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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A Problem of Some Size

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The Windsor Star Windsor, Ontario, Canada Wednesday, April 19, 1972 - Page 37

A Problem of Some Size
IF THE SOVIETS and Americans can't agree on how to hold a chess match for money, how are the Soviets and Canadians going to manage it in hockey?
There is an interesting parallel here because in both cases the Western capitalistic system is trying to call the tune at the expense of Communist ambition.
Insofar as I am able to determine, the Russians do not care to finish second in Vietnam, chess, outer space, hockey or anything else worth a mouthful of propaganda.
That being the case, I am persuaded that good old Canada may stand to lose more than she can gain, a lesson we might learn from the Americans, although Russian interest in Canada is presently held down to the dull roar of wheat, Arctic icebreakers, ice hockey and our hostility to the influences of American economics.
The Russians have held the world championship of chess since 1948—from Mikhail Botvinnik to Vassily Smyslov, to Botvinnik again, to Mikhail Tal, to Botvinnik again, to Tigran Petrosian and thence to Boris Spassky, current titleholder who rose to the purple in 1969.

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EVERYBODY in Russia plays chess. I know you hear that everybody in Russia plays hockey, but bear in mind that there are a lot of fast guys with a bishop who were pushing pawns long before the state begin to build hockey rinks in earnest.
Chess is a game so old nobody knows when it got started or where. Kings and generals have been known to be fooling around with it from the time there were kings and generals.
Chess experts say that Russian grandmasters are no better than American grandmasters such as Bobby Fischer, but that there are a whole lot more of them.

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RECORDS SHOW that Fischer is the equal of anybody. By his own admission, he is better. He talks like Cassius Clay.
Ten years ago, Fischer took a beating in the Candidates' Tournament which is the final exam to get a shot at the world champion. At the time, he said he would have nothing further to do with the International Chess Federation unless they changed the rules. He accused the Russians of a Communist plot hatched in Moscow.
The Russians didn't need a plot. All they needed was to load the tournaments with Russian grandmasters. The consensus of chess/and was that no one outside Russia, no matter how brilliant, stood a chance.
So they changed the rules, yielding in effect to Fischer's demands. They went from round robin tournaments to head-to-head matches in qualifying trials.
This was Fischer's meat and he made the most of it. He blew a succession of finalists including Petrosian right off the board to become the first United States player ever to reach the challenging podium. That was last October.

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SO NOW FISCHER, Brooklyn capitalist to the core, wants to make a killing in the market places. The Russians backed their man, Spassky with a $35,000 guarantee, which is certainly worth noting for a nation that chokes on the word professional.
That's Russian state money. Fischer had to get his guarantee from the American Chess Federation. They didn't come up with it. The moral is what amateur organization in a capitalistic society can match dollars with a state-run Communist program?
The answer in Canada, and in hockey, is another state-run program — Hockey Canada, the federal government.

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BUT THAT IS where the picture gets sticky. The United States government is not about to back Fischer any more than it backed its hockey team in the recent Olympic Games at Sapporo. Japan.
The Canadian government, however, is up to its ears in complaints over loss of international hockey prestige and massive defection of Canada's best players to the United States.
What to do? Well, a peculiar marriage has occurred between the Canadian government and the National Hockey League, terms of which are far from solemnized. It is so complicated with outright professionalism and Canadian-American entente, it should have been placed on the agenda with the auto pact when Richard Nixon was in Ottawa.
A series of hockey games between Russia and NHL mercenaries in the employ of the Canadian government is proposed. Now, I know what the Russians are trying to prove, but what are we trying to prove?

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IF THIS MATCH is for the championship of the universe, and you can expect the television people will be persuaded it is; and the rink owners will be persuaded it is; who is going to pay the contracts that will be demanded by chaps such as Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito and Bobby Hull?

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I'M NOT SAYING Hockey Canada is too cheap to do it although to this point they have been strictly amateurs talking about the business world.
In Europe, outside the Iron Curtain, there are countries that spend enormous sums of money to promote athletics. And it can be noted they sometimes become involved with the hire of club professionals in elaborate arrangements.
An elaborate arrangement would not be understatement for Canada to hire top hockey pros to tackle Russia.

