Daily News New York, New York Wednesday, July 19, 1972 - Page 4
(Soviets Wanted Media Blackout. Used Disruptive Camera Men to Achieve It.) Battle Ends in Draw by Robert Byrne
Reykjavik, Iceland, July 18—Bobby Fischer of Brooklyn and Boris Spassky of Russia ended the fourth game of the world chess championship today in a draw after 45 moves and five hours.
Fischer used the opening he almost always employs when he has the first move of the game, advancing his king's pawn two squares. Spassky, in a surprise start, used the Sicilian defense, which is Fischer's favorite.
Previously, Boris considered the two-edged game arising from this unbalanced formation to be too wild for serious contests. But he went all-out tonight, sacrificing a pawn at the 16th move to deflect Fischer's knight to the queen's side, thus buying time to mount a menacing attack on the other wing.
Holds 1-Point Lead
The draw left Spassky still with a 1-point advantage, over Fischer, 2½ to 1½, in the $250,000 match. The fifth game is set for Thursday at 5 p.m. (1 p.m. New York time). A player wins if he gets 12½ points. If the match goes 24 games and is even, Spassky retains the crown.
After the seventh move, huge “silence” signs in the halls began flashing on and off to quiet a murmur of excitement inspired by Spassky's move of a bishop to king 2. The Russians left the stage after making it.
Fischer then studied the board for seven full minutes before moving his queen's bishop to king 3. Spassky swept back on stage immediately to make his next move.
Caught unprepared for Boris' novel counter-attacking strategy, Bobby consumed an enormous amount of time in the early middle game trying hard to transport his minor pieces to the king's win to fight off the terrific power of Spassky's bishop's bearing down on adjacent diagonals, augmented by the queen.
The only way he could meet the vicious thrust of Spassky's king's rook pawn, which threatened to rip up the last defense, was to block it by his 24th move, P-R3.
But that move inevitably weakened the black squares around his king and demanded hair's breath tactics to survive. By rushing his knight back to KB3 at the 30th move, and forcing the exchange of queens next, he squeaked through to safety in a drawn bishops of opposite color ending.
It is possible that Boris missed a good chance at his 27th move, which gave Bobby a breather. Instead … R-Q1; 28. N-N5 RxRch; 29. QxR Q-N6, threatening mate at N7 and R6 would have been impossible to parry, for if 30. Q-Q8ch, K-N2; 31. QxB then … Q-K8ch, 32. K-R2 B-N8ch; 33. K-R1 B-B7ch; 34. K-R2 Q-N8 mate. Fischer would have had to try 28. NxP RxRch; 29. QxR, but it isn't clear how he could get a perpetual check after the reply 29. … Q-N6.
Soviets Wanted Media Blackout. Used Disruptive Camera Men to Achieve It. Battle Ends in Draw 19 Jul 1972, Wed Daily News (New York, New York) Newspapers.com
