State Champ to Analyze World Chess Match

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The Capital Times Madison, Wisconsin Friday, June 30, 1972 - Page 21

State Champ to Analyze World Chess Match by Peter Dorman
(Editor's Note: Peter Dorman, a U.W. graduate who now lives in Madison, is the Wisconsin state chess champion. He will contribute occasional articles to The Capital Times sports pages analyzing the world chess championship match that starts Sunday between Bobby Fischer of the U.S. and Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.)
(Wisconsin State Chess Champion)
Sunday, July 2 is the scheduled beginning of the most dramatic contest in chess history: Bobby Fischer, former child prodigy whose play sometimes approaches absolute perfection, finally gets his crack at the world championship.
It's been a long time coming. Fischer first gained national attention in his early teens, when he won a spectacular game from Robert Byrne, one of America's best. Bobby, just 13 at the time, gave up his queen for a knight and a bishop in a long forced series of moves. A year later he won his first U.S. Championship.
Fischer's first stab at the world championship was back in 1958, when he was 15. With the death of the legendary Alexander Alekhine at the end of the Second World War, FIDE, the international chess federation, established a regular 3-year cycle for the world title. They divided the world into zones, each to hold its own championship. Then the top players would play in a worldwide interzonal tournament. The finalists from this event, plus the runners-up from the previous cycle. would compete in a candidates' tournament, and the winner of the final contest would play the reigning world champion in a 24-game match.

Mikhail Botvinnik, a Russian, became the world champion after a special tournament in 1948. He successfully defended his title against David Bronstein and Vassily Smyslov, both Russians, in 1951 and 1954. Botvinnik lost to Smyslov in 1957, but won his title back a year later in a return match.
Since the U.S. Championship suits as a zonal tournament, Fischer played in the 1958 interzonal. He qualified, but fell short in the candidates tournament, which was won by Mikhail Tal—another Russian. Tal's brilliant attacking style gave him the world championship in 1960, but Botvinnik took it back with another return match.
As the next cycle began, it looked like Fischer was destined to break the Soviet spell. He was regularly clobbering his rivals in the U.S., and he placed a clear first in the 1962 Stockholm interzonal. But he could only take fourth place in the candidates' tournament in Curacao that year, finishing behind three Russians.
This defeat provoked his famous charge that the Russians were “fixing” international chess. He claimed that they arranged to draw with each other, and then ganged up to defeat the only serious non-Russian challenger, Fischer.

There may be some truth to this accusation. Some of the games played between the Soviet masters show little indication of a fight; some games were drawn in the opening. But the real cause of Fischer's set-back was that the top Russian players could still beat him more often than he could beat them. Bobby was good, but not yet good enough.
Behind his public posturing, Fischer came to this conclusion himself. His appearances became less frequent; for a while, he disappeared altogether. He was boning up for a comeback.
Meanwhile, there was a new world champion, Tigran Petrosian. His was a bloodless style of chess, relying on slow maneuvering. He rarely took any risks. He rarely lost. In addition, FIDE, acting on a recommendation of Fischer's, scrapped the candidates' tournament and replaced it with a series of elimination matches.
Then Fischer came back. With one victory after another, he seemed to be on his way to the top. But he got into a personal quarrel with the directors of the Interzonal tournament in Tunisia in 1967 over scheduling questions. Even though he was far ahead of the rest of the field, Bobby dropped out. Before long, he was in seclusion once again.

Fischer surfaced in 1970 to play in a team match that pitted the best players from the Soviet Union against the best from all the other countries combined. By this time, Petrosian had lost his title to Boris Spassky, but it was Petrosian that Fischer played. Bobby won two games and drew the other two, a decisive victory against the former world champion.
Then Fischer took the interzonal tournament at Palma De
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Chess Match
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Mallorca, winning the last seven games in a row and finishing far ahead of everyone else. Then the elimination matches: Fischer plays Mark Taimanov, a leading Russian master, and wins six out of six. Next in line was Bent Larsen, second only to Fischer among non-Soviet players. Again, Bobby wins six out of six. Finally, Fischer faces Petrosian again, and, after a shaky start, takes the match with five wins, one loss, and three draws. These scores are particularly impressive in view of the fact that most games between the strongest players end in draws.

