that emerges is of a lonely boy, far too honest for his own good, struggling to make sense of a world filled with people seemingly uninterested in the truth. Some will say that Fischer wasn’t so much honest as he was rude, and that i he was lonely it was because he drove his friends away. Most would say that some of what Fischer said, especially in his later years, was only “honest” in the sense that he believed it, even though nearly everyone else regards it as a mish-mash of crazy conspiracy theories. However, a careful reading of Endgame--if it is to be taken as an accurate portrayal--suggests that Fischer was (mostly) only rude insofar as the truth hurts. True, he referred to the strongest Russian grandmasters of his time as “commie cheaters”. While playing in his first masters-only invitational tournament at the Marshall Club, he brashly complained about the heat and the large number of spectators. On the other hand, the Marshall Club put in an air  conditioner the very next year, and the consensus among chess historians is that the Soviets did indeed make quick draws with each other in an effort to decrease the overall winning chances of the threatening American. Furthermore, Fischer was just as honest with himself as he was with others, if not more so. Brady recounts several instances in which Fischer told fans and interviewers that he thought he played his last game terribly. As for his own chess ethics, he clearly demonstrated that they were sterling: when the lights went out during a game while his clock was running, his opponent

complained that his clock ought not be stopped since he could easily continue to contemplate the position without sight of the board--Fischer  immediately agreed. Even his odd and hateful beliefs about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy hinted at a certain dispassionate outlook, since he knew  perfectly well that he himself was Jewish (or “half Jewish”, as he liked to say, having a Jewish mother and a likely non-Jewish father). Brady addresses and dismisses the theory that Fischer’s anti-Semitism was somehow related to feelings of animosity that he had towards his mother, asserting that Bobby loved his mother deeply. He does, however, give a frank account of Fischer’s upbringing that nearly indicts his mother for  neglect. Since his father was out of the picture and his older sister spent nearly all her time studying, the result was that Fischer virtually raised himself. Perhaps this contributed to one of his other major character traits-the other being paranoia--a fanatical desire to control his environment. These three traits--merciless honesty, the need for control, and paranoia-are what drove Fischer near insane, as detailed in the second half o Endgame. Ironically, they may well be the same traits that made it possible for his innate chess talent to realize itself as spectacularly as it did. Thoug the book doesn’t describe any games in detail, his style is described as uncompromising, lucid, and nearly error-free. Unfortunately, these traits taken to their extremes ultimately destroyed the man that they’d help become the World Chess Champion. Reading about how Fischer alienated his friends, incurred the wrath of the US government, and adopted increasingly  poisonous conspiracy theories is like watching a car accident in slow motion. Endgame is sometimes hard to read, but it comes off as honest above all. Bobby would have liked it.

12. FISCHER’S AMAZING WINNING STREAK  This last chapter examines Bobby Fischer’s unprecedented 20-game winning streak leading up to his 1972 World Championship match against Boris Spassky. Each game is briefly described, with the more interesting games given more attention. The first section covers Fischer’s seven-game winning streak to finish the Palma de Mallorca Interzonal in clear first by a stunning 3.5 points. After that I cover his clean sweep of Mark Taimanov in the quarterfinals o the 1971 Candidates matches, and finally, Part three covers his clean sweep of Bent Larsen in the semi-finals, as well as the first game of his match wit Tigran Petrosian in the finals.

The first game of the historic streak was played in the seventeenth round o the 1970 Palma de Mallorca Interzonal against J.A. Rubinetti. Fischer,  playing White, sacrificed a bishop for two pawns and an attack in the middlegame of an open Sicilian. With Black’s king stuck in the centre and White’s queenside pawns storming forward and opening lines in their wake, a quick victory was inevitable. Black resigned on move 24, and the winning streak had begun. (As an aside, Fischer’s 12. Bd5! had already been played twice before, and quite recently. Given Fischer’s avid consumption of chess  periodicals, it’s likely that he’d seen both games.)

Bobby Fischer vs Jorge Alberto Rubinetti Palma de Mallorca Interzonal, 9.11.1970

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Bc4 a6 7. Bb3 b5 8. O-O Bb7

9. Re1 Nbd7 10. Bg5 h6 11. Bh4 Nc5 12. Bd5!!

12…exd5 13. exd5+ Kd7 14. b4

14…Na4 15. Nxa4 bxa4 16. c4 Kc8 17. Qxa4 Qd7 18. Qb3 g5 19. Bg3 Nh5

20. c5!

20…dxc5 21. bxc5 Qxd5 22. Re8+ Kd7 23. Qa4+ Bc6 24. Nxc6

1-0

A friend of mine once told me a story about a chess master who plays a long series of blitz games with a strong grandmaster. “I thought I’d gain some deeper insight into the game,” says the master, “but all I learned was LPDO.” “LPDO?” my friend asks. “Loose Pieces Drop Off.” In the following game, 12. h3? loses a pawn to a nice combination. The reason it works? The undefended bishop on f4.

