Frank Brady - Endgame

Certainly, Bobby didn’t help himself with a postcard he sent to Collins: “I don’t like Russian hospitality and the people themselves. It seems they don’t like me either.” Before the postcard was delivered to New York, it was read by Russian censors, and Bobby’s intemperate response found its way into the Soviet press. Fischer’s request for an extended visa was denied, and what would be his lifelong, not-so-private war with the Soviet Union had commenced.

Bobby’s situation aside, it was becoming difficult at that time for any United States citizen to remain in Moscow. In mid-July, one hundred thousand irate Soviet citizens, inflamed by the government-controlled press, besieged the American embassy on Tchaikovsky Street, demanding that the United States withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Windows were broken, and outside the building an effigy of President Eisenhower was burned.

The situation was serious enough that Gerhardt Fischer, Bobby’s father of record, feared Joan and Bobby might be in great danger. Using his South American name of Gerardo Fischer, he wrote in German to Regina from Chile voicing his worries. He fretted that the children might have been kidnapped because no one had heard from them. He asked Regina what she was going to do to get Joan and Bobby out of the country. He said that if he didn’t hear soon, he’d try to do what he could, but he also added—somewhat mysteriously—that he didn’t want to get into trouble himself.

Just as Regina was beginning to panic, she received a cable from the Yugoslavian chess officials stating that they would not only receive Bobby and Joan as early guests before the Interzonal, but they’d also set up training matches for Bobby with top players. For her part, Joan Fischer, who’d gotten into some spats with her brother over his behavior while in Moscow, accompanied him to Belgrade but left after two days to spend the rest of the summer with friends in England. Fifteen-year-old Bobby was, thus, left to fend for himself—but not for long. He was surrounded by chess officials, players, journalists, and the merely curious, and within hours of touching down in Yugoslavia he was at the board playing, analyzing, and talking chess.

Bobby’s training match opponent in his first formal game on European soil was Milan Matulovic, a twenty-three-year-old master who would become infamous in the chess world for sometimes touching a piece, moving it, and then—realizing it was either a blunder or a weak move—returning the piece to its original square, saying, “J’adoube,” or “I adjust,” and moving it to another square or moving another piece altogether. The “j’adoube” statement is the customary announcement when a player wishes to center or adjust one of his or his opponent’s pieces, but according to the Laws of Chess this must be done before touching the piece, or the mover risks yielding a forfeit. French players would often say, “Pièce touchée, pièce jouée” (“if you touch a piece, you move it”). Matulovic “j’adoubed” his pieces after the fact so often that years later he earned the nickname “J’adoubovic.” In contrast, Bobby was strictly observant of this rule and said “j’adoube” first whenever he touched a piece to straighten it. Once he was even heard to say it, with a smile on his face, when he casually jostled someone at a tournament.

In his first encounter with Matulovic, Bobby ignored the Yugoslav’s mischievous disregard of the rules and lost the game. So with three games left to play, Bobby told Matulovic he’d no longer accept any bogus “j’adoubes.” Bobby won the second game, drew the third game, and won the fourth, and therefore won the match at 2½–1½. Both of Bobby’s wins were hard fought and went to fifty moves before his opponent resigned. Matulovic may have been a trickster, but he was also one of his country’s finest players, not easily defeated. Bobby felt that this victory was significant enough to write to Collins about.

Bobby then played one of the most colorful Yugoslavian masters, Dragoljub Janosevic, a heavy drinker, womanizer, and poker player, and more of a Damon Runyon character than a stereotypical chess player. He was a forceful and attacking opponent, but in a two-game match, Bobby held his own and drew both games.

Bobby cracked open his suitcase, weighed down with about fifty pounds of books and chess magazines, and prepared for the tournament to come, going over lines and variations, and analyzing the tactics of the opponents he’d be facing. Of the twenty players he was to meet, he’d competed against only three: Benko, Sherwin, and Petrosian. But the other seventeen were no strangers. For years he’d been studying the nuances of their games: their styles, opening preferences, strengths and weaknesses. For example, he knew how Fridrik Olafsson almost always drifted into time trouble and so might not play the end game so precisely; how Bent Larsen could be counted on to trot out a forgotten opening from long ago as a surprise. These unexpected jolts from Larsen were difficult to prepare for, but Bobby’s continuous study of the old masters left him relatively forearmed. There wasn’t one player in the upcoming Interzonal that Bobby wasn’t somewhat prepared to meet.

For reference, there was his talismanic Lipnitsky on which to rely, and the latest edition of Modern Chess Openings , which had thousands of games and variations. He confronted the board in the evenings after dinner, with his transistor radio playing whatever kind of music he could tune in to, and he usually continued his study until dawn, falling asleep as it became light. He rarely woke until sometime in the early afternoon. The only times he left the hotel were to play the two matches and once when a good friend, Edmar Mednis (a young American player en route to another tournament and only in the city for one day), visited him and convinced him to take a long walk through several of Belgrade’s parks.

Moving from the historic and somewhat somber city of Belgrade to Yugoslavia’s resort town of Portorož, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, to play in the Interzonal didn’t appear to have much effect on Bobby. He seemed to be uninterested in the beach that was just steps away from the hotel, or the outdoor cafes that faced the Gulf of Trieste and played host to both locals and tourists, who’d gather in the evenings for al fresco dining and a view of the stunning sunset. During the month that he played in the tournament, Bobby was rarely seen outside of the hotel: He spent most of the time holed up in his room, weighing strategy and tactics.

Twenty-one players from a dozen countries had qualified to play in this march, toward an opportunity to earn a place at the next plateau. The six players with the highest scores would then be joined by two top players who were seeded into the ultimate play-off, the Candidates (also known as the Challengers) tournament. The winner would then play a match with the reigning World Champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, to seek the title. Although the Interzonal was Bobby’s first international tournament, he wasn’t alone in this status; twenty-two-year-old Mikhail Tal of Riga, who’d twice won the USSR championship, was also playing in his first international. Some pundits, not just from the Soviet Union, were forecasting Tal to be the winner. Top players in the United States predicted that Bobby wouldn’t qualify for a place in the Candidates this time. He was just too young to conquer enough of the tournament veterans—each with years of experience in international competition.

Folke Rogard, the Swedish president of the World Chess Federation, welcomed the players, their seconds and trainers at the formal opening ceremonies, saying, “It is sufficient evidence of the widespread popularity of the game of chess in the last few decades and the way the strength of play has grown in pace with it, that the Interzonal tournament at Portorož can compare in respect of strength of play with many of the grand tournaments which we recall from an earlier period.”