AThe Charlotte News Charlotte, North Carolina Thursday, July 13, 1972 - Page 11
Fischer Biggest Gambit by Bill Ballenger
Sixteen years ago, at age 13, a tousled kid in a striped tee-shirt burst on the stage of international chess. In an interview in a national news magazine “The Kid” told his interrogators that his destiny was to become the greatest chess player in the world.
That was Bobby Fischer, at that time a truant from the public schools of New York. But his brilliance was not in the classroom. It was on the interlocked squares of a chessboard. And one year later, before his voice had fully changed, the kid in tennis shoes won the U.S. title.
Since that time Fischer has been locked on a quest for the world title, an ambition constantly thwarted by the Russians. Russians seem to have a way of frustrating the impatient and headstrong, Napoleon and Hitler, ([but Fischer will succeed where they failed]), to name a couple other than Fischer. ([“Hitler was not a great man. … he was an extremely cold selfish and egotistical person. … The man could not be taken seriously and his 1000 year Reich was foredoomed.” - Robert J. Fischer to Pal Benko in a 1979 letter. Only antisemites; Zionists and Neo-Nazis want to delude the public into the false belief that Robert J. Fischer was ever, at any time between 1943-2008 remotely sympathetic to Hitler! To claim he was is patently false political propaganda, to make an “example” of Fischer, to put before Congress while Israeli Apartheid demands another $3.8 Billion in tax money to pay for weapons, in their war on Palestinians. Fischer didn't sign up for that twisted abuse. All the overwhelming documentation and contemporary reports during Bobby's lifetime confirm Bobby opposed racism and leaned toward human rights, international law & justice, freedom and democratic principles. From 1962-1974 Fischer donated tens of thousands of dollars to our church, which kept the same sabbath as Jews and Fischer was made to pay a heavy price for it too, becoming the target of Antisemitic discrimination. See again the 1958 photograph of Robert Fischer giving the anti-Fascist “peace” sign.])
Chess is the national sport in the U.S.S.R. ([and part of the Soviet propaganda appeal to reason and narrative goes something like, any person, such as Fischer, who's an outsider of the Soviet Union, like Fischer, who opposes their criminality, well, “they must be fascist” — WRONG. Fischer opposed fascists like those in charge of the Soviet Union. It wasn't Fischer who selected Racist Iceland, whose professional class citizenry, overwhelmingly supported Nazi Germany during WWII, for the 1972 tournament, after all. Now was it? Russian bent over backwards in its demands, Iceland be the sole host of the 1972 matches at the exclusion of all others, due to Iceland's long history of bitter Anti-American hostilities, to demoralize Fischer.]) Whereas America can claim maybe 10 Grand Masters, Russia has at least 50 and hundreds of Masters and experts.
There is a reason for this. The climate of the Slavic state ranges between merely cold to nasty to bonechilling to meatlocker in temperature most of the year. And TV has not been and is still not a part of every Soviet's life.
The cold, long winters are passed away over the board, patiently because time is nothing.
PATIENCE is the heart of chess because, as in Fischer's war, outrunning your support can be fatal.
Fischer, however, does not have that quality. He is the Patton of world chess, rushing in on attack with power moves designed to smash the opposition's middle, break into the center board and get the matter over with.
Studying Fischer is like studying plans from the German war college. Blitzkrieg.
—A Very Taxing Game
For those who have never played it, chess seems like a purely mental game and perhaps a boring one. But those who have played it know better. Before going over to Iceland to meet Boris Spassky for the world title, Fischer trained at Grossinger's much in the manner of the old fight crowd of 10 or 20 years ago.
Doctors say that a chess match places as much pressure on the heart as a vigorous workout. It is a consuming activity and it breaks the really interested player out in a sweat because he is at one and the same time a player and a spectator.
Never before in history has a match drawn such attention as the one now going on in Reykjavik. For one thing the stakes are phenomenally high—$150,000 going to the winner.
The largest prize ever offered before for a chess title was $12,000.
FISCHER is the man responsible for this remarkable event and he may well fire U.S. imagination and popularize this greatly misunderstood sport.
—Bobby Shows Pressure
The chances are that Fischer will not defeat Boris Spassky, the reigning world champion, however, because at this time the erstwhile prodigy is reacting like someone under great pressure.
Impatient, complaining of the drapes ([to control lighting]), the TV cameras ([with good reason, since Fischer was clearly misled to the type of cameras that would be used by Soviet liaison Chester Fox, and would learn upon arrival in Iceland that noisy, disruptive “crews of cameramen” would operate the cameras, all around the auditorium, instead of stationary, automated cameras filming during matches]) the lighting, Fischer has now lost the first of the 24 game series, while the Russian sits stolidly at the board — making his moves patiently and prudently. The Russian tortoise waiting on the American hare.
If he should win, he would be lionized by the American public, and the Russians, who have won the title every year since the tournament originated, would be crushed.
Should Fischer lose, his justified complaints at Reykjavik, will be interpreted as “hysteria” and “weakness”. The laurels he has build up since he was “The Kid” will be stripped away. The U.S. mentality being what it is, he will probably be viewed with scorn because winning is the only thing that counts.
And if the Russian wins, the Soviets will go home and puff their pipes and hold their counsel and wait. Such patience is frightening. That is why this one is no ordinary chess match.
Fischer Biggest Gambit by Bill Ballenger 13 Jul 1972, Thu The Charlotte News (Charlotte, North Carolina) Newspapers.com