Wolfgang Uhlmann vs Bobby Fischer Palma de Mallorca Interzonal 3.12.1970

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. Bf4 a6 8. a4 Bg7

9. Nf3 O-O 10. Be2 Bg4 11. O-O Re8 12. h3?  Nxe4!

13. Nxe4 Rxe4 14. Bg5 Qe8 15. Bd3 Bxf3 16. Qxf3 Rb4-+

17. Rae1 Be5 18. Qd1 Qxa4 19. Qxa4 Rxa4 20. f4 Bd4+ 21. Kh1Nd7

22. Re7 Nf6 23. Rxb7 Nh5 24. Kh2 Be3 25. Be2 Bxf4+

26. Bxf4 Rxf4

27. Rb6 Rxf1 28. Bxf1 Rd8 29. Bxa6 Kg7 30. Bb5 Kf6 31. Bc6 Ke5

32. Rb7 Rf8 Rf8 33. Re7+ Kd4 Kd4 34. Rd7 Nf6 Nf6 0-1

In a taste of things to come, Fischer beats Mark Taimanov in 58 moves i this Sicilian Paulsen. Black sets up a hedgehog formation, and a battle o manoeuvres ensues. White eventually reaches an endgame with active versus passive rooks and a strong light-square bishop against a passive knight. He decides to go into a pawn-down ending with a rook, bishop, and three  pawns versus versus a rook, knight, ight, and and four four pawns. Though White is down a pawn, he has an outside passer on the a-file and a  bishop on f3 staring staring at a8. Once Once it became became apparent that that Black couldn’t couldn’t stop stop the the passer, pas ser, he resign res igned. ed. This is one of my favourite games of the winning streak, not necessarily  because  because of its qu quality ality,, bu butt because because of a discussion that that took place in its comment thread on www.chessgames.com www.chessgames.com   and the subsequent discovery I made (at ( at least lea st for myself). myself). That discussion ended in August of 2005, nine years ago. At issue was Fischer’s move 42. c5, which sacrifices a pawn to reach the aforementioned rook-and-bishop versus rook-and-knight ending. One poster  says that the sacrifice was dubious, and that the engine Crafty evaluates the resulting position as a bit better for Black. Another poster disagrees, claiming that Fischer saw deeper into the positio than Crafty and knew that White would win despite his pawn deficit. Curious, I fed the position after 41. …Rd4 into stockfish and let it analyze. What would the silicon oracle say, 9 years later and probably 400 Elo  points  points strong stronger than than Crafty Crafty in 2005? 2005? Would it recommend that White play g3 with a slightly worse position, like Crafty did? Don’t even think about it. After thinking about the position for 15 minutes, at depth 34, stockfish gives 42. c5! with a score of +1.61. Fischer 1, Crafty 0.

Bobby Fischer vs Mark Taimanov Palma de Mallorca Interzonal 6.12.1970

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e6 5. Nb5 d6 6. c4 a6 7. N5c3 Nf6 8. Be2 Be7 9. O-O O-O

10. Na3 b6 11. Be3 Bd7 12. Rc1 Qb8 13. f3 Ra7 14. Nc2 Rd8 15. Qe1 Be8 16. Qf2

Rb7 17. a4 a5 18. Nd4 Nxd4 19. Bxd4 Nd7 20. Qg3 Bf6 21. Bxf6 Nxf6 22. Rfd1

e5 23. Qh4 h6 24. Rd2 Nd7 25. Bd1 Nc5 26. f4 exf4

27. Qxf4

 Ne6 28. Qg3 Qc7 29. Nd5 Qc5+ 30. Kh1 Bc6 31. Rc3

 Ng5 32. Bc2 Bxd5 33. Rxd5 Qc7 34. e5!

dxe5 35. Qxe5 Rdb8 36. Bf5 Qxe5 37. Rxe5 g6 38. h4 Nh7 39. Bg4 Nf6 40. Bf3 Rd7 41. Rb5 Rd4 42. c5!!

Rxh4+ 43. Kg1 Rb4 44. Rxb4 axb4 45. Rc4 bxc5 46. Rxc5

Kg7 47. a5 Re8 48. Rc1 Re5 49. Ra1 Re7 50. Kf2 Ne8 51. a6 Ra7 52. Ke3  Nc7 53. Bb7 Ne6 54. Ra5!

Kf6 55. Kd3 Ke7 56. Kc4 Kd6 57. Rd5+ Kc7 58. Kb5 1-0 Fischer plays Alekhine’s Defence and his opponent springs a novelty o him. The resulting position features kings castled on opposite wings, but Suttles misses his chance to launch an effective attack. Fischer sets up both the classic Alekhine’s Gun and a lateral one (on the fourth rank), and his activity eventually nets him a pawn and a strong knight against a white bishop hemmed in by white pawns on d5 and h3. His opponent resigns when it becomes clear that he’ll have to give up his  bishop to stop Black from queening.

