Endgame_ Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise And Fall Part 6

At that point Bobby and Tal spoke simultaneously. Fischer said, "Bobby Fischer!" And Tal, never at a loss for a quip, said, "William Lombardy!" (who happened to be standing to his immediate left). Everyone a.s.sembled screamed with laughter.

A short while later, Chess Life Chess Life, in describing the incident, chose to find in it an augury of things to come. Said the magazine: "By the look of confidence and self-a.s.suredness on Fischer's face, we wonder if in fact, he did 'see' himself as the next World Champion."

7.

Einstein's Theory

BOBBY LEFT THE BALLROOM of the Empire Hotel, just steps away from the construction site of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts cultural complex. He'd just clinched the 196061 United States Championship, and he walked briskly through the snow-covered streets with his mother and Jack and Ethel Collins. Jack found it tough going with his wheelchair, so he and his sister took a taxi to a victory dinner for Bobby at Vorst's, a German restaurant a few blocks from the tournament site. If there was any question of his accomplishment, of the Empire Hotel, just steps away from the construction site of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts cultural complex. He'd just clinched the 196061 United States Championship, and he walked briskly through the snow-covered streets with his mother and Jack and Ethel Collins. Jack found it tough going with his wheelchair, so he and his sister took a taxi to a victory dinner for Bobby at Vorst's, a German restaurant a few blocks from the tournament site. If there was any question of his accomplishment, Chess Life Chess Life set the record straight: set the record straight: By winning the United States Championship for the fourth time in succession, Bobby Fischer, 17-year-old International Grandmaster from Brooklyn, has carved an indelible impression in the historic cycle of American chess and has proven without a doubt that he is both the greatest player that this country ever produced and one of the strongest players in the world. Fischer has not lost a game in an American tournament since 1957.

There was only one problem with Chess Life Chess Life's semi-hagiography: Reshevsky didn't agree with it, nor did many of his supporters.

Some chess players felt that it was an insult to proclaim Fischer the greatest American player at seventeen, and thereby diminish the reputation of Reshevsky at fifty. It didn't help that a study had been published that year in American Statistician American Statistician magazine, "The Age Factor in Master Chess," in which the author posited that chess masters go downhill after a certain age, "perhaps forty." Reshevsky wanted to prove the study wrong. magazine, "The Age Factor in Master Chess," in which the author posited that chess masters go downhill after a certain age, "perhaps forty." Reshevsky wanted to prove the study wrong.

For many years Reshevsky had enjoyed a reign as America's "greatest," and now all the spoils and baubles seemed to be going to Bobby, whom many thought of as simply a young, irreverent upstart from Brooklyn. That said, at least an equal number of observers couldn't get enough of "the upstart." They believed that he signaled the possibility of a chess boom in America.

The officers of the American Chess Foundation maintained that Reshevsky was the better player, and they arranged to have him prove it. During the summer of 1961 a sixteen-game match between the two players was negotiated and a prize fund of $8,000 was promised, with $1,000 awarded to each player in advance. Of the balance, 65 percent would go to the winner and 35 percent to the loser. Such a match evoked the drama of some of history's great rivalries-clashes such as Mozart vs. Salieri, Napoleon vs. Wellington, and Dempsey vs. Tunney. When four world-cla.s.s chess players-Svetozar Gligoric, Bent La.r.s.en, Paul Keres, and Tigran Petrosian-were asked their opinion of who would prevail, all all predicted that Reshevsky would be the winner, and by a substantial margin. predicted that Reshevsky would be the winner, and by a substantial margin.

Reshevsky, a small, bald man who dressed conservatively, had a solemn and resolute personality. He was an ice king who was courteous but curt. Bobby couldn't have been more different. He was a tall, gangly, intense, quarrelsome teenager, a quixotic chess prince who exhibited occasional flashes of charm and grace. And their styles on the board were just as divergent. Reshevsky's games were rarely poetic-they displayed no pa.s.sion. The longtime champion often lapsed into time pressure, barely making the control. Fischer's games, though, were crystalline-transparent but ingenious. Bobby had taught himself, after years of practice, to budget his time and he hardly ever drifted into time pressure. (The regimen Jack Collins had imposed when he imported a German clock for Bobby had proved its worth.) The other differences? Fischer was thoroughly prepared-"booked up," as it was called-with opening innovations. Reshevsky, though, tended to be underprepared and often had to determine the most effective moves during play, wasting valuable time. Fischer was more of a tactical player, with flames of brilliance, while Reshevsky was a positional player. He maneuvered for tiny advantages and exhibited an obdurate patience. He was methodically capable of eking out a win from a seemingly hopeless and delicate position.

