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BGonline.org Forums
Chess is Life
Posted By: Marty Storer In Response To: Chess is Life (Stanley E. Richards)
Date: Thursday, 31 January 2008, at 2:52 p.m.
I saw Fischer in paranoid action once. On 9 January 1972 he gave a simultaneous exhibition in New Rochelle, NY. I was there to watch. He arrived a little late (presaging the match against Spassky later that year!) with a "handler" from the U.S. Chess Federation accompanying him.
Reporters started asking him questions. Fischer turned to the handler: "What did he say?" Reporter was right there in front of Fischer. "He asked if you're going to beat Spassky." "Tell him I'm going to beat him."
Subsequently, Fischer was induced to sit in a chair underneath a poster of a stylized King (chess piece) with a photo of Fischer's head atop it. The president of the chess club sponsoring the event gave a pompously irritating speech, curing which time Fischer sat there, literally slack-jawed, eyes somewhere between glazed and rolled-back (so only the corneas would have been visible).
I call that behavior quite paranoid. I doubt Fischer was paranoid schizophrenic, i.e. subject to actual hallucinations, but he had to have been clinically something-or-other.
Then he gave the exhibition, beating twenty players in what was by my count 46 minutes. The impression was, BANG ZOOM. Afterwards, he was laughing and joking, signing autographs. I still have mine somewhere. It was as if he were a different person.
Here's the game that took place in front of me. This is from memory and I hope I don't forget anything--I didn't in those days, so I hope the memory of the game is more stable than my memory of what I did yesterday. Fischer's opponent wasn't the strongest, but it's nice to see how Fischer doesn't waste any motion at all.
White, Fischer. Black, D. Brodsky. 1) e4 c5; 2) Nf3 d6; 3) d4 cd; 4) Nd4 Nf6; 5) Nc3 a6; 6) Bc4 e6; 7) Bb3 Be7; 8) f4 Bd7; 9) f5 Qc8; 10) fe fe; 11) O-O O-O; 12) Nf5 Nc6; 13) Ne7+ Ne7; 14) Qd6 Re8; 15) Bg5 Qc6; 16) Rad1 Nc8; 17) Qf4 Rf8; 18) e5 Qc5+; 19) Kh1 Nd5; 20) Qf8+ Qf8; 21) Rf8+ Kf8; 22) Nd5 ed; 23) Bd5 Bc6; 24) Bc6 bc; 25) e6 Ne7; 26) Rd7 Re8; 27) Re7 Re7; 28) Be7 Ke7; 29) Kg1 Ke6; 30) Kf2 Ke5; 31) Ke3 h6; 32) b4 Kd5; 33) Kd3 c5; 34) c4+ Kc6; 35) a3 g6; 36) Ke4 Kd6; 37) b5 ab; 38) cb Kc7; 39) Kd5 Kb6; 40) a4 Ka5; 41) Kc5 Ka4; 42) b6 Ka5; 43) b7 Ka6; 44) b8/Q 1-0. Mr. Brodsky was the last one vanquished.
My friend Billy Edelson also played a Najdorf Sicilian, where Fischer played his specialty 6) Bc4. Billy got a good game, the best of anyone playing, and had real drawing chances, with a couple of passed Pawns against Fischer's white-squared Bishop, both players having both Rooks on the board. Unfortunately, by that time there were about three people still playing, and Billy couldn't hold his own in speed chess against Fischer. Fischer mated him in a flurry of zooming Rooks.
I played against Bent Larsen in an exhibition in 1974. My father and I drove him to his hotel afterwards. I asked Larsen what he thought about Fischer's future. "Fischer will never play a match again," he said. "He's completely unhinged now. The Spassky match was too much for him."
Fischer showed up at the U.S. Open in, I believe, 1978. I wasn't there, but a friend of mine has a photocopy of a letter Fischer was passing around. (He must have it from his friend Ken Rogoff who must have been at the tournament.) Apparently the Worldwide Church of God had suckered Fischer out of some money and he was angry about it. The letter referred to some kind of international conspiracy. The grammar and organization, and the whole thought behind it, were pathetically sad.
Remember T.S. Eliot? "The Jew squats on the estaminet, the owner: Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London." He was quite the anti-Semite, and quite the great poet. I'm not going to throw out my books of Eliot, nor "My 60 Memorable Games," nor Fischer's autograph.
As well pay attention to squirrels' chatter as to Fischer's statements about international Jewish conspiracies and the U.S. Evil Empire. Fischer should be remembered for his great chess. Otherwise he should be seen as a tragic figure.
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