The Herald Statesman Yonkers, New York Wednesday, July 05, 1972 - Page 3
Hartsdale Chess Master Sees Personality Dispute in Iceland by Lee Richards III
Hartsdale — “I've known Bobby Fischer since he was in knee-pants, but what I can't be sure of is what he feels about the chess championship at this moment.”
On what was supposed to be the even of the long-awaited Boris Spassky-Bobby Fischer world chess championship match, Arthur Bisguier, former U.S. chess champion, sat in the small study of his Hartsdale home, puzzling over the mystery of Fischer and the patient confidence of Spassky.
The championship, which was to begin in Reykjavik, Iceland this past weekend, was postponed on Fischer's request by International Chess Federation president Max Euwe.
DESCRIBING CHESS as “a battle of personalities and character quite as much as a battle of ability.” Bisguier said that by not showing up on time and openly making comments about Spassky, Fischer was “playing games.”
The outcome of the match will depend on whether Fischer can shed the “monkey sign” Spassky has placed over him, according to Bisguier.
The two have met over the chess board five times previously, and despite his perfect lifetime match record, Fischer has yet to beat the Russian. They've “drawn” (tied) three times and Spassky has won twice.
National chess champ from 1954 to 1957, just before the triumph of young Fischer, Bisguier has played and beaten both Fischer and Spassky.
WEIGHING their present chances against each other, Bisguier leaned back in his modern black leather chair under shelves and shelves of chess books and shrugged equivocally.
“Our chess rating system will tell you Fischer is the greatest chess player that ever lived, and I'm inclined to agree,” Bisguier remarked. “But Bobby's got to be thinking that he's not beaten this player yet. It's not necessarily the best chess player who wins.”
Las Vegas oddsmaker Jimmy the Greek has put the match at 10 to 7 for the U.S. Fischer, Bisguier rates Spassky higher, both as a player and a friend.
“I like Bobby. My wife is one of the few people I ever remember his being polite to,” the former champion commented. “It's just that he never grew up. His sense of values is different from the rest of us.”
BISGUIER CALLED Fischer's personality “mercurial” and “beguiling,” a “paradoxical combination of naïveté and experience.”
Always playing to win, even in games that appear to be clinched. Fischer's temperament, his “pure idealism,” bars him from letting up the way all other chess players do from time to time, according to Bisguier.
In order to save their mental strength, most players, he said, will lose a game they don't need or offer a draw to an opponent they don't need to beat.
“Fischer doesn't understand all these things,” Bisguier observed. “When I first lost to Fischer, the European players said, ‘Arthur, how can you let this kid do that to you?’ Later on he did it to them.”
PARAPHRASING another American chess grandmaster, Larry Evans, Bisguier described Spassky as the “lazy Russian bear.”
“If Spassky can start out well, Bobby's in trouble,” the Hartsdale chess master explained. “Boris is tough and mature, but very outspoken for a Russian; he's privately critical of his government though he's the last defender of the Russian faith. He's a Russian, not a Communist.”
For the last 25 years the Russians have dominated the chess world, but never produced a player like Spassky, who single-handedly overshadowed the rest.
BISGUIER remembered meeting Spassky, whom he considers a close personal friend, just after Spassky and his wife were divorced.
“I asked him what happened and he replied, ‘We got along like bishops of opposite color.’”
Bisguier, who will deliver a lecture on the personalities of Fischer and Spassky at the Mamaroneck Free Library at 2 p.m. July 16, insisted that he had no favorite, but at one point he did admit that “it's like Bobby's the heavy and Boris is the nice guy.”
