It was said, Bobby Fischer to chess was like Mohammad Ali to Boxing.That could be true in some sense. If Ali could popularize boxing all over the world with his knockout bouts and equally powerful tongue lashes, it was Bobby Fischer's mercuric rise into the chess-world and the mad genius of the man that popularized chess all over the world. Historians calls this as 'Fischer Boom' . May be he was much more than a Mohammed Ali of chess, some one who rose up and fought America's cold war on his own. Fischer's war was not against the politics of USSR even though he despised 'commies', it was against the 'Soviet dominance in chess, and the politics that ruled it. His war was not simple, as it was a one man army marching against the whole chess machinery of the largest nation in the world, where chess was taught in schools and played in all most all levels of society,which produced world chess champions with scientific precision.Chess was definitely a religion in United Soviet Socialist Republic back then, and they always considered chess as the metaphor for intellectual supremacy which the soviet regime wanted to showcase to rest of the world. Bobby Fischer, a shy Brooklyn school boy of a broken mother,who played 'game of the century' at the age of 13, youngest American champion at the age of 14 had come of age to qualify for the world championship candidates once again in 1972 . He crushed Mark Taimanov 6-0, Bent Larsen of Sweden 6-0, Former world champion Tigran Petrosian 6.5/2.5 and marched on to clinch the world title from Boris Spassky by the score 12.5-8.5 at Reykjavik, Iceland. In 1972 Fide Ratings,Fischer was on 2875, 125 points ahead world number two Spassky, and as expected and badly wanted by all Americans Fischer became 11th world Champion. But this story is not as simple as I put in a paragraph. It was full of struggle, drama, total madness and above all a magical story with a fairy tale finish.
Reading the book 'Endgame: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer' by Frank Brady was an amazing experience. Brady has a beautiful, simple and a very unbiased way of writing. Unlike other biographies Brady is not trying to glorify his subject. He is just drawing the sketch of Fischer that he knew. It was definitely like 'knowing' Fischer. He was arguably the most hated and the most loved chess player at the same time but unarguably the most admired chess genius ever. Icing on the cake was watching the documentary 'Bobby Fischer Against The World' a wonderful biopic by Liz Garbus immediately after reading the book. It was like seeing the 'text' that I just had read coming alive on screen. This had never happened before.
Fischer and spassky were hyped as arch rivals and '1972 Reykjavik' was nothing less than a war. But, in fact 1972 was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between these two geniuses of chess. They respected each other. Bad mouthed Fischer never uttered anything against spassky ever and spassky considered him as his brother. When Fischer was imprisoned in Japan for months , spassky commented that he wanted to be in the same cell with bobby so that they could play chess. After losing in 1972 against bobby he said, Fischer was an 'artist' and after prize giving ceremony bobby bought a camera and sent to Spassky's hotel. Spassky was instrumental in introducing a woman to bobby whom he thought bobby could marry; a decision which he regretted later.When bobby passed away, Spassky said, he lost his brother. In the return match of 1972's war, Spassky lost again to Fischer. It was in Yugoslavia in the year 1992, named 'Revenge Match of the Century'. Spassky later mentioned, even though he wanted to win, he wanted Fischer to win that championship more, as he was afraid, losing that match would send Fischer back to oblivion again.
What ever was the outcome of the match, Fischer was issued an arrest warrant by US government for playing in Yugoslavia, a nation that was under US Sanction. Fischer never took it seriously, In fact he publicly spat on the letter that was sent to him about it. But, when United States of America decided to chase their own hero, it was the beginning of Fischer's true 'End Game' which he would never win. Now the same fate is happening to Spassky, who was living in France for long time now, has ran away from France and took shelter in Moscow few days back. Unlike his friend, it was not a country that wanted him to be dead, it was his own wife. Or is it like, both the friends shared 'Paranoia' (Fischer's real problem according to the experts) apart from their beautiful friendship.
