The Battle of the Brains
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Back to Article Click to Print Monday, Jul. 31, 1972 The Battle of the Brains THE negotiations were going so poorly, Presidential Adviser Henry Kissinger revealed last week, that he felt compelled to intervene "for the good of the country." Kissinger was not referring to his latest secret maneuverings for peace in Viet Nam. He was talking about peace in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the confrontation between Bobby Fischer of the United States and Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union for the world chess championship. After weeks of petty infighting, the stormy encounter of East v. West, of Boris the witty, urbane champion v. Bobby the temperamental, demanding challenger, had grown into an international incident. To avoid a stalemate, Kissinger, a chess player himself, put through a call to Fischer and implored him to play. Fischer agreed, but only with the reluctance of a pouty patriot who says: "If there is one thing I ask for and I don't get, then I don't play." To those who know him best, Bobby was merely being Bobby. "He is," says U.S. Grand Master Larry Evans, "the most individualistic, intransigent, uncommunicative, uncooperative, solitary, self-contained and independent chess master of all time, the loneliest chess champion in the world. He is also the strongest player in the world. In fact, the strongest player who ever lived." Fischer readily agrees with the best-ever claim. For the past decade he has considered himself the "unofficial champion," the maligned and misunderstood victim of a Communist conspiracy to keep him from the world title that is rightfully his. He refused to enter the past two world championships, which are held every three years, charging that the long, grueling play-off rounds favored the "Russian cheaters." Four years ago, unable to gain a title match outside the Fédération Internationale des Echecs, the governing body of world chess, he stormed into retirement to "plot my revenge." Then, 18 months later, he suddenly stormed right back with a "new sense of mission," entered the championship play-offs and demolished one grand master after another. Now the knight- errant of the royal game, rated a solid 5-to-2 favorite by British bookmakers, has at last won his audience with the king. The first game was played across the $5,000 marble and mahogany chess table on the stage of Reykjavik's Sports Hall. On the 29th move, when it seemed that the game was destined to be a draw, Fischer boldly picked off an unprotected pawn with his bishop. A gasp of astonishment swept the 2,000 spectators in the hall. It was, as any amateur could see, a "poisoned pawn." Trapped behind enemy lines, the bishop fell six moves later, and Spassky, making the most of his advantage, went on to win. The second game, boycotted by Fischer in a dispute over the use of TV cameras (see box opposite), was won by Spassky on a forfeit. Fischer was now down two games and had to scramble. Scramble he did. In the third game he seized the initiative on the eleventh move by swinging his knight to the edge of the board, a daring and unorthodox move for a piece that fights best in the center. Spassky pondered for a full 30 minutes, then, just as Fischer hoped he would, countered with a faultyGenerated line of byattack. www.PDFonFly.com Before the at game 10/3/2011 was 5:03:09 PM URL: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,877942,00.html adjourned for the day, Fischer scribbled his 41st move on a piece of paper, sealed it in an envelope and handed it to the referee. Afterward, he said, "I sealed a cruncher," and then went bowling. Spassky and his team of analysts, meanwhile, studied the position long and hard that night looking for a flaw in Fischer's assault. Next day, when Fischer was late in arriving, the referee opened his envelope and made the move: a bishop check on the king. It was indeed a cruncher, and Spassky, without bothering to reply, tipped over his king to signify his defeat. In a reversal of roles, the champion stalked the challenger in the fourth game. Sacrificing a pawn early on, Spassky set up a double-barreled bishop attack on Fischer's cornered king. Staving off one mating threat after another, Fischer somehow managed to salvage a draw. In the fifth game it was Spassky's turn to make a beginner's booboo. Pressured by a knight foray, and more than an hour behind on the time clock, the champion dropped his queen back in hasty retreat. Fischer picked off a pawn with his bishop and challenged the queen, daring Spassky