AThe Observer London, Greater London, England Sunday, August 02, 1992 - Page 18
Surprise Gambit of A Grandmaster
Bobby Fischer, undefeated former world chess champion, plans a return match with Boris Spassky, his opponent of 20 years ago. Julie Flint looks at the prospects.
MOST thought it impossible, as likely as squaring the circle. But it looks as if they all were wrong. Bobby Fischer is coming out of the shadows to which he consigned himself 20 years ago for a $5.5 million rematch with Boris Spassky, in 1972, the year Angela Davis was acquitted and the Duke of Windsor died, to become America's first world chess champion.
Who will we be seeing? Says Yugoslav grand master Svetozar Gligoric, who has been with Fischer on the Yugoslav resort island of Sveti Stefan. ‘He is in a better mood than he was in Iceland — more pleasant, more relaxed. He looks fine. And he is playing very, very strongly.’
Gliga, the bon viveur who has always defended the chess world's enfant terrible, discovered that to his cost last week when he played a dozen games against Fischer. He earned himself one draw — but no wins and a whole heap of defeats.
Refereeing the match next month will be Lothar Schmid, the German grandmaster through 21 world championship games in 1972 is ready to do it again. Why? Because, he says, even after 18 match-less years, Fischer was able to spot what no one else could; the refutations of the queen sacrifice with which Garry Kasparov defeated Anatoly Karpov in their fifth world championship game. ‘I know he is difficult. He has a lot of trouble with himself and other people. But he is honest. This match will be an outstanding event.’
Gligoric believes Fischer has emerged from his troubled retirement because this match finally meets his terms — his rules, his chess clock, his conditions of play. Schmid has another explanation. ‘Bobby needs some money.’
Wrong. Since defeating Spassky, Fischer has turned down offers worth millions and lived like a recluse.
Yugoslavia was where it all began — where Fischer began his international career and where he wanted to meet Spassky in 1972 ([Actually, Fischer had his eye on Argentina, and other western locations where telecommunications were readily available to legally broadcast the matches, but the Soviet, so accustomed to government censorship would have none of that, and extorted officials into isolating the match within Iceland, to bury the match.]) Not only because it was not the Soviet Union — but because it offered the biggest purse: $152,000 ([Wrong. Australia offered the biggest: $200,000 + $25,000 for organizational expenses.])
Max Euwe, president of the International Chess Federation, split the championship between Reykjavik, Spassky's choice, and Belgrade, Fischer's choice. ([Because the Soviet Union resist any nation outside Europe!! against Fischer's will.]) Fischer agreed, but changed his mind. ([Oh yes, when “old hands” began plotting against Fischer, to disqualify him, and demanded an illegal $25,000 guarantee, which, naturally, the U.S. Chess Federation refused to pay]). Belgrade withdrew its bid. Euwe gave all the games to Reykjavik ([after Euwe reneged on his promise to nations around the world, “first come, first serve bids” — with Australia and Mexico stepping up to the plate with large, never before heard of prize bids far outdoing anything coming from the European locales! But the Soviet Union, in one of its many tantrums began threatening to withdraw Spassky from play, as they always had done to get their own selfish, unsportsmanlike way.]) Fischer submitted ‘under protest’, ([rightfully upset]) that the Russians ‘know they're going to lose the match, so they figure they may as well bury it.’ ([As Fischer correctly put it, Iceland was the one place on earth it was impossible to access modern satellite communications, and hence achieve censoring coverage. Not only that, but Iceland was notoriously racist and Anti-American, which would work wonders for Soviets provoking real life security and safety risks to the American challenger and his entourage which included Fischer's good friend, as self-reported, the only African American in attendance at the tournament, or anywhere near the sports hall, Archie Waters.])
Fischer then ‘disappeared’. As Spassky tried to keep his head while all around lost theirs, the word came from New York: a cut of the gate or no match. Euwe postponed the first game for 48 hours. Jim Slater doubled the purse. Fischer cried: ‘I gotta accept. It's stupendous.’
He arrived in Iceland on the morning of 4 July but slept through the drawing of lots. A news conference was called. Bobby was missing. Moscow demanded written apologies ([to use in its state propaganda]). Euwe left Iceland. Bobby apologized ([to satiate Soviet tantrums and get the match under way in spite of their juvenile antics]).
On 11 July, the show got on the road 10 days behind schedule. But a show, for a good while yet, it was doomed to be. Fischer lost the first game with an elementary blunder ([due to disruptive camera men placed there to interrupt his concentration]) after discovering that the television cameras he had reluctantly accepted were not unseen and unheard, ‘like candid camera’, but towered behind the players' chairs.
He boycotted the second match and Schmid awarded the point to Spassky. Fischer protested. Schmid, in extremis, allowed the next match to be played in a private room without cameras. Chester Fox, the young New Yorker with the film rights, sued ([thanks to a hidden agreement the Soviets/Icelandic Chess Federation made with Chester Fox, its details hidden from Fischer]) and the championship resumed — buffeted by a stream of protests from Fischer over noise.
And it was noisy. Because Reykjavik had no tournament hall, a sports stadium had been converted for the championship. Fold-up benches clacked. Corrugated iron walls twanged. Kids scrunched sweet papers. Adults yakked. It wasn't ideal for Spassky, who liked crowds; it was hell for Fischer, who didn't.
Midway through the match, Fischer complained of snoring. Schmid tiptoed down to catch the sleeper in flagrante, but failed. Rattled at last, Spassky fell steadily behind until, in the 17th game, the Russians accused the Americans of using chemical and electronic aids ‘to unbalance Mr. B. Spassky and make him lose his fighting spirit.’ ([In 1985, Spassky confirmed that job was done by Moscow.]) This was surely not poor Spassky's doing. He, better than anyone, knew that the Americans needed no such aids: they had the dream aid — Fischer.
The match of the century degenerated into farce as scientists crawled around the stage with microscopes and X-ray machines. They found two dead flies and Fischer asked if there would be an autopsy. The championship resumed. Spassky rallied, but could not win.
Since then, Fischer has lived in seclusion in ([the college campus apartments of a Pasadena-based Christian cult's headquarters]) that happily hoovered up his winnings, refusing to defend his title under existing rules but making regular outings to the Los Angeles library to study every tournament played. He fell out with the church and was arrested on suspicion of being a bank robber.
Bank robber he was not. He later published a pamphlet: ‘I Was Tortured In The Pasadena Jailhouse’. It sold for $1. If you loved him, read it. ([…to educate the public about the causes of Complex-PTSD; cult survivor and exploitation, police brutality; et cetera.])
Fischer spent much of 1990 in Europe, marketing his clock (which rewards players for thinking quickly in the opening game). Schmid found him unchanged — still convinced that spies follow him everywhere ([the Soviet did spy on people, worldwide… on occasion, for their propaganda machine, unleashing nasty articles with layers of falsities wrapped around a scrap or two of dubious “facts”. So, why shouldn't Fischer be different than any other targeted by the Soviet Union for smear campaigns?]) Still ‘very kind, very friendly’, still happy, in his fashion, until journalists get to him. But the crusader of 1972 is now 49, long on analysis and short on games. Spassky, four years his senior, plays unambitiously, content with draws. Can the clock be turned back? Should it be?
But Fischer-Spassky it's going to be, with players at one end of the dining room of a luxury hotel, spectators at the other and the journalists Fischer ([avoids]), in the casino. Perhaps the bad boy from Brooklyn is wising up.