Duncan Suttles vs Bobby Fischer

Palma de Mallorca Interzonal 7.12.1970

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. c4 Nb6 5. exd6 cxd6 6. Be3 g6 7. d5 Bg7 8. Bd4 Bxd4 9. Qxd4

O-O 10. Nc3 e5 11. Qd2 f5 12. Nf3 N8d7

13. O-O-O Qf6 14. Qh6 Qe7 15. Re1 e4 16. Nd2 Ne5

17. h3 Nbd7 18. Qe3

18… Qh4!

19. g3 Qf6 20. Kb1 Nc5 21. f4 exf3 22. Nxf3 f4 23. gxf4 Nxf3 24. Qxf3 Qh4 25. Be2 Bf5+ 26. Ka1 Rae8 27. Rc1 Be4 28. Nxe4 Rxe4 29. Rh2 29…Rfxf4

30. Qc3 Qe7 31. Bf1 Re3 32. Qd2 Ref3 33. Re2 Qf6 34. Bg2 Rf2

35. Rce1 Rxe2 36. Rxe2 Rxc4 37. Qe3

37…Qe5!

38. Kb1 Qxe3 39. Rxe3 Rf4 40. Bf3 h5 41. Kc2 Kf7 42. Kd2 Rb4 43. Kc3 Rh4 44. b4 Nd7 45. Be2 Nf6 46. Rf3 Kg7 47. Rd3 g5

48. a3 g4 49. Bf1 Ne4+ 50. Kc2 Nf2 51. Re3 gxh3 52. Re7+ Kf8

0-1

Fischer tries out the Nimzo-Larsen Attack, but he botches the opening by  playing 3. Nf3 instead of 3. e3 (to allow f4). Nevertheless, lackadaisical  play by his opponent allows him to build a kingside initiative, and White cashes in for a pawn when Black misses a subtle intermezzo. Blac struggles on in the endgame, but two more pawns drop off and Blac resigns.

Bobby Fischer vs Henrique Mecking Palma de Mallorca Interzonal 8.12.1970

1. b3 d5 2. Bb2 c5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. e3 Nf6 5. Bb5 Bd7 6. O-O e6 7. d3 Be7 8. Bxc6 Bxc6 9. Ne5

Rc8 10. Nd2 O-O 11. f4 Nd7 12. Qg4

 Nxe5 13. Bxe5 Bf6 14. Rf3 Qe715. Raf1 a5 16. Rg3

Bxe5 17. fxe5 f5 18. exf6 Rxf6

19. Qxg7+!

Qxg7 20. Rxf6 Qxg321. hxg3 Re8 22. g4 a4 23. Nf3

axb3 24. axb3 Kg7 25. g5 e5 26. Nh4 Bd7 27. Rd6

Be6 28. Kf2 Kf7 29. Rb6 Re7 30. e4 dxe4 31. dxe4 c4 32. b4 Bg4 33. Ke3

Rd7 34. g6+ Kf8 35. gxh7 Rxh7 36. Ng6+ Ke8 37. Nxe5

Bc8 38. Nxc4 Kd8 39. Nd6 Rg7 40. Kf2 Kc741. Nxc8 Kxc8 42. Rd6 1-0 White speculatively gives up two pieces for a rook and a pawn in an attempt to play against Black’s undeveloped queenside. He blunders with 29. Rf2??, losing the exchange and the game to 29. …Nd3, when the knight can’t be captured due to a somewhat camouflaged back-rank weakness.

Svetozar Gligoric vs Bobby Fischer Palma de Mallorca Interzonal 10.12.1970

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c5 4. d5 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. Nf3 g6 7. e4 Bg7 8. Be2 O-O 9. O-O Re8

10. Nd2 Nbd7 11. a4 Ne512. Qc2 12…g5

13. Nf3 Nxf3+ 14. Bxf3 h6 15. Bd2 a6 16. Be2 Qe7 17. Rae1 Qe5

18. Kh1 Qd4 19. f3 Nh5

20. Nb5?!

axb5 21. Bxb5 Qe5 22. Bc3 Qe7 23. Bxe8 Qxe8 24. Bxg7 Kxg7 25. b4 cxb4 26. Qb2+Qe5 27. Qxb4

 Nf4 28. Rd1 b6 29. Rf2??  Nd3!