Ultimately, though, the match wouldn't be rendering a judgment on which player's style style was the best. Its agenda was more basic-that is, to determine who was the best American player was the best. Its agenda was more basic-that is, to determine who was the best American player period period.

Hardly a pas de deux, there was a seesaw of results: wins for Bobby...draws...wins for Reshevsky. One day Bobby was King Kong; the next, Fay Wray. By the eleventh game, which was played in Los Angeles, the score was tied at 55. There was difficulty scheduling the twelfth round, which fell on a Sat.u.r.day. Reshevsky, an Orthodox Jew, couldn't play on Sat.u.r.day until after sundown. (Early in his career he did did play before sundown, but he came to believe that this was a transgression that had caused the death of his father, and thereafter he refused to compete on the Sabbath.) The starting time was therefore changed to 8:30 p.m. When someone pointed out that the game could easily last until two in the morning, it was rescheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. the next day, Sunday afternoon. play before sundown, but he came to believe that this was a transgression that had caused the death of his father, and thereafter he refused to compete on the Sabbath.) The starting time was therefore changed to 8:30 p.m. When someone pointed out that the game could easily last until two in the morning, it was rescheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. the next day, Sunday afternoon.

Complications set in. Jacqueline Piatigorsky (nee Rothchild, a member of one of the richest families in Europe) was one of the sponsors of the match and was paying for all of the players' expenses. She was married to the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, who happened to be giving a concert in Los Angeles that Sunday afternoon. So that she could attend her husband's concert, Jacqueline asked that the game begin at 11:00 a.m. When Bobby, a cla.s.sically late sleeper, heard of yet another change of schedule, he protested immediately. He simply couldn't play at that time, he said. "It's ridiculous." Bobby also didn't see why he had to cater to Mrs. Piatigorsky. She could always come to the game after the concert, he argued. They'd probably still be playing.

At the tournament site-the Beverly Hilton Hotel-Bobby's chess clock was started promptly at eleven a.m. Reshevsky paced up and down, a few spectators waited patiently, and when the little red flag fell precisely at noon, the tournament director declared the game a forfeit. The thirteenth game had been scheduled to be played back in New York at the Empire Hotel.

Bobby said he was willing to continue the match, but the next game had to be a replay of the twelfth game. He didn't want to play burdened by such a ma.s.sive disadvantage; the forfeited game could possibly decide the match's outcome.

Reshevsky nervously paced the stage, once again waiting for the absent Bobby to arrive, this time to play the disputed thirteenth game. About twenty spectators and as many journalists and photographers also waited, staring at the empty, lonely board, and at Reshevsky, who never stopped his pacing.

When an hour had elapsed on the clock, I. A. Horowitz, the referee, declared the game forfeited. Then Walter Fried, the president of the American Chess Foundation, who'd just burst into the room, noticed that Fischer was in absentia and declared Reshevsky the winner of the series. "Fischer had a gun to our heads," he later said, explaining the abrupt termination of one of the most important American chess matches ever played.

Bobby ultimately sued Reshevsky and the American Chess Foundation, seeking a court order to resume the match and asking to have Reshevsky banned from tournament play until the matter was settled. The case lingered in the courts for years and was finally dropped. Although the two men would subsequently meet over the board in other tournaments, the "Match of the Century," as it had been billed, was the unfortunate casualty of Bobby's ingrained sleep habits and the long shadow of patronage in chess.

Bobby took the elevator to the thirtieth floor of the skysc.r.a.per at 110 West Fortieth Street, on the edge of the garment district, and when he disembarked, the elevator operator pointed to a doorway. "It's up those metal stairs." Bobby started climbing the spiral staircase, up and up, four flights. "Is that you, Bobby?" came a disembodied voice from above. It was Ralph Ginzburg, the journalist who'd scheduled an interview with Bobby for Harper's Harper's magazine. magazine.

Bobby was guided into a strange round office, about the size of a small living room and positioned in the tower of the building, with windows on all sides. Everything was battleship gray: the floor, walls, filing cabinets, a desk, and two chairs. The tower room swayed ever so slightly as the wind whistled through the spires outside.