Now only one player stands between Fischer and the world championship: Boris Spassky. The world champion has done well against Fischer in the past: of the five games they have played, Spassky has won three and drawn two. So far, just pulling together the details of the match has been a formidable problem. Fischer wanted to play in Belgrade, Yugoslavia where he is idolized by thousands in that chess-crazy country. Belgrade had also put in the highest bid, offering cash prizes of $152,000, an unprecedented figure in tournament chess. Spassky wanted to play in Reykjavik, Iceland, where the climate is similar to that of the champion's native Leningrad.
The FIDE decision was a compromise: half of the match in Belgrade, the other half in Reykjavik. But Fischer got into a dispute with the Belgrade organizers, and the Yugoslavs pulled out. Now the entire match is slated for Iceland, with the total prize fund slightly under $100,000.
The best-of-24 game match is due to begin Sunday. Spassky is in Reykjavik, accompanied by his official “second”, Evim Geller. (In the past, Spassky's second has always been the veteran Bondarevsky. The switch is said to be caused by “difficulties”. What are they? The Russians aren't talking.) Two other companions are chess experts Krogius and Nei. Nei is also a psychologist.
Fischer complains about the lighting, which was installed to facilitate the television crews from different countries.
As of now, the match is officially on. but no one knows for sure if Fischer will blow his big chance by refusing to play at the last moment. If he does play, millions of chess fans around the world will see ten years of suspense resolved in a two-month display of unparalleled mental combat.

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It's Dogged Bobby vs. Classic Boris

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The Vancouver Sun Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Saturday, June 24, 1972 - Page 34