30. Qxb6 Nxf2+ 31. Qxf2 Rxa4 32. Kg1 Ra1 33. Qe1 Ra2 34. Qg3 Qb2 35. h4 Ra1 0-1

After winning the Palma de Mallorca Interzonal by a whopping 3.5 points, Fischer advanced to the Candidates matches. His first opponent was Mar  Taimanov, soviet grandmaster and concert pianist. “He is too deeply convinced that he is a genius. Self-confidence that borders on a loss of impartiality in assessing one’s potentialities is a poor ally in a difficult contest.”  - Taimanov on Fischer, before their  candidates match

White sacks a pawn and gets the bishop pair and open lines with which to attack Black’s pawn centre. He then sacks the exchange for an attack o Black’s king, but Black defends and the game reaches an ending with White having three minor pieces and four pawns versus two minor pieces, a rook, and two pawns. White decides to conserve his energy by resining rather  than struggling on.

Mark Taimanov vs Bobby Fischer Fischer-Taimanov Candidates Match 16.5.1971 Game “1”

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. Bd2 Ne8 10. Rc1 10…f5

11. exf5 gxf5 12. Ng5 h6 13. Ne6

Bxe6 14. dxe6 Qc8 15. Qb3 c6 16. Bh5 Qxe6 17. Qxb7 Nf6 18. Be2

18…Rfb8

19. Qa6 Rxb2 20. Rfd1 e4 21. Qa3 Rb722. Bf4 d5

23. cxd5 cxd5 24. Nb5 Ng6 25. Nd4 Qd7 26. Qe3 Kh7 27. h3 Rf8 28. Ba6 Rb6 29. Rc7 29…Qa4

30. Rxg7+ Kxg7 31. Bxh6+ Kf7 32. Be2 Rfb8

33. Nxf5 Rb1 34. Rxb1 Rxb1+ 35. Kh2 Qd7 36. Nd4 36…Qd6+

37. g3 Qb4 38. Nc6 Qb6 39. Nxa7 Qxe3 40. Bxe3 Re1 0-1

White sacks a pawn for the bishop pair, an isolated Black pawn on d6, and an uncastled Black king on d8 in a queenless middlegame. He eventually wins his pawn back and then another, and the game enters a rook-and-bishop versus rook-and-knight endgame. White displays excellent technique. 82. Bc8! in particular is nice.

Bobby Fischer vs Mark Taimanov Fischer-Taimanov Candidates Match 18.5.1971 Game “2”

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e6 5. Nb5 d6 6. Bf4 e5 7. Be3 Nf6 8. Bg5

Qa5+ 9. Qd2 Nxe4 10. Qxa5 Nxa5 11. Be3 Kd7 12. N1c3 Nxc3 13. Nxc3 Kd8 14. Nb5 Be6 15. O-O-O

15…b6 16. f4 exf4 17. Bxf4 Nb7 18. Be2 Bd7 19. Rd2 Be7 20. Rhd1 Bxb5 21. Bxb5 Kc7 22. Re2

Bf6 23. Rde1 Rac8 24. Bc4 Rhf8 25. b4 a5

26. Bd5

Kb8 27. a3 Rfd8 28. Bxf7 Bc3 29. Bd2 d5 30. Rd1 d4 31. Bxc3 Rxc3 32. Kb2

d3 33. Kxc3 dxe2 34. Re1 Nd6 35. Bh5Nb5+ 36. Kb2 axb4 37. axb4 Rd4 38. c3 Rh4 39.Bxe2

39…Nd6 40. Rd1Kc7 41. h3 Rf4 42. Rf1 Re4 43. Bd3 Re5 44. Rf2 h5 45. c4

45…Rg5 46. Kc3 Kd7 47. Ra2 Kc8 48. Kd4

48…Kc7 49. Ra7+ Kd8 50. c5 bxc5+51. bxc5 Ne8 52. Ra2 Nc7 53. Bc4

Kd7 54. Rb2 Kc6 55. Bb3 Nb5+ 56. Ke3 Kxc5 57. Kf4 Rg6 58. Bd1 h4 59. Kf5

59…Rh6 60. Kg5 Nd6 61. Bc2 Nf7+ 62. Kg4 Ne5+ 63. Kf4 Kd4 64. Rb4+ Kc3 65. Rb5 Nf7 66. Rc5+ Kd4 67. Rf5 g5+ 68. Kg4

68…Ne5+ 69. Kxg5 Rg6+ 70. Kxh4 Rxg2 71. Bd1 Rg8 72. Bg4 Ke4 73.

Kg3 Rg7 74. Rf4+ Kd5 75. Ra4

 Ng6 76. Ra6 Ne5 77. Kf4 Rf7+ 78. Kg5 Rg7+ 79. Kf5 Rf7+ 80. Rf6 Rxf6+ 81. Kxf6

Ke4 82. Bc8!! Kf4 83. h4 Nf3 84. h5 Ng5 85. Bf5 Nf3 86. h6 Ng5 87. Kg6  Nf3  Nf3 88. h7 h7 Ne5+ 89. Kf6

1–0

White sacks a pawn for an attack, and later either sacks his queen for a roo and a bishop or overlooks a fork. Black consolidates and wins. A poor game by Taimanov.