Ginzburg, thirty-two, wore horn-rimmed gla.s.ses and was going prematurely bald. A risk-taking journalist, he'd previously worked for Look Look magazine and magazine and Esquire Esquire, and was the author of two books, including a history of lynching in America. Clever, extremely industrious, he talked loudly and rapidly with a Bronx accent and was proud of his bent for sensationalism. Later he went to prison on an obscenity conviction for publishing a magazine called Eros Eros.

It's important to know this background about Ginzburg, not just because his article about Bobby has been used for more than forty years as a source for other writers and biographers, but also because of the negative effect it had on Bobby's life and the consequent role it had in making him forever suspicious of journalists.

In preparation for the interview, Ginzburg had read Elias Canetti's cla.s.sic work Auto-da-Fe Auto-da-Fe, written eight years before Bobby was born. The story, which helped Canetti earn the n.o.bel Prize in literature, includes a character named Fischerele who aspires to become chess champion of the world. When he wins the t.i.tle, he plans to change his name to Fischer, and after becoming rich and famous, he will own "new suits made at the best possible tailor" and live in a "gigantic palace with real castles, knights, p.a.w.ns."

Ginzburg quoted Fischer as saying that he bought his suits, shirts, and shoes from the best tailors all over the world and was "going to hire the best architect and have him build it [my house] in the shape of a rook...spiral staircases, parapets, everything. I want to live the rest of my life in a house built exactly like a rook."

The article, which also included provocative material, caused a sensation, coloring many of the interview questions that would be fired at Bobby for years after. When, on the heels of Harper's Harper's, widely read British magazine Chess Chess published the article in full, Bobby turned livid and screamed: "Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" published the article in full, Bobby turned livid and screamed: "Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

Bobby insisted that most of the article had twisted what he said and used his quotes out of context. For example, he never told Ginzburg that he had to "get rid of his mother." It's true that Regina Fischer left the apartment to go on a long peace march, met a man, got married, and settled in England. She did say that Bobby, a highly independent adolescent, was probably better off without her living with him; like many mothers, she was doting and continually trying to help her son, sometimes to the point of exasperating him. She and Bobby both realized that living alone gave him more time to study according to his own time and pace, but Ginzburg's negative interpretation of their relationship was totally incorrect. Bobby and his mother loved each other.

Listening to the tapes or reading the transcripts of Ginzburg's interview with Bobby would have proven what the teenager did or didn't say, but Ginzburg said he destroyed all of the research materials that backed up the article. If so, this was unusual: Most professional journalists retain interview transcripts lest what they've written generate a charge of libel or invasion of privacy. One can never know the full truth, of course, but even if Ginzburg merely reported verbatim what Bobby had said, it was a cruel piece of journalism, a penned mugging, in that it made a vulnerable teenager appear uneducated, h.o.m.ophobic, and misogynistic, none of which was a true portrait.

Previous to this, Bobby had already been wary of journalists. The Ginzburg article, though, sent him into a permanent fury and created a distrust of reporters that lasted the rest of his life. When anyone asked about the article, he would scream: "I don't want to talk about it! Don't ever mention Ginzburg's name to me!"

To exorcise the disgruntled feeling he still had from l'affaire l'affaire Reshevsky, and to shake off the Reshevsky, and to shake off the Harper's Harper's article affront, Bobby wanted to get away from New York and just get back to doing what made him happy: He wanted to play chess-without lawyers, without publicity, without threats and counter-threats. He accepted an invitation to play in Yugoslavia in a month-long, twenty-player event in Bled that promised to be one of the strongest international tournaments conducted in years. But first he had to prepare, and he had only three weeks to do so. article affront, Bobby wanted to get away from New York and just get back to doing what made him happy: He wanted to play chess-without lawyers, without publicity, without threats and counter-threats. He accepted an invitation to play in Yugoslavia in a month-long, twenty-player event in Bled that promised to be one of the strongest international tournaments conducted in years. But first he had to prepare, and he had only three weeks to do so.

Normally, Bobby's schedule consisted of five hours per day of study: games, openings, variations, endings. And then, of course, he'd play speed games for an additional five or more hours with the Collins cl.u.s.ter or at one of the clubs. He loved to play fast chess, since it gave him the opportunity to try out dubious or experimental lines through an instant gaze of the board. It honed his instinct and forced him to trust himself.

