David Edmonds - Bobby Fischer Goes to War

Fischer had been unaware that during this game his movements were being captured on film. Believing ABC had finally been granted permission, Lorne Hassan had shot the match from cameras surreptitiously placed far back on the balcony. When Fischer subsequently found this out—from a radio news report—he fell into a rage. He had been deceived. How dare they? He wanted apologies, lots of apologies, apologies all around. He wanted a daily veto power on the use of cameras.

Hollywood film producer Jerry Weintraub and the U.S. promoter of the Beatles, Sid Bernstein, had arrived in Iceland to try, among other things, to buy the TV rights, but Fischer refused to see them. Chester Fox was also reported to be holding out for $250,000. Exasperated, now even ABC threw in the towel. ABC president Roone Arledge sent a telegram announcing the company’s withdrawal: “Obviously the cameras must have been unobtrusive since there had not been an objection either during or immediately after the game, and we are sorry that you were unaware of their placement.” From this moment, not a single move would be filmed until the final day, when the Yugoslav journalist Dimitri Bjelica would sneak a camera into his bag and secretly shoot some footage.

The sign that greeted spectators on 30 July read SPASSKY VEIKUR (SPASSKY IS ILL ). Run down by his opponent’s chess and antics, thought the experts. Taimanov, Larsen, Petrosian—and now Spassky. Two thousand spectators were left disappointed; this was a Sunday, when a full house was always guaranteed. Spassky had produced a note from the physician. Cramer gloated: “We ex pected Spassky to adjourn a week ago. That’s what the Russians normally do when their man is below par and is losing rapidly.” In fact, in Moscow after game six, a meeting of grandmasters, strongly critical of the champion’s performance, had recommended that Spassky should play one more game and then take a three-day break.

When the champion returned in full health two days later, he played out an uneventful draw in which the heavy artillery was quickly exchanged, leaving an inert rook ending. Like apathetic guards at a tranquil border crossing, four pawns apiece faced one another in a tedious standoff. The players called it a day, shaking hands shortly after eight P.M.

In game ten, on 3 August, for the first time in the match, Spassky allowed Fischer (white) to open with his beloved Ruy Lopez. No individual in the world knew it better than Fischer or had deployed it to such lethal effect. The key move was the twenty-sixth, bishop to g3, in which the challenger nonchalantly gave up a pawn. Suddenly Fischer’s inactive troops sprang to attention. Each major piece was brought into the action with exquisite timing, arriving neither too early nor too late. Bent Larsen, the second-highest-rated player in the West, was electrified by the game’s unfolding, with its pure, relentless logic: “I bow to Bobby’s brilliant combination.” The ending, with white ahead on material, was a display of technical mastery as Fischer coldly and clinically finished off his opponent.

Among Spassky’s seconds in Reykjavik and the despondent official onlookers in Moscow there was concern over the champion’s psychological state and talk of possible “outside influences” affecting his play.

On 31 July, the deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Sports Committee, Stanislav Melen’tiev, was sent to Reykjavik for ten days. Melen’tiev was on friendly terms with the champion. His instructions were to watch Spassky and his relations with the team. But the committee’s vacillation and sense of impotence is clear in the contradictory advice Melen’tiev received just before he left. On the one hand, he was to inform Spassky (yet again) that from this moment on there was to be no “charity”—no more concessions—to Fischer’s whims, and he was to remind the Russian to take a firm stand. The match “was not just a personal matter; he [Spassky] bore a duty to society.” On the other hand, Melen’tiev was not to force Spassky to act against his will or intimidate him by quoting “a higher authority as saying he should do this or that.”

The score was Fischer 6.5, Spassky 3.5. Spassky was being steamrollered. In that context, game eleven represented the most challenging in the champion’s professional life: a challenge to which he rose with great courage. Once again, Fischer played the poisoned pawn variation of the Najdorf, gobbling up white’s sacrificial offering. He had brazenly captured the pawn in the same position against many other players and had always escaped unscathed. The great eighteenth-century player (and composer) François Philidor described pawns, the foot soldiers of the chessboard, as “the souls of the game,” and Fischer certainly never underestimated their worth.

However, Spassky’s team had had over a week to search for ways to enrich the venom. The toxicity of the swallowed pawn was exposed on move fourteen, when Spassky made a highly counter intuitive retreat of his knight to its original position. He insists he conjured up this move at the table. Byrne and Nei describe it as “a diabolical withdrawal” and “the most interesting move in Reykjavik.” Fischer soon found his queen short of squares as the hunt closed in; eleven moves later, she was finally trapped. There were whisperings and murmurings through the audience, prompting Schmid to spring nervously from his chair and to press down furiously on the “silence” button. The game was now effectively over, though Fischer limped on for a few more moves. When he eventually conceded, cheers and shouts of “Boris!” resounded through the hall. The champion visibly relaxed. “The rest of the match will be more interesting for me,” he said.

Fischer rarely lost, and the historical evidence was that when he did lose, he was psychologically knocked off balance. What impact would defeat have on him this time? Around the world there was excited talk of “turning points,” of the match being “at a crossroads.” In Izvestia, grandmaster David Bronstein wrote, “The world champion has at long last retrieved the key to offensive play and will now probably be able fully to display his many gifts.”

In the event, game twelve was a quiet game—plain-speaking grandmasters called it “tedious”: manifestly drawn a good twenty moves or so before the result was sealed with a handshake, it was prolonged apparently through pure obstinacy. The only amusement to be had was watching the beads of sweat break out on the brows of the two contestants. For once it was a warm day, but Fischer had insisted the air-conditioning system be switched off because of its gentle hum. Throughout the game, he made constant complaints to the arbiter about disturbances in the audience. This time, he had unmistakably good grounds. Some local lads had managed to sneak into a basement room and were screaming into the ventilator pipes that led directly to the hall.

Later, Schmid received a Fischer missive, insisting that the first seven rows in the hall be cleared: “The spectators are so close, and so noisy, and the acoustics are so poor, that I can hear bits of conversation, as well as coughing, laughing, and so on. This is not suitable for a world championship match, and I demand that you and the organizers take immediate action to ensure full and complete correction of these disgraceful conditions, and furnish me a full report of what is to be done.” “It was just a normal letter by Bobby’s standards,” Schmid said, trying to ignore it. However, for Fischer and thus for the organizers, noise was an irritant that would not go away.