Frank Brady - Endgame

The problem was that the Rosenwald overlapped with the great Hastings Christmas Congress in England, the annual international tournament that, over the years, had seen some of the greatest chess legends capture first prize. Bobby had been invited to that tournament and wanted to enter its elite winner’s circle. It would be his first real trip abroad, and his first international event, and it would be against some of the world’s finest players.

He couldn’t decide what to do.

After he had talked the situation over with his mother and his friends at the club, his mind was finally set. Youth believes it has no limits, and shows little patience. In the end Bobby could not tolerate a denial of his destiny. He notified the Rosenwald Committee that he’d accept their invitation to compete for the United States Championship—the prelude, he hoped, to eventually capturing the World Championship as well.

In December, just before play began in the United States Championship, Bisguier predicted that “Bobby Fischer should finish slightly over the center mark in this tournament. He is quite possibly the most gifted of all players in the tournament; still he has had no experience in tournaments of such consistently even strength.” Bisguier’s crystal-ball divination seemed logical, but of course Bobby had had experience from the previous year’s Rosenwald. And although many other tournaments in which he’d played may not have included the very top players in the country, there were enough that skirted the summit. Throughout 1956 (when Bobby traveled some nine thousand miles to compete in tournaments) and through 1957, he never stopped playing, studying, and analyzing.

It seemed that his strength grew not just from tournament to tournament and match to match, but from day to day. Each game that he played, or analyzed, whether his or others’, established a processional of insight. He was always working on the game, his game, refining it, seeking answers, asking questions, pulling out his threadbare pocket set while in the subway, walking in the street, watching television, or eating in a restaurant, his fingers moving as if they had a mind of their own.

The New York winter wind began to blow snow flurries through the trees of Central Park as Bobby entered the Manhattan Chess Club for the first round of the United States Championship. Immediately, a buzz of awe passed among the spectators, some of whom called out—as if Jack Dempsey had entered the ring— “There’s Fischer.”

Perhaps Bisguier was right. The field did seem stronger than the previous year. Players who turned down the invitation in 1956 accepted readily in 1957, as Bobby had, because of the importance of the tournament. Almost all of the fourteen entrants wanted an opportunity to go to the Interzonal, and it was rumored that some had entered to take a crack at Bobby Fischer. It was a chance to play against a growing legend.

Bobby walked to his board and silently sneered at the chess timer. It looked like two alarm clocks side by side and had a plunger on its flanks for each player. Bobby disliked the timer because it took up too much room on the table—plus, you had to push the plunger forward to stop your clock and start your opponent’s. That took too much time, especially when a player faced time pressure and every second counted. In contrast, the new BHB clocks from Germany featured buttons on top, which made them much faster to operate: As one’s hand quit the piece, in a swift motion one could hit the button with one’s retracting hand, thereby saving a second or two. There was rhythm that could be established with top-button clocks, and Fischer had become a connoisseur of that kind of clock. Nevertheless, in the 1957 championship he put up with the old push-plunger clunkers.

Bobby started off with a win against Arthur Feuerstein, defeating the young up-and-comer for the first time. Bobby then drew with Samuel Reshevsky, who was the defending champion, in an extremely intense game—and the fourteen-year-old was on fire after that, at one point amassing five wins in a row.

Bobby’s last-round opponent was the rotund Abe Turner, a perpetual acting student whose great claim to thespian fame was that he’d been a contestant on Groucho Marx’s television program, You Bet Your Life . Turner, who exhibited an opéra bouffe appearance but was a slashing and dangerous player, had beaten Bobby in the previous year’s Rosenwald. So Bobby was especially careful when playing him. After only a few minutes, though, Turner, in his high-pitched voice, offered Bobby a draw on the eighteenth move. Bobby accepted and then nonchalantly walked around the club as the other games were still being contested. He’d amassed 10 ½ points, and just as at the United States Open, he hadn’t lost a game. The peach-faced Lombardy, who wasn’t in the running for the title, was playing the venerated Reshevsky, and the Old Fox stood at 9 ½ points. If Reshevsky defeated Lombardy, he’d equal Bobby’s score and they’d be declared co-champions: In this championship there were no tie-breaking systems or play-offs. To while away the time, and perhaps to feign indifference until the deciding game was finished, Bobby began playing speed chess with a few of his chess friends. Occasionally, he’d wander over to the Lombardy-Reshevsky game and scan it for a few seconds. Eventually, after making one of these trips, he declared matter-of-factly, as if there was no room for debate, “Reshevsky’s busted.” Lombardy was playing the game of his life, steamrolling over Reshevsky’s position. When it was entirely hopeless, Reshevsky removed his lighted cigarette from its holder, pursed his lips, and resigned. Bobby came over to the board and said to his friend, “You played tremendously.” The twenty-year-old Lombardy smiled and said, “Well, what could I do? You forced me to beat Sammy!” With Reshevsky’s loss, fourteen-year-old Bobby Fischer was the United States Chess Champion.

4

The American Wunderkind

THE ODYSSEY BECAME more than just a routine or a habit. It was a ritual, a quest for chess wisdom. After classes during the school year, on Saturdays, and all throughout the summer when he wasn’t playing in tournaments—on the days that he didn’t go to the Collins home—Bobby would walk to the Flatbush Avenue subway station and take the train across the East River into Manhattan, exiting at Union Square. He’d stride south on Broadway to Greenwich Village, and make his way to the Four Continents Book Store, an emporium of Russian-language books, music recordings, periodicals, and handmade gifts such as nested martryoshka dolls. It has been confirmed through the Freedom of Information Act that the FBI conducted an investigation and surveillance of the Four Continents from the 1920s to the 1970s, amassing fifteen thousand reports, photos, and documents on whoever entered, exited, or bought from the store, looking for potential Communist sympathizers or Soviet agents. In the 1950s, when Bobby frequented the establishment, the Bureau was particularly active, hoping to supply information to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The Four Continents stocked a small but potent collection of chess books, as well as the latest copies of Shakhmatny Bulletin , a newly launched Russian-language periodical. This chess magazine contained theoretical articles and reports on the latest games from around the world, mostly games involving players from the Soviet Union. Fischer learned when the new copies would arrive each month, and within a day or two of their appearance he’d be at the Four Continents to purchase the latest edition. To others he proclaimed Shakhmatny Bulletin “the best chess magazine in the world.”