But to play in an international tournament of the caliber announced, he had to spend much more time at careful, precise study, a.n.a.lysis, and memorization. He stopped answering his phone, because he didn't want to be interrupted or tempted to socialize-even for a chess party-and at one point, to be alone with the chessboard, he just threw some clothes in a suitcase, didn't tell anyone where he was going, and checked into the Brooklyn YMCA. During his stay there, he sometimes studied more than sixteen hours per day.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers Outliers, describes how people in all fields reach success. He quotes neurologist Daniel Levitin: "In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chessplayers, criminals and what have you, the number comes up again and again [the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours of practice]." Gladwell then refers to Bobby: "To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fischer got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good." A fair estimate is that Bobby played one thousand games a year between the ages of nine and eleven, and twelve thousand a year from the ages of eleven to thirteen, most of them speed games. Although all of these games could be considered "practice," not all were particularly instructive. Specific moves or positions reached, however, could be highly enlightening and might even remain locked in his unconscious mind-in the same way, for example, that one remembered chord or even a single note can be of value to a musician. Bobby's study of the nuances of others others' games had the same effect: He paid careful attention to the acc.u.mulation of fine detail.

Bobby loved Yugoslavia because of the superstar status accorded him by its chess adherents, and, on a delightful autumnal day, he entered the tournament hall at Lake Bled primed to play. Now eighteen and dressed in an impeccably tailored suit with a white handkerchief deftly positioned in his breast pocket, he looked somewhat older and carried himself with an athletic swagger. He looked a little like a budding movie star. Many of the Yugoslavs didn't recognize him at first.

Walking in the streets, he'd be besieged by autograph seekers. From his experience at the Interzonal and the Candidates tournament in 195859, both held in Yugoslavia, he'd grasped enough of the language to at least autograph his name in Serbo-Croat. Fans went wild when he inscribed their scorecards in their own language. When a spectator from Moscow asked for an autograph, Bobby signed it using the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, needing to change only a few letters.

For Bobby, the highlight of the tournament was his game against Tal in the second round. Tal, who was much better behaved than the last time he played Bobby-doing less staring and snickering-seemed to suffer a lapse of chess logic on the sixth move, and he blundered again on the ninth move, becoming enmeshed in the opening that Bobby had prepared against him. Tal's spotty play was blamed on the fact that he wasn't feeling well. Bobby's own play was not at its sharpest, but he exploited the weak moves of his opponent and pressed home the advantage until Tal lapsed into a hopeless endgame and resigned. The applause was tumultuous. "A charmer," piped Chess Review Chess Review. Bobby was almost giddy with delight at notching his first win against one of the strongest players in the world, a former World Champion, the man he'd fantasized about murdering during the 1959 Candidates.

As Tal and Fischer left the stage, journalists rushed to them begging for a comment. The two combatants, both a little playful, performed for the crowd: Tal [Sighing]: It is difficult to play against Einstein's theory. [Sighing]: It is difficult to play against Einstein's theory.Fischer [Exulting]: Finally, he has not escaped from me! [Exulting]: Finally, he has not escaped from me!

Bobby was not happy with his eventual second-place showing in the tournament, and like Tal, he blamed some of his draws on illness. By the end of the compet.i.tion, he was feeling mild discomfort in the lower right part of his abdomen, and he was also having difficulty keeping food down. When the pain worsened, and he mentioned it to some of the players, they insisted he see a physician.

Suspicious as always of doctors, Bobby was also concerned about communicating in Serbo-Croat. Would he be able to understand what was being said to him? A doctor was summoned to the Hotel Toplice, and one of the Yugoslavian players served as translator. As soon as the doctor touched his abdomen, Bobby flinched in pain. "It seems like appendicitis," the doctor warned. "You'll have to go to a hospital. If the appendix ruptures, you may get peritonitis, and the infection will spread." Bobby asked if there was anything that could be done without going to a hospital. "No," the doctor answered emphatically. Bobby reluctantly agreed, and he was driven from Bled in Slovenia to Banja Luka in Bosnia for treatment at a large university hospital. He begged the doctors not to operate, even though they told him that it was a relatively simple procedure and cautioned him of the dangers involved in not operating. They a.s.sured him he'd be up and walking around in a few days, but he was still resistant. Not only was he philosophically opposed to surgery, he was frightened of anesthesia. He didn't even want to take medicine to stop the pain. The doctors prevailed on that point and also insisted that he take a regimen of antibiotics. Eventually, the pain lessened and within two or three days he was feeling himself again. He was effusively thankful to the doctors for not insisting he be put under the knife.