It's Dogged Bobby vs. Classic Boris
By Roger Ebert
Chicago (CDN) - Nobody knows very much about him, and the few facts have been repeated time and again. He was born in Chicago, raised in several places but mostly in Brooklyn, learned chess when he was 6.
He lives alone in hotel rooms, relentlessly studying the literature of chess. He has no close friends. He is 29 years old and for a long time now he has been considered the best chess player of all time.
One week from Sunday, in Reykjavik, Iceland, Bobby Fischer will find himself seated across a chess board from a stocky, fierce-looking Russian named Boris Spassky.
This Russian is the chess champion of the world, and it will be Bobby Fischer's mission to reduce the number of Russian chess champions to zero while raising the number in the United States to one.
Bobby could have had a crack at the title several times during the past decade, but at the last moment he always drew back.
He charged that there was a Russian conspiracy to keep the world championship in Soviet hands. Conspiracy or not, no non-Russian has played in a championship match since 1951. There were other things Fischer complained about: The lighting was wrong, the flashbulbs were a nuisance, the crowds in the hall would not keep still.
But mostly he held back from the series of tournaments leading to the world championship because he said the system was loaded in favor of the Russians. At first his objections were dismissed as petulant and unreasonable, because in the world of chess Bobby Fischer is not well-liked.
A U.S. grandmaster once said of him: “We get the greatest chess player in history, and he turns out to be a spoiled boy.” But a fair analysis of the tournament system seemed to indicate that Fischer had a point, and the current world championship is the first played under the reformed rules.
There are other possibilities. One is that Fischer will find the conditions in Iceland not to his liking, and stage another walkout.
This could happen because of Bobby's recent falling-out with Ed Edmundson, who is executive director of the U.S. Chess Federation and has devoted much of the last two years to keeping Bobby happy.
During Fischer's spectacular demolishment of his opposition in the preliminary matches (including his 6-0 wipe-outs of Denmark's Bent Larsen and Russia's Mark Taimanov), it was Edmundson who checked out the playing sites, found the quiet hotel rooms, made sure the fans would not be permitted to bring flash cameras into the hall, and hassled room service for the chicken sandwiches and prize sirloins.
Now Fischer, who finds it difficult to sustain long personal relationships, is back on his own again.
A better possibility, I think, is that Fischer will stay the distance, and that Spassky will collapse from a combination of psychological and chess reasons.
Fischer is a dogged fighter who will defend a lost position to the bitter end, and there is this curious thing about his opponents: They keep caving in to extreme exhaustion.
Tigran Petrosian, the former world champion who was Bobby's opponent in the final challengers match in Buenos Aires, had to check into a hospital at one point.
And Larsen, whose personal dislike for Fischer is no secret, apparently found it psychologically torturing to sit across the board from this arrogant young man who “likes to see 'em squirm.”
Spassky may feel extra pressure because of his deliberate and classically correct playing style. Although Fischer's games have the apparent clearness of a stream of fresh running water, they often have concealed within them Byzantine twists that only Bobby foresees.
Chess is a game of legerdemain: Your opponent can see all of your pieces, and you can see all of his, so you don't conceal pieces but ideas.
A winning chess combination is, at its most basic level, a ruthless demonstration of the logical superiority of your ideas.
And Fischer is able to bury his ideas so deeply into his middle-game positions (or, perhaps, to extract them from their subterranean hiding-places) that a positional player such as Spassky, with his tendency to draw games, might find himself exhausted from forever waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It is Fischer's willingness to take chances, and his ability to extract deep combinations from seemingly shallow positions, that make him a popular favorite in the Soviet Union.
In a country where chess is the national sport, the national passion and, some say, the national soul, there is an impatience with the conservative playing styles of many of the current grandmasters.
While Fischer was mowing down Larsen with an unending flow of innovative chess, the Russians Petrosian and Viktor Korchnoi were bogged down in their quarter-final match with eight drawn games in a row. That is also a record of sorts, but a sterile one.
And so the Russians like Fischer, who is the most popular American in the Soviet Union since Van Cliburn. Maybe they don't like him personally, but they admire his style.
Of the five games they have played previously, Spassky won three and there were two draws. But that doesn't necessarily mean much in terms of their championship match.
Fischer is in the top of his form, and for the past year has played grandmaster-level chess with more success than any other player in the history of the game.
Spassky, however, came in third last summer in a Swiss system tournament in Toronto (where players ranked as equal are played against each other).
First and second places were won by Pal Benko and Robert Byrne, two U.S. grand-masters acknowledged to be Fischer's inferiors.
Earlier, Spassky just managed to take first place by a tie-break in the Canadian Open in Vancouver against much the same kind of opposition.
And in this year's Alekhine memorial tournament in Moscow, Spassky finished in a discouraging tie for sixth and seventh place.
Now he finds himself in Iceland as the sole remaining defender of Russian chess supremacy; recently the Soviet government gave him a larger apartment and a car, and if he wins he will win $78,125 but if he loses he has a great deal more to lose than Fischer.
In the meantime, as the world championship approaches, it is amusing to see the news media gearing up for it.
We have never been quite able to figure out how to cover chess.
It is a sport, but doesn't go into the sports pages. It is a game that millions play, and yet newspapers cannot quite bring themselves to believe that many readers understand chess notation.
Radio and television find it even harder to cover chess, because the printed record of the moves in a game is the only really satisfactory way of presenting it.
The concept of a live radio broadcast of a chess match is mind-boggling, and perhaps only Bob and Ray could handle it (“It's lovely day here in Reykjavik, with sunny skies, and cub scout pack 14 is in the stands for Bobby Fischer recognition day…”).
What will finally happen, I suppose, is that Spassky and Fischer will have their rendezvous with destiny and a lot of people will not understand why it was so momentous.
Chess is a game of the imagination, and its most exciting moments do not happen on the board but in the minds of its players.
When Fischer finally makes his move, that is what we see. But the game's passion is to be found in the secret places of his mind, where he considers all of the possible moves on the board, and rejects them, all but one.
That moment of decision is private, and only a chess player can fully understand it.

