Spassky vs. Fischer, 1972 World Championship Match

I’ve been trying to get into chess lately, mostly playing games online at Yahoo.  I randomly went on Wikipedia to look up Bobby Fischer, just to briefly look over his bio.  I was shocked.  I had watched “Searching for Bobby Fischer”, which I think is a great movie by the way, but during the movie Fischer is portrayed as somebody to look up to, somebody mysterious, somebody you would never expect to have mental problems.  And since chess is a mind game, you might expect the World Champion to have a “beautiful mind”, something to be envied.  You might think they’d apply their skill to everything around the world.

I don’t envy Bobby Fischer, I pity him.  Fischer had some major mental issues.  He wanted America and the whole race of Jews to be annihilated.  It makes me wonder what he would have been capable of had he been exposed to more love throughout his life.

So this put a damper on my views of chess.  How could somebody so highly regarded in the game (many consider him to be the best chess player ever) have such nonsensical views outside of the game? I began to question if great chess players tend to lose the meaning of life.  I began thinking of the Bible quote:

What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? (Mk 8:36)

Also, a little reference to one of my favorite bands Chevelle—in their song Point #1, the lyrics say “It seems I’ve gained the world but have nothing.  To keep tabs upon this loss isn’t wasted time.”

And I started wondering.  Are there any world champions in chess that are charismatic, unselfish, spiritual, that aren’t absolutely consumed by it? There’s just sort of this plain, matter of fact connotation that goes along with chess players.  Other sports like baseball, soccer, they are team games, you are forced to play with one another, communicate with each other, pick each other up when you are down.  Relationships are built that last a lifetime.  I think this contributes to why they are my favorite sports.  I do like golf which is another solo sport.  Still, golf is physical and outdoors with beautiful scenery around.  Watching Tom Watson at the British Open really gave me a positive view of golf.  There was a certain spiritual aura about him, he was at peace with himself, he WAS unselfish, he appreciated the crowd and respected other players.  While Tiger was throwing clubs and cursing, Watson reacted in a much more mature way.

I can’t think of another sport like chess where it is so nearly 100% mind.  And when the great players are dedicating so much of their mind towards chess that means they aren’t devoting it to God.  I think it’s easy to get distracted and obsessed with the sport.  However, I think you can play it for God, just like baseball or any other sport.  I’ve made some stupid mistakes in chess and said some stupid comments like “man, that was stupid” or “I hate this game, I suck at this game.” On the other end, if you’re dominating the game, some people will start talking trash.  A holy person isn’t going to act this way, they will win and lose with humility.  And it feels better that way.

I particularly found some help from the comments in the following article, specifically the 1^st comment:  http://chessstuff.blogspot.com/2005/02/can-christians-play-chess.html

This helped me not only to feel better about being a devout, spiritual Catholic and chess player simultaneously, but also to reason through competitions and sports in general.  Competition with the right heart challenges us to become better people.  Competition isn’t for everyone though.

Watson had a spirit about him during the British Open that I really enjoyed watching.

Roman Polanski at a court appearance in Los Angeles in 1977. Soon after, he fled the country and has never returned. (Los Angeles Times Collection, U.C.L.A. Library Department of Special Collections)

Note to American fugitives running from the long arm of the law: make sure you go to countries that don’t have extradition treaties with the United States. Not that I’m particularly interested in helping any fugitives, but one famous such person has been arrested in Switzerland pending an extradition challenge. Acclaimed director Roman Polanski fled the United States in 1978 pending the verdict from a statutory rape trial with a 13-year-old girl and has never returned, despite continuing to produce blockbuster movies that get shown in the United States.

The Polish-French director, now 76, was arrested yesterday as he arrived in Switzerland [hey, I thought they were a neutral country] to receive a lifetime achievement award in Zurich. Sounds to me like he’ll be receiving a “lifetime” of achievement award alright, in U.S. lockup. The Swiss are holding him under a 2005 international alert issued by the government:

A Swiss Justice Ministry spokesman said a final extradition decision could only be taken after the judicial process has been “finalised” and that appeals were possible against the arrest warrant as well as any extradition decision.

Justice Minister Eveline Wildmer-Schlumpf said her country had to act on the US request and there was no political “pressure” involved. There was “no other solution” but to arrest Polanski, the minister said.

Roman Polanski has been careful most of his life on the run, avoiding countries that have extradition treaties, but it appears he’s getting sloppy in his old age. Both France and Poland is reportedly seeking a pardon from President Barack Obama. French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said the case was “an old story which doesn’t really make any sense.” Although there’s many that disagree, the girl at the time of the sexual act in 1977, is now a 45-year-old mother of three who is helping defence lawyers to get the case dismissed. But that doesn’t really change the facts of the case, which are that he raped an underage girl. Samantha Geimer said that Roman Polanksi gave her champagne and drugs and and took nude pictures of her before having sex with her despite her objections.