After the appendicitis scare, the British Broadcasting Corporation invited him to London to appear on a show called Chess Treasury of the Air Chess Treasury of the Air, and he spent about ten days in England. Christmas in London was a charming experience for Bobby. It seemed to be what he imagined New York City might have been like around 1890 or 1900. He admired the gentility of the city's citizens and the cleanliness of its streets. Pal Benko was there for a while with him and noticed that though he himself had a thick Hungarian accent, he could be more easily understood by the Londoners than Bobby with his p.r.o.nounced Brooklyn dialect. Bobby spent a British Christmas with his mother and her new husband, Cyril Pustan, who'd heard him on the BBC show.

As he continued to prepare for upcoming tournaments, Bobby was also being drawn closer to the Worldwide Church of G.o.d, and he began to face a time conflict between his two commitments: religion and chess. "I split my life into two pieces," he told an interviewer later. "One was where my chess career lies. There I kept my sanity, so to speak. And the other was my religious life. I tried to apply what I learned in the church to my chess career, too. But I was still studying chess. I wasn't just 'trusting in G.o.d' to give me the moves." Bobby's pragmatic philosophy was similar to the old Arabic saying "Trust in Allah but tie up your camel."

In addition to his Bible correspondence course, listening to Reverend Armstrong's sermons, and his in-depth study of the Old and New Testaments, Bobby was reading the Plain Truth Plain Truth, the Church's bimonthly magazine, which claimed to have a circulation of more than 2,500,000. Articles in the magazine were, as the t.i.tle implies, written plainly and seemed as much political as religious. Bobby read every issue cover to cover, though, and much of what he ingested made sense to him. Forty years later he'd still be espousing ideas put forth by Armstrong and the Plain Truth Plain Truth.

One issue outlined horrific prophecies, graphically ill.u.s.trated, of what Armstrong predicted would be World War III, when the United States and Great Britain would be destroyed by a United States of Europe. Armstrong said that before the war began, he'd lead his church members to Jordan, where they'd be saved because they were "G.o.d's People." Bobby, too.

Bobby wrote a preachy letter to his mother, enthusiastically discussing Armstrong's teachings and his intense biblical studies, which had "changed my whole outlook on life." He'd become convinced that only by following Armstrong's interpretation of the Bible could he find health and happiness, become successful, and gain eternal life, and he urged her to read the Bible and Armstrong's writings. Regina wasn't buying his sales pitch and wrote back that Armstrong and his church were feeding Bobby a line of mumbo jumbo and engaging in fear mongering. A good and tolerant life was the best life, she said; call it a religion if you like. After that, they both agreed not to discuss his religious views or hers. Neither mother nor son was willing to try to make a convert of the other.

Bobby tried to live and practice his beliefs; he felt truly born again born again, and he was applying the same sense of discipline and reverence to the Bible that he had all his life to chess. He began making donations to worthy causes; he wouldn't have s.e.x, because he wasn't married; he scorned profanity and p.o.r.nography; and he attempted to follow the Ten Commandments in every detail. "If anyone tried to live by the letter of the law, it was me," he said later, in an interview published by the Amba.s.sador Report Amba.s.sador Report.

But eventually his religious commitments began tearing him apart. He couldn't spend ten or twelve hours a day studying chess and another six to eight hours on Bible studies; and the constant surfacing of impure thoughts and other minor sins was plaguing him. "The more I tried [to be obedient] the more crazy I became," he noted. "I was half out of my head-almost stoned." Without giving up on Armstrong, he realized that Caissa (the patron G.o.ddess of chess) had more meaning for him than the Worldwide Church of G.o.d. Focus, focus, focus! Focus, focus, focus! Chess Chess had had to become paramount again; it to become paramount again; it had had to be his first priority, or his dream of achieving the World Championship would be just that: a dream. to be his first priority, or his dream of achieving the World Championship would be just that: a dream.

January 1962 Spending two months in Sweden in the middle of winter, Bobby found the weather less cold than he'd thought it would be: Temperatures remained close to fifty degrees Fahrenheit. He wasn't in Stockholm, though, to stalk the cobblestoned streets of Old Town, or walk through the underground tunnels, or ready himself for a cruise on the Baltic Sea. Rather, he was there to, once again, try to become the player the whole chess world should pay homage to. Aside from the accolades that would flow to the winner of the Stockholm tournament, the real real prize for Bobby was to qualify for the Candidates tournament, which, in turn, could give him a chance at the World Championship. prize for Bobby was to qualify for the Candidates tournament, which, in turn, could give him a chance at the World Championship.