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Chess Championship To Be Played In Iceland

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The Cameron Herald Cameron, Texas Monday, June 19, 1972 - Page 2

Chess Championship To Be Played In Iceland
By Thorsteinn Thorarensen
Reuter Correspondent
Reykjavik, Iceland
Iceland is enthusiastically preparing to play host to a world chess championship likely to gain the attention of more people than any other event of its kind ever held.
The contest, opening on July 2, has become one of the most fascinating confrontations in the centuries-old history of chess.
The American challenger Bobby Fischer, poses the biggest threat in many years to the long hold of Soviet players on the title, and has established a reputation as one of the most colorful and enigmatic players ever to reach world status.
Fischer's recent record along is enough to excite chess buffs. When he meets the formidable world champion, Boris Spassky, the 29-year-old Fischer will be riding the crest of an extraordinary string of one-sided victories over top players in the elimination tournament which made him the challenger.
Spassky, 35, will be defending a Soviet hold on the title that has remained unbroken for 24 years - - and the dominant player for two decades before that was a Russian-born chess genius who lived in France, Alexander Alekhine.
Fischer, a former child prodigy who has once thought to have blighted his career by a series of withdrawals, has now emerged as a chess juggernaut.
Experts here are divided on whether he will be able to demolish Spassky the way he did former world champion Tigran Petrosian, also of the Soviet Union, last autumn to gain the right to challenge for the title.
Petrosian is famous for his patient, systematic play, but analysts agreed that Fischer shattered his game. After their Buenos Aires series, one of Petrosian's analysts, Soviet grandmaster Yuri Averbach, said: “His spirit was completely broken after the sixth game of the match.
“There is some strange magnetic influence in Bobby,” Averbach said. “The same happened with his two previous opponents in his march for the world title, Grandmasters Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen. They were also spiritually wrecked after the first couple of games.
But many experts feel Fischer will be up against a different problem in Spassky, who took the world championship from Petrosian in 1969 and has earned broad respect for his attacking flair and deep determination.

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Fischer Ready For Test

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Calgary Herald Calgary, Alberta, Canada Wednesday, June 14, 1972 - Page 13

Fischer Ready For Test By Al Horowitz
The New York Times, Copyright, 1972
New York — When, on July 2, many-time United States chess champion Robert Fischer sits down to play the first game of his world championship match against title-holder Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, it will be the first time in 71 years that an American has participated in a match for chessdom's highest title.
Although Samuel Reshevsky took part in a tournament held in 1948 to determine the successor to the throne left vacant by the death of Alexander Alekhine — and finished fourth — no American has faced a reigning world champ in a head-to-head confrontation for the title since Frank J. Marshall in 1901, when he suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Emmanuel Lasker.
Those 71 years represent a long period of hope and frustration for American chess fans, and it is little wonder the national chess community should await the event in a fever of enthusiasm.
Many American chess players have followed Fischer's career from the time when, at the age of 12, he first proved himself a force to be reckoned with. When two years later, in 1956, he won the U.S. championship for the first time, there were many who predicted that he would win the world title before he was old enough to vote. But, although he went on to become, at the age of 15, the youngest grandmaster in the history of the game, the road to the summit proved to he much longer and rockier than his admirers had anticipated.
That road has now led to, of all improbable places, Reykjavik, Iceland, where play, barring accidents, will begin July 2; the first player to score 12½ points (counting one point for a win, half-a-point to each for a draw) within the limit of 24 games will be the winner. If the match is tied at the end of 24 games, the champion will retain his title.
Spassky, at 35, is six years older than Fischer. He won the title in 1969 by besting his compatriot, Tigran Petrosian, after losing to him in his first try in 1966. Spassky was also a world championship contender while still in his teens, but, like Fischer, suffered some sobering setbacks before finally achieving his goal. He should now be at the height of his career and, under ordinary circumstances, might be expected to hold on to his crown for many years to come.
However, it is the firm opinion not only of most American experts, who might well be open to the charge of wishful thinking, but of knowledgeable people all over the world, that the world champion is a decided underdog. International Chess Federation President Dr. Max Euwe, himself a former world champion, some months ago was quoted as saying that Fischer has a “60-per-cent chance” to win the title — mighty long odds in favor of the challenger.
On what, one may reasonably ask, do the authorities base such a sanguine view of Fischer's chances? Certainly not on previous games between these two opponents: the score stands 3-0 in Spassky's favor, with two draws. A careful examination of the games they have contested, however, reveals a different picture. Their first meeting, in a tournament at Mar del Plate, Argentina in 1960, when Fischer was only 16, resulted in a wild battle in which Bobby had a winning advantage, but went astray in the complications of the play and lost.