Mark Taimanov vs Bobby Fischer Fischer-Taimanov Candidates Match 21.5.1971 Game “3”

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O  Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Bd2 9.Bd2 Ne8 10.Rc1 10.Rc1 f5 f5 11.Qb3 11.Qb3 b6 12.exf5 12.exf5 gxf gxf5 5 13.Ng 13.Ng5 Nf6 Nf6

14.f4 h6 15.fxe5 dxe5 16.c5 Nfxd5 17.Nxd5 Nxd5 18.cxb6 axb6 19.Rc6

19…Kh8 20.Nf3 Bb7 21.Rg6 Nf4 22.Bxf4 exf4 23.Rd1 Qe7

24.Re6 Qc5+ 25.Kf1 Rad8 26.Rxd8 Rxd8 27.Qa4

27…Qc1+

28.Kf2 Bf8 29.b4 Be4 30.Re8 Bc6-+

31.Qxc6 Qxc6 32.Rxd8 Qf6 33.Rc8 Qe7 34.Kf1 Kh7 35.Nd4 35…Bg7

36.Nb5 Be5 37.a3 Qd7 38.Ra8 f3 39.gxf3 Bxh2 40.Kg2 Qg7+ 41.Kxh2 Qe5+

0-1

White wins an extremely instructive minor piece ending with a bishop versus a knight, ultimately sacking the bishop to obtain two connected  passers and an active king with the knight on the wrong side of the board.

Bobby Fischer vs Mark Taimanov Fischer-Taimanov Candidates Match 25.5.1971 Game “4”

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Qc7 5. Nc3 e6 6. g3 a6 7. Bg2 Nf6 8. O-O Nxd4 9. Qxd4

Bc5 10. Bf4 d6 11. Qd2 h6 12. Rad1 e5 13. Be3 Bg4 14. Bxc5 dxc5 15. f3 Be6 16. f4

16…Rd8 17. Nd5 Bxd5 18. exd5 e4 19. Rfe1 Rxd5 20. Rxe4+

Kd8 21. Qe2 Rxd1+ 22. Qxd1+ Qd7 23. Qxd7+ Kxd7

24. Re5

 b6 25. Bf1 a5 26. Bc4 Rf8 27. Kg2 Kd6 28. Kf3

 Nd7 29. Re3 Nb8 Nb8 30. Rd3+ Kc7 31. c3 Nc6 Nc6 32. Re3 Kd6 Kd6 33. a4 Ne7 Ne7 34. h3 h3  Nc6 35. h4

h5 36. Rd3+ Kc7 37. Rd5 f5 38. Rd2 Rf6 39. Re2 Kd7 40. Re3 g6 41. Bb5 Rd6 42. Ke2 Kd8 43. Rd3

Kc7 44. Rxd6 Kxd6 45. Kd3 Ne7 46. Be8 Kd5 47. Bf7+ Kd6 48. Kc4

Kc6 49. Be8+ Kb7 50. Kb5 Nc8 51. Bc6+ Kc7 52. Bd5 Ne7 53. Bf7

Kb7 54. Bb3 Ka7 55. Bd1 Kb7 56. Bf3+ Kc7 57. Ka6 Nc8 58. Bd5

 Ne7 59. Bc4 Nc6 60. Bf7 Ne7 61. Be8 Kd8 62. Bxg6!!

 Nxg6 63. Kxb6 Kd7 64. Kxc5 Ne7 65. b4 axb4 66. cxb4 Nc8 67. a5 Nd6

68. b5

 Ne4+ 69. Kb6 Kc8 70. Kc6 Kb8 71. b6 1-0

Taimanov blunders a rook to a two-move combination after the adjournment. A commenter on www.chessgames.com suggests that perhaps too many GMs assisted him during the adjournment and he somehow got his lines mixed up. I can’t imagine the embarrassment of losing this way AFTER a adjournment.

Mark Taimanov vs Bobby Fischer Fischer-Taimanov Candidates Match 27.5.1971 Game “5”

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Bg5 Ne4 5. Bh4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 dxc4 7. e3 Be6 8. Rb1 b6 9. Be2 Bh6 10. Nf3 c6 11. Ne5 Bg7

12. f4 Bd5 13. O-O Nd7 14. Nxc4 O-O 15. a4 c5 16. Ne5 Nxe5 17. dxe5

f6 18. Rb2 Be6 19. Rd2 Qc7 20. Bg4 Qc8 21. Bf3 Rb8 22. Qe2 Rd8 23. Rfd1

Rxd2 24. Qxd2 Qe8 25. exf6 exf6 26. Qd6 Rc8 27. a5 Bf8 28. Qd2 Be7

29. Bd5

Qf7 30. Bxe6 Qxe6 31. Qd7 Kf7 32. Qxa7 bxa5 33. e4

Qc6 34. Rd7 Qxe4 35. h3 a4 36. Bf2 Kf8 37. c4 37…a3

38. Qxa3 Ra8 39. Qb2 Ke8 40. Qb5 Kf8 41. Rd1Qxf4 42. Bxc5 Bxc5+ 43. Qxc5+ Kg7

44. Rf1 Qe4 45. Qc7+ Kh6 46. Rxf6 Qd4+ 47.Rf2 Ra1+

0– 1

After two wins with a bishop versus a knight, Fischer wins with a knight (and an extra pawn) versus a bishop. He shows nice technique.