Chess Life, on its front page, wrapped up the eventual Stockholm results this way: Stockholm, 1962, may come to be recognized as the event which marked the beginning of a decisive shift of power in world chess. For the first time since the Interzonal and Candidates' tournaments began as eliminating contests for the World's Championship in 1948, the Soviet grandmasters failed to capture first prize. Bobby Fischer's margin of 2 points reflects his complete domination of the event. It owed nothing to luck: he never had a clearly lost position.

What Bobby achieved in going undefeated in both Bled and Stockholm was the chess equivalent of pitching two successive no-hitters in baseball's World Series. Most would have thought the feat impossible. Less than a week shy of his nineteenth birthday, Bobby Fischer had just established himself as one of the most extraordinary chess players in the world. But this wasn't the time to gloat or preen, or even to relax. Bobby's goal was the World Championship, and the next step toward that objective was almost upon him.

The economics of chess enforced a certain humility anyway. Before Bobby left Sweden, he was given a small white envelope containing his earnings from the tour-de-force playing he'd just demonstrated. The envelope contained the cash equivalent of $750 in Swedish krona. Bobby could only shake his head ruefully.

He now had barely six weeks to prepare for the Candidates tournament to be held on the island of Curacao, thirty-eight miles off the coast of Venezuela. The winner of the Curacao tournament would earn the right to play the current World Champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, in the next world t.i.tle match.

Home in his apartment in Brooklyn, Bobby went through what was becoming his routine: elimination of social engagements, long periods of solitary study, a.n.a.lysis of games, and a search for innovations in openings. He cla.s.sified the lines he studied into stratifications of importance, always eliminating the not-quite-perfect continuation and seeking what he called the "true move," that which could not be refuted. A Socratic dialogue raged within him: How unusual was the resulting position if he followed that particular line? Would his opponent feel at sea? Would he he (Bobby) feel comfortable playing it? How would he ground himself if he had to continue to play that variation until the endgame? (Bobby) feel comfortable playing it? How would he ground himself if he had to continue to play that variation until the endgame?

Grandmaster Pal Benko, a former Hungarian freedom fighter who became a U.S. citizen and, like many other chess players, an investment broker, entered Bobby's room at the Hotel Intercontinental in Curacao shortly after Arthur Bisguier, Bobby's second, had arrived.

"We're going to work now," Bobby said dismissively to Benko, as he was eating a large late-night room service dinner. He and Bisguier had planned to go over some games. "You can't come in."

"Yes I can. Bisguier also my second," said Benko.

"Bisguier also my second," parroted Bobby, trying to duplicate Benko's Magyar accent.

"Why you make fun at me?" Benko asked.

"Why you make fun at me?" Bobby parroted again.

"Stop it!"

"Stop it!"

All the while Bisguier stood by and, with body language and a few words of attempted peacemaking, tried to calm things down.

"Get out of my room!" Bobby commanded.

"No, you get out!" Benko replied, somewhat illogically.

It isn't clear who hit first, but since Bobby was sitting, he was at a disadvantage. Blows and slaps were exchanged as both grandmasters screamed at each other. Bisguier jumped in and separated the two men. Benko had achieved the "better" of it and years later would confess: "I am sorry that I beat up Bobby. He was a sick man, even then." In the annals of chess, this was the first fistfight ever recorded by two grandmasters, both prospective World Champions.

The day after the fight, Bobby penned a letter to the Tournament Committee, asking them to expel Benko. The committee chose to do nothing about the protest.

Before May and June of 1962 Bobby seemed to be gaining strength with every contest. "Fischer grows from one tournament to the next," Mikhail Tal had said. He'd surpa.s.sed his great achievement at Bled in 1961 with an even more dazzling triumph at Stockholm. He'd defeated at least once all of the five Soviet grandmasters he was to meet at Curacao, and he seemed to be reaching the peak of his powers sooner than anyone (but himself) had expected.

Pundits' predictions were proven totally wrong when the first news issued from Curacao that May. Fischer and Tal had both lost in the first and second rounds, and Bobby was soon lagging in fourth place. All in all, Eliot Hearst observed in Chess Life Chess Life, the Candidates tournament had furnished "a series of early-round surprises that are probably without parallel in chess history."