Bobby Fischer Vs. The Russian: Armageddon On A Chess Board Set

The Daily Herald Chicago, Illinois Wednesday, February 02, 1972 - Page 29

Bobby Fischer Vs. The Russian: Armageddon On A Chess Board Set
[Photo Caption: SUCH IS THE DEDICATION of Bobby Fischer, left, that he even takes his chess board into swimming pools. He's practicing here with another American chess expert, Larry Evans.]

(Last of Two Parts.) by IRA BERKOW
NEW YORK — (NEA) — “The Russians have been committing international crimes for so long — spreading lies and political propaganda all over the world, cheating at sports — someone has to stop them. I've been chosen,” said Bobby Fischer “I intend to teach them a little humility.”
The 28-year-old U.S. chess champion, Fischer, a high school dropout, will meet the world champion, Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, for the title sometime before June 30. The match will continue for 24 games spread over about two months. Ten cities have put in bids, the top ones coming from Yugoslavia (offering a total prize of $152,000) and from Argentina ($150,000). He and Spassky must agree on the site, if there is an impasse, the international federation will decide.
“The Russians didn't put in a bid,” said Fischer. “They knew I'd never go there to play. I know they'd be waking me up at six in the morning to tell me my laundry was ready.”
It was now 2 in the afternoon, and in a midtown Italian restaurant, Fischer talked about the Russians over breakfast (he stays up very late going over chess moves in his hotel room). Now and then, he lifted large forkfuls of stringy spaghettini into his mouth.
“I just read an attack on me by Botvinnik, the ex-world champion, in a Russian magazine,” continued Fischer. “He said he was writing it in the interest of truth. He said I was capricious, conceited, paranoid, that I lacked principles and was not sufficient as a human being. He said he would substantiate the charges, ‘But what would be gained?’ he said I'm sick of their hypocrisy.
“Like when I beat Petrosian recently in Buenos Aires. There was just this little squib in their papers about it. But there was a local championship that they put in headlines. If Petrosian had beaten me, then there would have been headlines.”
Fischer's bitter attitude toward the Russians is made up of three parts money, recognition and fair play.
He believes that, since the Russian government pays its chess players, he had been systematically excluded from earning money in world tournaments and exhibitions; that the Russians influenced unfavorable world opinion of him, and that he was the object of Russian cheating conspiracies in past tournaments. (Yet, his outspokenness, perhaps even more than his supreme skill, has made him the only recognized chess name to most Americans.)
“They would send top Russian players globe-trotting to play free in places where I was asking for thousands of dollars,” said Fischer. “Well I've finally broken through this. But for about a year and eight months in 1969 and 1970, I was pretty discouraged. I refused to play the Russians — and they have most of the best players in the world. For a time I was thinking of quitting international chess. But then I thought, what else can I do? The answer was, nothing.”
Fischer entered two other world championship tournaments. The first, he quit when he accused the Russian players of rigging games between them — to give one of their own points with ties to beat Fischer's total. Another time he walked out when he accused them of rigging the schedule.
“They cheat in other sports — not just chess,” said Fischer.
“The funniest — if you think it's funny — is with their women track athletes, Some women. They take male hormone injections.”
Fischer is angry because, he says, he has been the world's best chess player since be was 18, and has had little recognition and, especially, has not become wealthy as befits a champion, as, to fact, befits the world's greatest all-time player, according to a rating system of the international chess federation.
“I was even put down in my own country,” said Fischer. “Americans really don't know much about chess. So they listened to other people. But I think if — when — I beat Spassky, that Americans will take a greater interest in chess. Americans like winners.
“The United States is not a cultural country. The people here want to be entertained. They don't want any mental strain, and chess is a high intellectual form. Americans want to plunk in front of a TV, and not have to open a book.
“But now, President Nixon just sent me a letter saying that America is backing me. The United States is getting kicked around in the world. I'm representing us, the entire free world, in fact, in a kind of grudge match against the Communists.”
(Newspaper Enterprise Assn.)