Bobby Fischer vs Mark Taimanov Fischer-Taimanov Candidates Match 1.6.1971 Game “6”

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.Nb5 d6 6.Bf4 e5 7.Be3Nf6 8.Bg5 Be6

9.N1c3 a6 10.Bxf6 gxf6 11.Na3 Nd4 12.Nc4 12…f5

13.exf5 Nxf5 14.Bd3 Rc8 15.Bxf5 Rxc4 16.Bxe6 fxe6 17.Qe2

Rd4 18.O-O Qg5 19.Rad1 Qf5 20.Rxd4 exd4

21.Ne4

Be7 22.Rd1 Qe5 23.Qd3 Rf8 24.Qxd4 Qxd4 25.Rxd4

d5 26.Nc3 Bc5 27.Rd2 Rf4 28.g3Rc4 29.Ne2 Ra4 30.a3 Kd7 31.Kg2

 b5 32.c3 a5 33.Nd4 b4 34.Nb3

Bb6 35.axb4 axb4 36.c4 Kc6 37.c5 Bc7 38.Nd4+

Kd7 39.f4 e5 40.c6+ Kc8 41.Nb5 Ra2 42.f5 Bd8 43.Rxd5

1-0 “Well, I still have my music.” - Taimanov to Fischer, after their candidates match

After Fischer’s humiliation of Taimanov, most of the chess world believed that he would beat Larsen, but no one thought he would sweep him. Larse was, after all, ranked significantly higher than Taimanov. “Fischer was playing against children.” - Bent Larsen, on Fischer’s 11-0  performance in the 1963-1964 US Championship

White sacks a pawn for dark square control, the bishop pair, and to trap Black’s king in the centre. After tolerating an illusory attack on his king, he ends up with a rook and two bishops versus a queen in an open position, and wins with his outside  passed pawn. This game is a good example of Fischer’s strong nerves. He wasn’t shaken, as many players are, by allowing an attack on his king that he believed would fail.

Bobby Fischer vs Bent Larsen Fischer-Larsen Candidates Match 6.7.1971 Game “1”

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 Ne7 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 c5 7. a4

 Nbc6 8. Nf3 Bd7 9. Bd3 Qc7 10. O-O c4

11. Be2

f6 12. Re1 Ng6 13. Ba3 fxe5 14. dxe5 Ncxe5 15. Nxe5 Nxe5 16. Qd4

 Ng6 17. Bh5 Kf7 18. f4 Rhe8 19. f5 exf5 20. Qxd5+ Kf6 21. Bf3

 Ne5 22. Qd4 Kg6 23. Rxe5 Qxe5 24. Qxd7 Rad8 25. Qxb7

Qe3+ 26. Kf1 Rd2 27. Qc6+ Re6 28. Bc5

Rf2+ 29. Kg1 Rxg2+ 30. Kxg2 Qd2+ 31. Kh1 Rxc6 32. Bxc6

Qxc3 33. Rg1+ Kf6 34. Bxa7 g5 35. Bb6 Qxc2 36. a5 Qb2 37. Bd8+

Ke6 38. a6 Qa3 39. Bb7 Qc5 40. Rb1 c3 41. Bb6

1-0

White drops a pawn to a simple combination in the middlegame and later  drops another one to a more complicated combination in the endgame, leading to a simpler endgame down two pawns. Black played the whole game energetically and White ended up in a mating net while focusing o how to stop Black’s pawns.

Bent Larsen vs Bobby Fischer Fischer-Larsen Candidates Match 8.7.1971 Game “2”

1. c4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. e4 Nf6 6. Nc3 d6 7. Be2  Nxd4 8. Qxd4 Bg7 9. Bg5 h6 10. Be3 O-O 11. Qd2

11…Kh7 12. O-O Be6 13. f4 Rc8 14. b3 Qa5 15. a3 15…a6

16. f5 Bd7 17. b4 Qe5 18. Rae1 Bc6 19. Bf4?