NOT SO ONE-SIDED
Spassky's second win came in 1966, when Fischer made a mistake in an even position and then succumbed to a brilliant attack. And when Spassky again beat Fischer, at the Chess Olympics — a team event — at Siegen, East Germany, in 1970, it was largely because, with the American team losing to the Russians, Fischer tried too hard and finally over-extended himself. Surely Spassky's three wins against Fischer without a loss cannot be simply dismissed with a few glib explanations, but close analysis does indicate that their meetings have not been so one-sided as all that.
What the experts are basing their opinions on, and rightly so, are the performances of the two protagonists over the past few years. There Fischer has a big edge, as he would have even if Spassky's results were far more impressive than they are. In order to win the right to contend for the championship, Fischer had to win a series of candidates' matches against some of the strongest players in the world, and he did so in extraordinary fashion.
First, he defeated Russian grandmaster Mark Taimanov, in a match held at Vancouver, last May, by an incredible 6-0 score, unprecedented in this form of competition. Then, in August, in a match played at Denver, Colo., he defeated Bent Larsen of Denmark, widely thought to be the top player of the western world, after Fischer of course, by the same margin. And then, to top it off, he disposed of former world champion Petrosian in a match played last November in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by 6½-2½.
Meanwhile, Spassky, since winning the title, has had to he content with a series of indifferent results. His most recent appearance in a major event was in a tournament in Moscow late last year, where he finished tied for sixth — by no means a disgraceful showing in such strong company, but pallid by comparison with Fischer's extraordinary doings.
Indicative of a player's recent results is a numerical ranking system which employs a complicated formula to translate tournament and match performances into a four-digit number, and can be employed to predict future results as well. Spassky's current rating is a healthy 2,690 — anything over 2,500 indicates play at the grand-master level. Fischer's however, is 2,824 — by far the highest ever achieved.
Thus, the mathematical projections indicate that Fischer will have an easy time of it, and suggest, that the final score will be about 12½-8½ in his favor.
Chess matches, of course, are not won by reference to probably tables, but over the board. Fischer is Spassky's superior both technically — his play exhibits fewer weak spots — and temperamentally Spassky has been having personal troubles recently that have markedly affected his concentration, whereas Fischer's whole life is devoted to chess. With the qualification that a player who has once won the world championship is of course capable of beating anyone, anytime, the conclusion is inevitable: Fischer will win, and most likely win big.
Fischer is capable of every type of chess — modern, hypermodern and eclectic. In these branches, control of the centre is paramount, though hypermodern chess, paradoxically, vests the center to the antagonist.
All grandmasters agree that it is important to gain control of the center yet, the hypermodernist actually inveigles his opponent into taking control of this area. Why?
In the beginning, plans of this player are long-termed. And, he cedes and bequeaths the centre.
As play progresses, the hypermodernist's efforts are to retrieve the median area, and every effort is bent on its repossession. Once regained, the hypermodernist intends to hold on and never to part with it. It goes without saying that the more knowledgeable a player, the greater his choice and also the greater technician, the finer the play. These are Fischer's attributes.
Fischer is a great, end-game expert and he favors hypermodern chess in many wins games.
All things being equal, he is confident — and confidence wins games.