Some have speculated that Bobby might have been spending too much of his off time gambling, but Bisguier said that all Bobby would do was, on occasion, wander into the casino in the evenings and play the slot machines-the "one-armed bandits" as they were called-until he got bored. He didn't watch television or go to the local movie house, because he said such activity was bad for his eyes and he didn't want to hurt his play. He did attend a prizefight one night and went to a local nightclub a few times, but his heart and interest weren't in it.

Henry Stockhold, a chess player who was covering the match for the a.s.sociated Press, brought Bobby to a brothel one night and waited for him. When Bobby exited an hour later, Stockhold asked him how he enjoyed it, and Bobby's comment, which he repeated at other times, has often been quoted: "Chess is better."

Tigran Petrosian won the 1962 Candidates tournament with a score of eight wins, nineteen draws, and no losses, for 17 points. Soviets Efim Geller and Paul Keres tied for second, a half point behind, and Bobby's fourth-place score was three full points below the three leaders and a half point ahead of Korchnoi.

Bobby wanted the world to know what really happened at Curacao. He wrote: "There was open collusion between the Russian [Soviet] players. They agreed ahead of time to draw the games that they played against each other.... They consulted during the games. If I was playing a Russian [Soviet] opponent, the other Russians watched my games, and commented on my moves in my hearing."

Korchnoi, in his memoir Chess Is My Life Chess Is My Life, backed Bobby's accusations: "Everything was arranged by Petrosian. He agreed with his friend Geller to play draws in all their games together. They also persuaded Keres to join their coalition...this gave them a great advantage over the remaining compet.i.tors."

When asked why Fischer hadn't won, Pal Benko, still smarting over his fight with Bobby, replied: "He simply wasn't the best player."

Bobby's self-image was shattered as a result of Curacao. His dream-his obsession-of becoming the youngest World Champion in history had eluded him. It had seemed inevitable to him that he'd win the t.i.tle, but that was not enough. His ascendancy to international chess prominence at such a young age had made him certain that he'd become champion, but the Russians-through what he considered their chicanery-had proven that they could hold him back, and this both enraged and saddened him.

Bobby now now realized that there was nothing about his destiny that was inevitable, and yet he would not go quietly into the chess night. He despised the Soviets for what they'd done to him. He was convinced they'd stolen the championship, and he insisted that the world know it. realized that there was nothing about his destiny that was inevitable, and yet he would not go quietly into the chess night. He despised the Soviets for what they'd done to him. He was convinced they'd stolen the championship, and he insisted that the world know it.

In its August 20, 1962, issue, Sports Ill.u.s.trated Sports Ill.u.s.trated published Bobby's published Bobby's j'accuse: j'accuse: "The Russians Have Fixed World Chess." The article was reprinted in German, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, Icelandic, and even the Russian chess journalists made mention of it. Bobby announced that he'd never again partic.i.p.ate in a Candidates tournament, because the FIDE system made it impossible for any but a Soviet player to win. He wrote, "The system set up by the "The Russians Have Fixed World Chess." The article was reprinted in German, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, Icelandic, and even the Russian chess journalists made mention of it. Bobby announced that he'd never again partic.i.p.ate in a Candidates tournament, because the FIDE system made it impossible for any but a Soviet player to win. He wrote, "The system set up by the Federation Internationale des echecs Federation Internationale des echecs...insures that there will always be a Russian world champion.... The Russians arranged it that way." At Portoro he confirmed that he'd grown in strength sufficiently to have defeated all the Soviet grandmasters competing with him for the t.i.tle. He believed that Russian manipulation of tournaments had become a great deal more "open," or apparent, presumably in response to his threat of domination.

