Frank Brady - Endgame

Bobby, though, seemed to feel that he’d make short work of his competitors. He predicted that he’d wind up as one of the Candidates and that his method of qualification would be to beat all of the “small-fry” or “patzers” and then draw with all of the top players. The flaw in this plan was that there were really no feeble players in the tournament; they were all, if not world class, then at least of national or international renown.

Bobby’s aide or so-called second at the tournament was his close friend and fellow Jack Collins student William Lombardy, a portly twenty-year-old seminarian who was studying to become a Roman Catholic priest. Lombardy had captured the World Junior Championship by winning every game, and he was a formidable player. He was so solid in his ability, so sure of himself on the board, that Fischer once described him as playing “like a house.” At that time in the United States, Lombardy was in ability only slightly behind Fischer himself.

In chess, a second’s job is to be an attendant, advisor, advocate, and majordomo for the player he serves. Many seconds pay particular attention to the openings of the other players and attempt to scout out any weaknesses. They then report back, round by round. Perhaps the most important role for a second is analyzing adjourned positions jointly with the player. Sometimes this means all-night sessions, so that the player has a variety of tactics to employ when play is resumed the next day. Soviet players were traditionally serviced by a team of seconds, each performing an assigned task. For example, there could be an endgame specialist, an opening theoretician, a physical trainer, a “go-for,” and sometimes a psychologist.

Acting and looking older, and being highly intelligent, Lombardy treated Bobby in a parental and nurturing way. From Portorož he wrote to Regina of his charge: “Bobby brushes his teeth daily but has more difficulty in taking a bath.” Lombardy also conveyed his initial impressions of Portorož:

If you have never seen a great international tournament such as the one in Portorož, then you might be interested in hearing something about this great chess classic. Extraordinary things happen in connection with such an event that do not exactly have anything to do with tournament itself. The Portorož tourney is of a type that should make for interesting and exciting chess as only six are permitted to go to the World Championship Challengers Tournament. It seems, however, to work au contraire . A great tension hangs overhead. The players are nervous, and many get into extreme time pressure. As a result, the games have not been especially brilliant for a tournament of this class.

Regina wrote to Joan that she was worried Lombardy might be damning Bobby with faint praise. “He’s good at that,” she wrote. But there was no evidence that Lombardy, known for his acerbic tongue, was antagonistic toward Bobby. On the contrary, the older player always showed the younger one affection and respect, often sending him friendly little notes and asides. The two young men shared almost all of the major holidays together, usually at the Collins home. James T. Sherwin, the other American in the Interzonal, recalled that Lombardy was supposed to be his second as well. “Bobby really didn’t need Lombardy since their styles were so dissimilar. Lombardy was an enormously gifted, intuitive positional player but not a well-prepared player like Bobby. Bobby’s strength was the inexorability of his tactics.”

One difficulty arose when Lombardy had to leave the tournament for several days and attend the World Chess Federation annual meeting as the U.S. representative, leaving Bobby without a second. Bobby had two adjournments to play and analyze by himself. He lost to Olafsson and drew with Tal.

In a pre-tournament conversation with Bent Larsen of Denmark and Fridrik Olafsson of Iceland, Lombardy reported the following remarks about his friend Bobby:

Larsen:Fischer is one baby I am going to spank.

Olafsson:Don’t be too sure. Be careful!

Larsen:Don’t worry, I can take care of myself.

Scrubbed clean at Lombardy’s behest, Bobby was dressed in a dark shirt and starched khaki pants for the first evening of play. His opponent was the stocky Oleg Neikirch of Bulgaria, one of the oldest players in the tournament (he was forty-four) and considered, by Bobby’s standards, a small-fry. Nevertheless, perhaps because of first-night board fright, Bobby underestimated his opponent but was lucky to coax a draw from Neikirch, even though Bobby had an inferior game. With tongue in cheek, Neikirch explained his draw offer: “It’s sort of embarrassing to defeat a boy. Back in Bulgaria I would be the laughing-stock of everybody.” But it would be more embarrassing to lose to a boy, clucked the scoffers. As for the New York World-Telegram , it proclaimed that Bobby’s managing to avoid a loss in his first European tournament “highlighted a noteworthy turn in chess history.”

Bobby’s play was spotty in the first several games of the tournament, as he attempted to find his chess legs. After the Neikirch game, he won one, lost one, and drew one. FISCHER OFF FORM IN DEBUT ABROAD, blared a headline in The New York Times . It wasn’t until the sixth round, at which point Bobby had barely compiled an even score, that he was tested by one of the true greats of the game, David Bronstein of the Soviet Union.

Bronstein looked like what one might picture a chess player to look like. Bald-pated, with horn-rimmed glasses, and often dressed in a black suit and white shirt, he was actually the prototype of the grandmaster character Kronsteen in the James Bond film From Russia with Love (except that Kronsteen had hair), and the game played on-screen in that film was based on a real one Bronstein had played against Spassky. But despite his mien of seriousness and inapproachability, Bronstein was friendly, animated, and liked by virtually all the other players, owing to his cordiality, immense knowledge of the game, and a certain intellectual eccentricity. He was a fiercely attacking player, but at the board he’d often seem as if in a trance. In one game he actually stared at the position for fifty minutes before making a move. On paper and through reputation, Bronstein and Smyslov, both of whom had played against Botvinnik for the World Championship, were considered the favorites at Portorož (though some contended Tal should be a favorite as well). Bronstein had tied Botvinnik in their 1951 match for the World Championship, but Botvinnik retained the title as sitting champion. The rules of the World Chess Federation required a challenger to win the match, not merely draw it, to gain the title.

Because of a lack of air-conditioning in the hall, both Fischer and Bronstein arrived in short-sleeved shirts: white for Bronstein, beige for Fischer. Fischer had publicly announced before the tournament that there might be one player who could defeat him: Bronstein. And, in fact, Bobby had diligently prepared for his opponent’s onslaughts.

Fischer’s and Bronstein’s places at the table were indicated by a small American flag on Bobby’s side and an equally small Soviet flag on the opposite side. Fischer plunged into the game with his trusted and thoroughly analyzed opening, the Ruy Lopez, instantly seizing the initiative and generating pressure in the center squares.

The game was a struggle, however, and he found himself in time trouble. It wasn’t the tactical possibilities that made him consume time, but the long, drawn-out endgame position, rife with complications. He desperately wanted to win against Bronstein for many reasons: to prove to himself that he could do it; to prove to others, especially those in the tournament, that he was capable; to demonstrate to the world that he was as great a chess player as anyone. But the clock, the clock! Time was ebbing.