to take the unprotected attacking piece. If he had, Fischer would have had a two-move checkmate. Even if he moved elsewhere, Spassky's position was hopeless. After studying the board for a full minute, he stood up and shook Fischer's hand. The audience applauded and cried, "Bravo Bobby! Bravo Bobby!" Late last week Fischer claimed that Spassky was close to a breakdown and had gone into seclusion. The pressure befits the enormity of the event. At stake is not only a record purse of $250,000 (previous record: $12,000) but also the reign and reputation of Soviet chess itself. Since 1946, when the play-offs for the championship were first organized, the U.S.S.R. has so dominated the title that it seemed to be permanently engraved in Cyrillic script. No Westerner, much less a brash young American, has ever advanced to the finals. Never, that is, until now, and the resulting excitement among the estimated 60 million chess players round the world—and millions of others who do not know a double fianchetto from a double play—is of the kind usually reserved for an epic heavyweight championship fight. Nyekulturny. Nowhere is the interest more widespread than in Russia. Following the lead of Lenin, a skilled tournament player in his own right, the Soviets have elevated chess into something more than the national pastime. Decorated and handsomely subsidized by the state, Russian chess masters are the "vanguard of Communist culture." There are 4,000,000 registered players in the U.S.S.R. (compared with only 35,000 in the U.S.), and 36 of the world's 82 grand masters are Soviets (compared with 13 in Yugoslavia, eleven in the U.S., six in Argentina and six in Hungary).* Russian youths, many of whom study the game as a standard course at grade school level, discuss the Nimzo-Indian defense the way U.S. kids talk about the Dallas Cowboys' front four. So many Soviet citizens play the game, in fact, that one chess writer contends the reason that service in Russian restaurants is so bad is because "the cooks are forever having at [chess] with the waiters instead of heating up the lyulya kebab." The Russians have no trouble getting heated up about Fischer. The Soviet press calls him nyekulturny (uncultured), a "temperamental child" whose "endless whims" and "absurd accusations" create a "spirit of ill will and suspicion in the noble sports competition." His play is something else: not since Pianist Van Cliburn has an American been so widely renowned in the Soviet Union for his talents. Of late, though, the fascination with "Booo- bee" has been tinged with concern. "At home they don't understand," says one Soviet grand master of Fischer's success. "They think it means that there is something wrong with our culture." In the U.S., chess ranks somewhere between mumblety-peg and logrolling in fan interest. Or at least it did until Fischer, the celebrated recluse, became a media happening. The scenes blur: Bobby swinging away in a sports- Generated by www.PDFonFly.com at 10/3/2011 5:03:09 PM celebrity tennis tournament, Bobby receiving a letter of support fromURL: President http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,877942,00.html Nixon, Bobby jetting to Bermuda for lunch with David Frost and the beautiful people, Bobby making the rounds of the talk shows (Dick Cavett: Do you honestly think that you are probably the world's greatest player? Bobby: Yeah, right.) There is even a new record called The Ballad of Bobby Fischer, a twangy ditty sung by Joe Glazer and the Fianchettoed Bishops: "He was born in nineteen forty-three/ And right away I knew he'd make history/ 'Cause he opened his mouth on the day he was born/ And instead of crying he said, 'Move that pawn.' " The song goes on to depict Spassky as already defeated and hustled off to Siberia. The tempo of reality is a little more measured. The championship match, a best-of-24-game series, will likely go on for two months or more. According to the ground rules, three games will be played each week. Each player has 21 hours to complete 40 moves. A dual-faced, pushbutton clock times only the player who is "on move." If either player fails to complete 40 moves in the allotted time, he forfeits the game. If the game is not finished after 40 moves, it is adjourned (unless both players agree to continue) and resumed the next day in another session. One point is awarded for a win, ½ for a draw. Fischer needs 121 points to win the match; Spassky needs 12 to retain his title. Whether played at the summit by grand masters or at the Y.M.C.A. by nine-year-olds, the game of chess offers both intricacy and infinite variety.