David Edmonds - Bobby Fischer Goes to War

To students of Fischer’s psychology, Castro’s choice of riposte carried an interesting lesson, as the Cuban leader stood his ground. Scornful counterattack was the mode. Cuba, he wrote back, had no need of propaganda victories. “If you are frightened… then it would be better to find another excuse.” Fischer agreed to play. He came joint second.

In January 1966, Fischer took his seventh U.S. title, qualifying him for the 1967 Interzonal in Sousse, Tunisia. He was again on his way to another shot at his ultimate goal, the world title. In the meantime, there was a tournament in Santa Monica, in which the then world champion Tigran Pertrosian would participate, together with his recently defeated challenger Boris Spassky. Fischer had a disastrous first half, losing his individual game against Spaasky. As so often, however, he somehow stepped up a level, gathered momentum, and began cruising through the field. In the penultimate round, he faced Spassky again (all players played each other twice). This time he secured a draw—he had still not managed to beat the Russian—and Spassky went on to take the top prize, with Fischer finishing second.

Fischer and Spassky were to square off once more, in the chess Olympiad in Cuba in November 1966. There was almost a diplomatic incident when the Soviets initially refused to adjust the game times to fit in with Fischer’s Sabbath. Eventually the entire U.S.-USSR match was rescheduled, and hundreds watched Fischer and Spassky eke out a long draw. Castro and Fischer were later seen in amicable conversation as though no cross words between them had ever been exchanged. By now, Spassky and Fischer had played four times, with Spassky drawing two and winning two.

The following year, the Interzonal was held in the Sousse-Palace hotel. What happened there continues to stimulate comment. Fischer was the favorite, and the organizers had done what they could to accommodate his wishes, including placing additional lamps by his table, so that the lighting met with his approval, and scheduling the matches in such a way that both Fischer and Reshevsky would be free of chess for twenty-four hours from Friday night as well as on religious holidays.

Nevertheless, the tournament was beset by problems. Fischer was acutely sensitive to offstage noise and commotion, demanding on one occasion that a cameraman be removed from the hall. More important, as a result of the rescheduling, he had to play a number of games in succession—which he claimed put him under unreasonable strain. Although he was way ahead on points, halfway through he summarily departed his hotel and the tournament—and set off for Tunis.

Soviet international master Aivar Gipslis was his scheduled opponent the following day: Fischer was defaulted for failing to appear. A representative of the U.S. embassy went to see him, as did one of the organizers, begging him to return. In the next game, he was pitted against his old adversary and compatriot Samuel Reshevsky. Reshevsky watched Fischer’s clock slowly tick down and must have expected not to have to make a move. With only five minutes to go before the automatic forfeit, Fischer strolled in and began to make accurate moves with extraordinary speed. Emotionally drained, Reshevsky capitulated quickly despite his time advantage. The veteran American then went around the other players with a petition objecting to Fischer’s behavior.

Now the issue was the lost Gipslis game. Fischer said it must be replayed. The organizers discussed it, but they knew that if they complied, the other players would regard this as too great a concession—there would be mutiny. On the authorities’ considered refusal, Fischer finally walked out, for good measure ripping up the hotel bill for “extras” that he was handed at reception.

Apparently at the peak of his powers, Fischer now disappeared from chess for two years. It appeared that in forfeiting the Gipslis game, he might forever have forfeited his chance of winning the world title. As the Sousse Interzonal had testified, Fischer had become the enfant terrible of chess, his antics attracting global attention to the normally sedate, dignified, inside-page, down-column Royal Game. But some of those who suffered at his hands would have thought “enfant terrible” too kind, believing that there was something demonic about him. Beyond the antics, what must be accounted for is how he lacked concern for others’ feelings while retaining the loyalty of rejected supporters, how he aroused fear as well as reverence, and why he was willing to risk the highest prize to get his way.

A BBC journalist once asked Fischer whether it bothered him that he had chosen to focus so single-mindedly on the game. It was a problem, Fischer admitted, “because you’re kind of out of touch with real life being a chess player—not having to go to work and deal with people on that level. I’ve thought of giving it up, off and on, but I always considered: What else could I do?” It was a reply that showed more insight than is normally credited to him.

Even to other grandmasters, Fischer’s total absorption in chess was incomprehensible. The Soviet grandmaster Yuri Averbakh describes meeting him for the first time in 1958 at the Interzonal tournament in Portoroz. The newly crowned U.S. champion, all of fifteen years old, was still in his scruffy presuit period, dressed in jumper and jeans. Averbakh says he was “something of a savage in communicating with people. He gazed without interest at the beautiful scenery of the Adriatic Côte d’Azur, never once went to the beach, never took a swim.” Perhaps the Brooklyn boy felt a stranger to the richness of the Yugoslav coast, but there is a similar anecdote from 1971, when Fischer, then twenty-eight, was preparing for his confrontation with Petrosian and stayed at the exclusive New York Park Sheraton hotel. The management reserved a plush suite for him, as befitted a celebrity. He turned it down because the view was distracting. He ended up in a modest room at the back.

Admittedly, he had other interests. He liked listening to music (particularly the Temptations and the Four Tops, but also jazz and heavy rock), he read comics into adulthood (Tarzan and Superman), and he watched a few movies (he was a big fan of James Dean). He liked spaceships and cars. He also enjoyed swimming and table tennis. He once tested himself against a table tennis hustler, Marty “the Needle” Reisman, who wrote, “Fischer played table tennis the way he played chess: fiercely, ferociously, going for his opponent’s jugular. He was a killer, a remorseless, conscienceless, ice-blooded castrator….”

But all these activities were never more than temporary distractions from his all-consuming passion. His lack of social graces was striking—sometimes when he was spoken to, he did not bother to turn his head in response. Former president of the U.S. Chess Federation Don Schultz remembers sharing meals with Fischer and other chess players. If the conversation strayed from chess, “you would look over to him and he’d be hunched over the side of the table, running through moves on a pocket set.” When not showing indifference to those around him, he was often suspicious of them. A journalist wrote that Fischer was likely to greet even an old friend as if he were expecting a subpoena.

Fischer was notoriously insensitive to other people, as was demonstrated constantly by his conduct in tournaments. Lateness might upset an opponent, as it did Reshevsky in Sousse, but it never produced an apology from the offender. The only objects Fischer appeared to feel an emotional affinity for were his chess pieces. His biographer, Frank Brady, put it well: “He empathizes with the position of the moment with such intensity that one feels that a defect in his game, such as a backward pawn or an ill-placed knight, causes him almost physical, and certainly psychi cal, pain. Fischer would become the pawn if he could, or if it would help his position, marching himself rank-by-rank to the ultimate promotion square. In these moments at the board, Fischer is chess.”