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World Title Match Rated Tossup by Chess Experts

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Austin American-Statesman Austin, Texas Sunday, June 11, 1972 - Page 21

World Title Match Rated Tossup by Chess Experts
When Bobby Fischer was asked how he'd take a defeat in his coming world championship chess match, the brash American challenger replied: “If I lose, I won't be upset, because I'll know it was a fluke.”
Remarks such as these, combined with Fischer's phenomenal success over the past couple of years, have lulled many Americans into believing that he can't be beaten. In their minds, the result of his match with champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union is a foregone conclusion.
But don't let last year's games or Fischer's egomania fool you. Upsets are always possible in any kind of competition. Furthermore, it's not really clear just how much of a surprise a Spassky victory would be.
To be sure, Fischer has dominated the international scene lately, scoring an easy triumph in the qualifying tournament and then winning three straight matches by lopsided scores to earn the challenger's role.
In Spassky, however, the 29-year-old American will be meeting a much tougher for than any of those he has disposed of so far. No one follows the long and arduous road to the summit without being a great player, and Spassky got there three years ago by beating some of the same people Fischer did this time.
If all this doesn't convince you that Fischer is in for a fight, consider one more fact. The two have already met five times in various competitions, and Bobby is still looking for his first victory.
Now before you change your mind completely and decide Fischer has no chance at all, let me point out that Spassky's three victories and two draws were scattered over a period of years and really aren't too relevant to the coming match. They do indicate, though, that Fischer is quite human — and that Spassky can beat him.
A strange fact about Fischer's play is that his games are not always as sharp as his results would indicate. There seems to be something about him — a “merciless intensity,” as a colleague once described it — that induces his foes to play below top form.
When Fischer swept the U.S. championship with an incredible 11-0 score one year, for instance, Denmark's Bent Larsen remarked disparagingly that his opponents had “played like children”.
But last year in the semifinals of the challengers' competition, it was Larsen himself who cooperated with similar sub-par play in absorbing a 6-0 beating. Before that, Mark Taimanov of the Soviet Union had played as though in a trance to get swept out of the quarterfinals by the same 6-0 score.
Former world champion Tigran Petrosian put up a bit more resistance in the finals. The Russian outplayed Fischer badly in the first three games, but Bobby pulled out a surprising win in one of them and a fluke draw in another. Instead of being ahead 3-0, Petrosian found the match tied, and after another pair of draws his game fell apart as Fischer surged to 6½-2½ triumph.
It remains to be seen, of course, whether Spassky too will be spellbound. So far he certainly hasn't shown much awe.
The mental, physical and psychological strain of a match like this is beyond the comprehension of most of us, but perhaps it suffices to point out that nearly all top players are in their 20's or 30's. Petrosian is past 40, which was duly noted by the Russians after his loss. But Spassky, at 34, won't be giving away much of an edge in the grueling, 24-game struggle scheduled to begin July 2 in Reykjavik, Iceland, and continue throughout most of the summer.
Indeed, when all is said and done, there seem to be as many reasons for picking one man as the other. Thus it's not surprising that predictions vary.
Virtually all Americans pick Fischer, while most Russians go with their man, so perhaps a more objective view can be obtained from outsiders.
“Fischer is probably the strongest player in the world, though I'm not quite sure how he will fare against Spassky,” grandmaster Lajos Portisch of Hungary was quoted in Chess Life & Review. “I'd rate the chances even.”
Former world champion Max Euwe of Holland, president of the International Chess Federation, favored Fischer “by about 4 per cent,” while Yugoslav grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric said the American “has good chances.”

