Bobby Fischer: It is my name.
Interviewer: Could you describe that name?
Bobby Fischer: Just a name with seven letters.
(Sarajevo, 1970, quoted in "Chess Meets of the Century" by Dimitrije Bjelica)
But surely the most magical and profound seven letters in the history of chess. For those of us who came to serious chess in the late 1960s or early 1970s, there could only ever be one chess hero. Robert James Fischer; born Chicago, March 9th, 1943; US Champion eight times (every time he played), starting at the age of 14 and finishing at just 23, and including the 1963-64 event when he scored 11/11. Along a rocky road lasting just over a decade he took on, virtually single handedly, the might of the Soviet chess machine, finally becoming World Champion in Iceland in 1972 in the Match of the Century against Boris Spassky. Chess was never so important; never so popular; never so sexy.
But it wasn't easy being a Bobby fan. The frustrations at all the false starts and turns along the road to the world title were as nothing compared to the disappointment that was to follow. Because Bobby virtually disappeared. He grew more and more reclusive; more and more demanding; and less and less the stuff of hero worship. He played again just once, a sanction busting, sensational, but ultimately irrelevant rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia. He won easily, but I have to confess, I can't recall a single game from the match. He was now a peripheral figure. In still later years the decline continued, and he became a virtual global pariah due to his virulent anti-semitism, and anti-US sentiments. In 2005 he was rescued from a Japanese jail (on the verge of extradition to the US) by the country of Iceland, the very place where he had bestrode the world like a Colossus in 1972, and died there on January 17th, 2008. He was (how could it be anything else?) 64 years old.
But the chess, the chess! I can't find it in myself to excuse what he did and said after 1972, but his games up till then were just so awesome, and his journey so astounding and thrilling, that he will forever be my greatest chess hero. And while I wouldn't have wanted to invite him to dinner, I will forever be a fan. With games like this (only the third most famous against either of the Byrne brothers!) who wouldn't be?
So what is a an ageing and ambivalent Fischer fanboy to do? How to bring together the extremely varied emotions and memories that those seven letters evoke, and - hopefully - achieve some kind of personal clarity? Well, sitting on my backside in Kenilworth was certainly not going to deliver this kind of result, so I decided to go on a journey; a search; a pilgrimage to try and somehow connect with Fischer's life - and his death. Now to my knowledge (highly imperfect, so don't quote me!) Bobby Fischer only came to Britain once in his life, when he took part in a consultation game for BBC Radio in 1961. (He partnered Leonard Barden against Jonathan Penrose and Phil's late brother in law, Peter Clarke.) So any pilgrimage has to look further afield. The US would be possible, but besides the apartment in Brooklyn where he grew up (Apartment Q, 560 Lincoln Place), Bobby's life was either peripatetic or secretive, so there isn't really anywhere else that might help in my quest. And besides, it's all too long ago and too humdrum. What we need is somewhere visceral; somewhere dramatic; somewhere with more recent associations. There is, in fact, only one place on earth to go if you want to get close to Bobby.
And so - to Iceland!
 |
| It doesn't get much more visceral and dramatic than this! |
Where the pilgrimage will shortly land in Part Two.
No comments:
Post a Comment