AThe Windsor Star Windsor, Ontario, Canada Wednesday, July 12, 1972 - Page 28
Fischer Can Only Get A Draw
Spassky first game victory possible by Harry Golombek, Special to The Windsor Star
Reykjavik—The first game in the World Chess Championship match between champion Boris Spassky and challenger Bobby Fischer was adjourned Tuesday in a position which holds out unclear winning possibilities for the champion, but only drawing chances for Fischer. The game is scheduled to be resumed today at 1 p.m. EDT, when Spassky's 41st move, sealed into an envelope at adjournment, will be revealed.
The game started off here Tuesday in most unprecedented fashion. For the first time in the history of world championship matches the challenger arrived late on the scene of action. When he did come, he played with almost dazzling speed, and Spassky himself was infected by this and played more quickly than is usual in a match of this great importance.
Since Fischer is known for his predilection for the Grunfeld Defence, it was a little surprising that he drifted into the Nimzo-Indian opening. Maybe he feared to use the Grunfeld again after his loss to the world champion at the Siegen Olympiad in Germany in 1970.
At first the experiment appeared rewarding, at least as far as the draw was concerned.
Early exchange of the queens was followed first by the exchange of minor and then by the exchange of major pieces, so that very rapidly the game came down to a level bishop and pawn ending.
Surely this was going to be a draw, we all thought. Suddenly there came a most astonishing twist to the game. Against all expectations Fischer captured a rook pawn with his bishop and doomed the bishop to destruction. Could the grandmaster have overlooked something or had he seen deeper than the rest of us?
The general feeling among the experts in the hall was that what winning chances there were lay with Spassky, and, in fact, on quitting the exhibition hall, I encountered Fredrick Olafsson (CQ), the Icelandic grandmaster, who upon my asking what he thought of the position, answered, there are some winning chances for Spassky, but it is not all clear.
The only real winning chance for white lies in getting the king back so as to prevent Fischer's pawns from advancing. Once this is done, black is entirely without winning prospects. But it is not clear how white can make further progress. It is upon this problem, no doubt, that the Russian grandmaster will pass the night in analysis.
Fischer obviously was displeased with his game. After the adjournment he angrily demanded a meeting with the Icelandic organizers to complain against what he described as the noisy audience. Some 3,000 Icelanders and foreign chess enthusiasts had packed into the Lagardur Hall for the opening thriller.
Caption: BOBBY CONCENTRATES—Bobby Fischer from Brooklyn, N.Y., studies the chessboard before making his move against the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky, left, Tuesday in Laugardalsholl Hall in Reykjavik, Iceland. The action came during the first game of the 24-game match.
(EDITOR'S NOTE—Harry Golombek, an international chess grandmaster has been three times British chess champion and is a judge in six previous world chess championship matches. He is chess correspondent for The Times of London.)