19…Nxe4! 20. Nxe4 Qxe4 21. Bd3 Qd4+ 22. Kh1 Rce8 23. Be3 Qc3 24. Bxh6 Qxd2

25. Bxd2

25…Be5 26. Bf4 Bxf4 27. Rxf4 gxf5 28. Rxf5 Kg7 29. Rg5+ Kh6 30. h4 e6

31. Rf1f5 32. Re1 Rf7 33. b5 axb5 34. cxb5 Bd7 35. g4 Ra8 36. gxf5 exf5 37. Bc4?

37…Ra4! 38. Rc1 Bxb5 39. Bxf7 Rxh4+ 40. Kg2 Kxg5

41. Bd5 Ba6 42. Rd1 Ra4 43. Bf3 Rxa3 44. Rxd6 Ra2+ 45. Kg1 Kf4

46. Bg2 Rb2 47. Rd7 b6 48. Rd8 Be2 49. Bh3 Bg4 50. Bf1 Bf3 51. Rb8 Be4

52. Ba6 Ke3 53. Rc8 Rb1+ 54. Kh2 Kf4

0-1

Larsen gives the point away with 11…Qc8?, which drops a pawn and the game.

Bobby Fischer vs Bent Larsen Fischer-Larsen Candidates Match 11.7.1971 Game “3”

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bc4 e6 7. Bb3 Be7 8. Be3 O-O 9. f4

9…Bd7 10. O-O a6 11. f5 Qc8? 12. fxe6 Bxe6 13. Nxe6 fxe6 14. Na4

Rb8 15. Nb6 Qe8 16. Bxe6+ Kh8 17. Bf5 Ne5 18. Qd4

18…Qh5 19. Nd5 Nxd5 20. Qxd5 Qe2 21. Ba7 Rbe8 22. Rf2 Qb5 23. c3 Bh4 24. g3 Qxd5 25. exd5 Bf6

26. Raf1

26…Nc4 27. Be6 Ra8 28. Bd4 Bxd4 29. cxd4 Rxf2 30. Rxf2 b5 31. Kf1 g6 32. b3 Na3 33. Ke2

33…Ra7 34. Rf8+ Kg7 35. Rd8 b4 36. Rxd6 Nb5 37. Rb6 Nxd4+

38. Kd3 Nxe6 39. Rxe6 a5 40. Kd4 Kf7 41. Re2

1-0

White gets outplayed in a typical KID with attacks on both sides of the  board. Larsen had spent a great deal of time preparing for Fischer’s King’s India  but it was of no use here.

Bent Larsen vs Bobby Fischer Fischer-Larsen Candidates Match 13.7.1971 Game “4”

1. c4 g6 2. Nf3 Bg7 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nc3 O-O 5. e4 d6 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. Nd2 c5

10. Rb1 Ne8 11. b4 b6 12. a4 f513. a5 Nf6 14. Qa4 14…Bd7

15. Qa3 Bh6 16. Bd3 Qc7 17. bxc5 bxc5 18. exf5 gxf5 19. Bc2 a6 20. Nde4

20…Bxc1 21. Nxf6+ Rxf6 22. Rfxc1 Raf8 23. Rb6 Bc8 24. Ne2 f4

25. Be4 Nf5

26. Rc6 Qg7 27. Rb1 Nh4 28. Qd3 Bf5 29. Kh1 f3

30. Ng3 fxg2+ 31. Kg1 Bxe4 32. Qxe4 Nf3+ 33. Kxg2 Nd2

0-1

White sacks a pawn for two laser bishops, development, and a potential attack. He later sacks the exchange for a pawn, an anchored bishop on d5, and a active rook on the seventh rank. After some very energetic play, he trades down into a king-and-pawns ending with even material that is nevertheless won for White due to his outside passed pawn. An imaginative game by Fischer.

Bobby Fischer vs Bent Larsen Fischer-Larsen Candidates Match 18.7.1971 Game “5”

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bc4 e6 7. Bb3 Be7 8. Be3 O-O 9. O-O Bd7 10. f4 Qc8

11. f5 Nxd4 12. Bxd4 exf5 13. Qd3 fxe4 14. Nxe4 Nxe4 15. Qxe4 Be6 16. Rf3

Qc6 17. Re1 Qxe4 18. Rxe4 d5 19. Rg3 g6 20. Bxd5 Bd6 21. Rxe6

Bxg3 22. Re7 Bd6 23. Rxb7 Rac8 24. c4 a5

25. Ra7

25…Bc7 26. g3 Rfe8 27. Kf1 Re7 28. Bf6 Re3 29. Bc3 h5 30. Ra6 Be5 31. Bd2 Rd3 32. Ke2

32…Rd4 33. Bc3 Rcxc4 34. Bxc4 Rxc4 35. Kd3 Rc5 36. Rxa5

36…Rxa5 37. Bxa5 Bxb2 38. a4 Kf8 39. Bc3 Bxc3 40. Kxc3

Ke7 41. Kd4 Kd6 42. a5 f6 43. a6 Kc6 44. a7 Kb7 45. Kd5 h4 46. Ke6

1-0

Black adopts an Accelerated Dragon setup against White’s 1. f4. In the middlegame White decides to sack first one pawn and then a second for an attack on the kingside dark squares, which Black happily gobbles up. The attack fizzles out, and White resigns in a lost endgame. Once again, Fischer shows that he’s not afraid to accept what he considers to be unsound sacrifices, even if his king comes under heavy fire. In this sense, he was ahead of his time, as today’s generation of players-human and computer alike--aren’t intimidated by pyrotechnics. I hate to think how Tal’s style would do in today’s game.