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Chess, A Game of Wit, Awakens America: Bobby Fischer Will Move To Win

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The Capital Journal Salem, Oregon Saturday, January 01, 1972 - Page 31

Chess, A Game of Wit, Awakens America: Bobby Fischer Will Move To Win
By LESLIE BRAUN L.A. Times-Washington Post Service
NEW YORK — Chess is an intellectual feast played on 64 squares. One participant commands the white pieces consisting of eight foot soldiers (Pawns), two horses, two bishops, two castles, the queen, and king. The other participant maneuvers the black counter-parts. Since each player is like a general leading his army into battle according to a specific strategy which may be altered by circumstance, chess has been likened to a bloodless war.
The conduct of such wars is as varied as the personalities who engage in these struggles. For example, the aggressive player will sacrifice material for an all-out attack without regard for defense. A defensive player is noted for building a solid defensive wall in the hope that his opponent will dash himself to pieces while attempting to surmount this citadel. Still another player will play defensively or offensively depending on the situation at hand and undoubtedly, this kind of player must be termed the most skillful of the three.
It has been found that, generally speaking, an individual proficient in geometry may have more success in chess than the algebra expert, who is probably better suited for bridge. Of course, other factors may undermine this generalization — such as inherent logic, problem solving ability, temperament, and versatility in thinking, and so forth.
Now it will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the news lately that America has been blessed with a great young player by the name of Bobby Fischer, often called the Van Cliburn of American chess. Fischer, 28, and a Brooklyn high school dropout with an I.Q. of approximately 180, has been acclaimed in some circles as the greatest chess player of all time. As a result of his crushing defeats of Tamainov, Larsen and Petrosian in the recent matches, he may well merit the accolade, and he will have the opportunity to prove it when he meets the current world chess champion, Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, for the World's Chess Championship.
In America, Bobby Fischer has become a household word and a sort of national hero. Because of Bobby, people by the hundreds, who otherwise would not bother, are entering bookstores and purchasing chess books for novices, in an attempt to establish in their minds the rudiments of this intriguing game. Chess clubs are expanding their memberships and more and more chess tournaments are taking place.
What is the nature of this young man who has precipitated the elevation of this all-too-ignored activity in American life?
One thing is certain: Bobby Fischer did not attain his lofty position on the international chess scene through osmosis or accident. In reality, for about the last 15 years, Bobby has invested on the average 10 hours a day thinking, studying and playing chess. This dedication — together with his genius touch (practically every game he plays is a work of art) —has catapulted him to the top. Bobby's sole raison d'etre is to become chess champion of the world. To fail in this endeavor would be catastrophic.
In the spring of 1972, Bobby will engage Boris Spassky for the title in a twenty-four game contest, but a breeze for Bobby it is not. In fact, some authoritative personages in the chess world feel that Bobby is actually the underdog; why? Here are some possible reasons:

• Chess is extremely popular in Russia and as a matter of fact, the best chess players in the country are subsidized by the Soviet government. Moreover, there has always been a Russian World Chess Champion ever since the present system of producing the champion was inaugurated in 1948, and you can be sure that no effort will be spared by the Russians to make certain this skein is not broken.

• If Bobby has any weakness, it is a tendency to underestimate his opponent and to become discouraged if the initiative is lost. The latter trait is common among the most aggressive players, of which Bobby certainly is one.

• Bobby Fischer has never beaten Boris Spassky in five tournament matches, the best Bobby could attain was two draws while the remaining three games ended in defeats.
  In spite of these truths, it is my personal feeling that Bobby will capture the world chess crown for the United States by upending the Soviet juggernaut. My prediction: Bobby by 12½-8½ note: (one point is awarded for victory; half point is awarded for a draw; no points for a loss). This prediction is based on the counter arguments to the aforementioned, three points.
  Bobby realizes that his life's goal is just around the corner and therefore, at this very moment, is devoting his full time to studying ideas in the opening and refining his technique for the middle and end game. This grind will continue until the first match game in March, 1972.

• It is unlikely that Bobby will underestimate the chess prowess of Spassky, especially in view of unpleasant past experiences. Furthermore, Bobby demonstrated some remarkable tenacity in several games against Tigran Petrosian, his most recent victim, long after his opening initiative was dissipated.

• Bobby at age 28 is at his peak. This time Spassky will perceive that he is vying against a much more seasoned and mature player than previously. What's more, Bobby has another factor in his favor. It is called “genius.”

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