The Guardian London, Greater London, England Wednesday, July 12, 1972 - Page 20
Cautious Start In Iceland by Leonard Barden
The first game of the world chess championship match in Iceland was ambling towards a peaceful draw last night although, Fischer may have to struggle. The game was adjourned after 40 moves and five hours' play.
Fischer gambled in a drawn position by sacrificing a bishop for two pawns. His liking for pawn captures is notorious—he is the top specialist in an opening variation called the “Poisoned Pawn”—and the Russians quote this trait as an example of the challenger's capitalist materialist instincts.
([Which sure explains a lot, considering Spassky opened the tournament using a Poison Pawn to stump Fischer. Seems if Fischer were such a “capitalist materialistic instinctive” person based on the mastery of the poisoned pawn, he'd foresaw the outcome. Correct? Secondly, as Jim Fiebig points out in his column on Fischer accused by the Russians as a “money-grubbing capitalist” — “Fischer is a bush league amateur.” https://bobby-fischer-1972.blogspot.com/1972/07/fischer-bush-league-capitalist.html. Thirdly, Fischer gave the bulk of his prize money to a church then refused to take all those opportunities that lay before him that could have made him exceedingly wealthy. He chose to live a lifestyle more comparable to a monk than a millionaire, then went on in his future life to criticize said elitists on behalf of mankind. Not exactly what westerners would regard as “money grubbing” nor “capitalist.” However, Soviet players were quite eager to cash in on the larger cash prizes. Why didn't they too give the money to some charitable cause like Fischer did, else judged and accused themselves of being money-grubbing Capitalists and harboring double standards??])
The game reached a critical situation where Spassky was materially ahead with king, bishop and three pawns against Fischer's king and five pawns but Fischer had chances to penetrate with his king into Spassky's position.
Spassky opened with the expected P-Q4: it was the same move as in his last two wins against Fischer and it won the Guardian correspondent a small bet against a fellow writer who had forecast a king's gambit. But the move posed an immediate probing question: was Fischer willing to play the Grunfeld which had brought him to defeat at Santa Monica and Siegen against Spassky; would he choose the ambitious King's Indian which had proved a key weapon against Taimanov and Larsen, or would he spring a surprise?
The opening moves brought a paradox. Fischer, the extremist seeker after chess truth and forecaster of a 13-0 win over Spassky, opted for the solid Ragosin system which Spassky switched into a classical variation of the Nimzo-Indian.
The second phase of the game confirmed the impression that the atmosphere was cautious, mutual respect rather than all-out struggle at the start. The queens were swapped on moves 11 and 12 and with a symmetrical pawn formation a draw already looked on the cards. By move 20, each player had exchanged queens, a rook, a knight, and three pawns—what tournament professionals, who like their rest days, call a wood-chopping exercise.
