Sports Illustrated February 26, 1972
The Fischer-Spassky Go
When Bobby Fischer bombed Tigran Petrosian off the chessboard last fall and earned the right to meet Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union for the world championship, interest in chess soared. In the past, the Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE) would have routinely announced a neutral site where the championship would be played, and the story would have appeared as a one-inch item somewhere near the bottom of page 23 in your local newspaper.
But with B. Fischer around things are different. This time 15 cities from 12 countries bid for the privilege of staging the 24-game match, and by chess standards the bids were astronomical. For instance, Reykjavik, Iceland, offered $125,000, and Belgrade, Yugoslavia, the highest bidder, came in with $152,000 ($95,000 for the winner, $57,000 for the loser).
But the final selection was not just a matter of money, for chess players, a sensitive lot, have very definite ideas on where they will or will not play. Spassky liked Reykjavik; Fischer did not. Under FIDE regulations, each side had to submit a list of acceptable places by a date late in January. Total stalemate.
The Russians claimed the Americans did not file by deadline; the Americans said the deadline was later than the Russians said it was. In any event, they failed to come up with a mutually acceptable city. The decision was then up to Dr. Max Euwe, president of FIDE. Euwe pondered and announced a compromise: the first 12 games would be in Belgrade, the last 12 in Reykjavik.
A decision worthy of a Solomon, except that neither Fischer nor the Russians accepted it. The Russians protested that Dr. Euwe had violated FIDE rules. Fischer was incommunicado.
There, last week, the matter uneasily rested. Some observers suggested that the Russians, unnerved by Fischer's resounding triumphs, would just as soon Spassky avoided him entirely. Others held that the entire affair was a sort of pre-chess game, with moves and countermoves designed to psych the other side.
Non-chess fans could not help but feel that it was all beginning to sound like the publicity buildup for an Ali-Frazier fight.