Bent Larsen vs Bobby Fischer Fischer-Larsen Candidates Match 20.7.1971 Game “6”

1. f4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. e4 Bg7 4. Be2 Nc6 5. O-O d6 6. d3 e6 7. Na3 Nge7 8. c3 O-O 9. Be3 a6 10. d4 cxd4 11. Nxd4 11…b5

12. Nxc6 Nxc6 13. Qd2 Qc7 14. Rad1 Rd8 15. Nc2 Rb8

16. a3 Na517. e5 Bf8 18. b4 Nc6 19. Nd4 dxe5

20. fxe5 Nxe5

21. Bg5 Rd5 22. Qf4 Bg7 23. h4 Rb7 24. Bf6 Bxf6 25. Qxf6 Qxc3

26. h5 gxh5 27. Kh1 Ng4 28. Bxg4 hxg4 29. Qh6 Bd7 30. Rf4 f5

31. Qf6 Bc8 32. Rff1 Rf7 33. Qh6 Bb7 34. Nxe6 Qf6

35. Qe3 Re7 36. Rde1 Rd6 37. Qg5+ Qxg5 38. Nxg5 Rxe1 39. Rxe1 Bd5 40. Re8+ Kg7

0-1

“One of these days I really should start playing against adults.” - Bobby Fischer, after his match with Bent Larsen Okay, fine, I made that up. That’s what he should have said, anyway. Our final game is one that showcases, among other things, Fischer’s ability to work through massive complications over the board even when in a unfamiliar position.

Black springs a major novelty on White, who manages to walk the tightrope and survive to an endgame. When it turns out that White actually has a small edge, he decides to push it rather than take a draw by repetition and move on to the next game. He eventually wins with an outside passed pawn in a rook-and-knight versus rook-and-knight endgame. Fischer’s composure and will to win shine through here.

Bobby Fischer vs Tigran Petrosian Fischer-Petrosian Candidates Match 30.9.1971 Game “1”

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nb5 d6 6. Bf4 e5 7. Be3 Nf6 8. Bg5 Be6

9. N1c3 a6 10. Bxf6 gxf6 11. Na3 d5 12. exd5 Bxa3

13. bxa3 Qa5 14. Qd2 O-O-O

15. Bc4 Rhg8 16. Rd1Bf5 17. Bd3 Bxd3 18. Qxd3 Nd4 19. O-O

19…Kb8 20. Kh1 Qxa3 21. f4 Rc8 22. Ne4 Qxd3 23. cxd3

23…Rc2 24. Rd2 Rxd2 25. Nxd2 f5 26. fxe5 Re8 27. Re1

27…Nc2 28. Re2 Nd4 29. Re3 Nc2 30. Rh3

30…Rxe5 31. Nf3 Rxd5 32. Rxh7 Rxd3 33. h4 Ne3 34. Rxf7

34…Rd1+ 35. Kh2 Ra1 36. h5 36…f4?

37. Rxf4 Rxf4 Rxa2 Rxa2 38. Re4 Nxg2 Nxg2 39. Kg3 Kg3 Ra5 40. Ne5

1-0

After After Petrosian Petrosi an won the the next gam game, e, Fischer Fi scher’s ’s otherw otherworl orldly dly streak ended. After his win, Petrosian was carried around on the shoulders of his comrade comradess while w hile he crowd cr owd chanted, chanted, “Tigran the the tiger!” tiger!” It’s not hard to see why.

CONCLUSION So what’d you guys think? I hope some of my comments about Bobby weren’t too harsh, but as a chess fan (and truly a huge fan of Fischer) it is so sad for me that somebody who created such beautiful chess masterpieces, could become so bitter and tur  against basically the whole world. Had his 1975 match with K arpov taken place, we would have certainly  been blessed with a lot more beautiful chess (from BOTH players) in a very tough match. Anyway, I hope this book gave you some interesting opinions on Bobby’s life, but please do take me up on that offer of the free chess course (at onlinechesscourse.com/free) as it will help you improve your tactics immeasurably. Also please do come over to my Facebook page and connect with me…I love to make new chess friends from all over the globe. Find me at https://www.facebook.com/bjnchess