Chess watchers seem to agree that it was likely the Soviets had colluded, on some some level, at Curacao. And yet Bobby failed to mention that neither he nor anyone else ever proved a threat to the three leading Russians throughout this tournament, so the question of why the Russians would have colluded as flagrantly as Bobby maintained remains unanswered. Economics professors Charles C. Moul and John V. C. Nye wrote a scholarly a.n.a.lysis, "Did the Soviets Collude? A Statistical a.n.a.lysis of Championship Chess, 194064," examining hundreds of tournament results involving Soviet and non-Soviet players, and concluded that there was a 75 percent probability, in general, that Soviet players level, at Curacao. And yet Bobby failed to mention that neither he nor anyone else ever proved a threat to the three leading Russians throughout this tournament, so the question of why the Russians would have colluded as flagrantly as Bobby maintained remains unanswered. Economics professors Charles C. Moul and John V. C. Nye wrote a scholarly a.n.a.lysis, "Did the Soviets Collude? A Statistical a.n.a.lysis of Championship Chess, 194064," examining hundreds of tournament results involving Soviet and non-Soviet players, and concluded that there was a 75 percent probability, in general, that Soviet players did did collude. The authors were quick to point out, however, that "Fischer was not a strong enough favorite to be severely harmed by the draw collusion in the notorious Candidates Tournament in Curacao, 1962." collude. The authors were quick to point out, however, that "Fischer was not a strong enough favorite to be severely harmed by the draw collusion in the notorious Candidates Tournament in Curacao, 1962."

Curacao aside, the real real reason the Soviets always seemed to be among the finalists in tournaments was, of course, that they were overrepresented in the field of players, due to the game's popularity in their home country and the level of government support. The Soviet Union had more first-rate players than any other three nations combined. So long as that imbalance remained-and with the superb Soviet "farm system," it continued to reinforce itself-two to three Russians would always survive the Interzonal to enter the Candidates, with one or two more seeded over. That created the possibility of the Russians "teaming up" if they so chose, and led to charges such as Bobby's that no Westerner could hope to win the world t.i.tle under the existing FIDE system. reason the Soviets always seemed to be among the finalists in tournaments was, of course, that they were overrepresented in the field of players, due to the game's popularity in their home country and the level of government support. The Soviet Union had more first-rate players than any other three nations combined. So long as that imbalance remained-and with the superb Soviet "farm system," it continued to reinforce itself-two to three Russians would always survive the Interzonal to enter the Candidates, with one or two more seeded over. That created the possibility of the Russians "teaming up" if they so chose, and led to charges such as Bobby's that no Westerner could hope to win the world t.i.tle under the existing FIDE system.

Perhaps because of Fischer's intransigent article in Sports Ill.u.s.trated Sports Ill.u.s.trated, the Soviets and the rest of the chess world were shocked into accepting a new FIDE dictum: A radical reform of the Candidates was inst.i.tuted. From that point forward, the old setup would be replaced with a series of matches of ten or twelve games each between the eight individual contestants, with the loser of each match being eliminated.

Still unanswered was the question of whether Bobby Fischer would really drop out of the World Championship cycle and never realize his dream. Some wondered: Might he even drop out of chess altogether?

The answer came quickly.

8.

Legends Clash

ABOARD THE New Amsterdam New Amsterdam ocean liner nineteen-year-old Bobby Fischer didn't wear a tuxedo to dinner in the first-cla.s.s lounge, but he dressed as conservatively as he could, with a blue serge suit, white shirt, and dark tie. Forgetting that he'd ever been way behind the fashion curve, he was appalled, in some priggish, nouveau riche kind of way, that certain pa.s.sengers appeared in the dining room in slacks and sneakers. ocean liner nineteen-year-old Bobby Fischer didn't wear a tuxedo to dinner in the first-cla.s.s lounge, but he dressed as conservatively as he could, with a blue serge suit, white shirt, and dark tie. Forgetting that he'd ever been way behind the fashion curve, he was appalled, in some priggish, nouveau riche kind of way, that certain pa.s.sengers appeared in the dining room in slacks and sneakers.

During the nine-day voyage from New York to Rotterdam in September 1962 he slept as much as could, played over some games, and sat on the promenade deck to take in the bracing sea air. The trip was paid for from the $5,000 appearance fee he was getting to compete for the United States in the Olympiad in Varna, Bulgaria. He had a triple motive in sailing, instead of flying, across the Atlantic: He wanted to see and experience how the "aristocrats" traveled, he needed some rest and time alone, and he was also beginning to become afraid-in a way that many might consider paranoid-that the Soviets, to protect their national chess honor and remove him as a threat to their hegemony, might sabotage a plane that he was in.

Bobby's diatribe about cheating by the Soviets was being discussed all over the world, and the chess hierarchy in Russia was incensed. Consequently, he believed the Soviets might be furious enough to, as he put it, murder him by "tinkering with the engine of a plane."

The antic.i.p.ation of playing against World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik for the first time was exhilarating, though, and worth the discomfort of partic.i.p.ating at what was rumored to be a not-so-exemplary tournament site-the Black Sea resort called Golden Sands.