This is slightly reminiscent of 2004, when American fugitive genius Chess player, Bobby Fischer, was arrested in Japan for outstanding warrants in 1992 for a game he played in Yugoslavia. Despite the thousands of people who attended the event, and the millions of people who watched it worldwide, only Bobby Fischer was ever charged. He lived in exile in the Phillipines and Hungary until 2004, when he was arrested while travelling with his Japanese wife. He fought the extradition charge, saying he refused to go back to America. The eccentric Fischer, himself a Jew, charged that there was a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, and that the Jews controlled America. He made comments a day after 9/11 praising the terrorist acts, and condemning the U.S. The country in which he won his famed 1972 Chess Championship against Boris Spassky, Iceland, granted him permanent residence. He died there in 2008.

I always love watching the chess game between Bobby Fischer and Donald Byrne from 1956. No surprise this game is termed as ‘The Game of the Century’ by chess community. This game contains a series of brilliant ingredients that always bring a smile to my face. For starters Bobby Fischer was only 13 when he played this game in the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament in New York City on October 17, 1956. On top of that, his opponent Donald Byrne was one of the leading American chess masters at that time and had recently won the U.S. Open Championship in 1953.

In this game, Fischer (playing Black) demonstrates noteworthy innovation and improvisation. Byrne (playing White), after a standard opening, makes a seemingly minor mistake on move 11, losing tempo by moving the same piece twice. Fischer pounces, with brilliant sacrificial play, culminating in an incredible queen sacrifice on move 17. Byrne captures the queen, but Fischer gets far too much material for it – a rook, two bishops, and a pawn. At the end, Fischer’s pieces coordinate to force checkmate, while Byrne’s queen sits, helpless, at the other end of the board.

Lessons to be learned from this:

1. In general, don’t waste time by moving the same piece twice in an opening; get your other pieces developed first.
2. Material sacrifices are likely to be effective if your opponent’s king is still in the middle and a central file is open.
3. Even at 13, Fischer was a player to be reckoned with.

Here’s the video of the game I uploaded to YouTube.

Chess masters Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov shake hands before an earlier match. The two masters are playing a 12-game exhibition series on the 25th anniversary of their first contest.

They’re at it again.

A quarter century after they waged the first of their epic battles that spanned six years and saw the beginning of the downfall of the Soviet Union and its empire, Anatoly Karpov and Gary Kasparov are back at the chess board.

The stakes are lower than when they met to decide the identity of the world champion-Kasparov is now an outspoken governmental opponent, while Karpov recently was ranked among the world’s top 100 chess players, but has not been a major factor for close to 20 years-but that does not mean that they are taking the contest any less seriously than they did in 1984.

In all, Kasparov had a minor edge over Karpov in games won, 21 to 19, with more than 100 games ending in a draw.

This time, Kasparov has bolted out to a 2-0 lead in a timed format that appears to have worked to his advantage.

People wishing to learn more about these two warriors and the different parts of the Soviet Union would be well advised to read Daniel Johnson’s White King and Red Queen: How the Cold War Was Fought on the Chessboard. 

I wrote about this book, which friend and reader Evan Kaplan kindly gave to me, in March.   Johnson traces the rise of chess and the gradual emergence of a series of Soviet champions.  As the title suggests, the games on the board had heightened meaning in the post World War II period, when the Cold War raged between the world’s two superpowers.

While much of the book’s focus is on the famous 1972 contest between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, each of whom represented their own countries, Johnson does have extensive material about Karpov, the ultimate product of the Soviet chess system, and Kasparov, a half-Jewish, half-Armenian and full outsider. 

In addition to this entertaining material, Johnson also writes about Vladimir Nabokov’s The Luzhin Defence, which I have not yet read, and Stefan Zweig’s collection of short stories, The Royal Game.

The exhibition between Kasparov and Karpov is slated to be a best of 12 game series.  Whether you read White King and Red Queen before or after their battle is over, it is definitely worth the time and energy.

This photo was taken a year before Fischer would dethrone the Russian world champion, becoming, for a time, an American Cold War hero.

Like a lot of kids in the summer of 1972, I was riveted by a strange spectacle unfolding in Iceland: a chess match between Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer, the mercurial young American.

The games weren’t televised — Fischer permitted no cameras — so chess experts replayed the moves on public television using oversize boards. Through long summer days, I puzzled over poisoned pawns and bishop pairs as Fischer, after nearly walking out on the match, crushed the Russian champion.

Through solitary study and determination, Fischer had toppled a Soviet chess establishment that had every advantage: better coaching, state stipends, access to the latest games and opening theory.

I got caught up in the chess mania that swept the country after Fischer’s victory. The craze quickly faded, but my fascination with Bobby never did.

Over the years, I read everything I could find about him, replayed his most famous games and talked with friends of his who frequented the Marshall Chess Club in New York, scene of some of his triumphs.

In time, my interest shifted from Fischer’s chess to a much murkier aspect of his life: the identity of his father.

Bobby’s life story, like his behavior, was bizarre and complicated. At the height of his powers, he abandoned the game and went into seclusion, surfacing periodically to spout paranoid, anti-Semitic screeds and to denounce the United States. He died last year at 64 in Iceland, the only country that would have him.

It seemed to me that if I was to get a better grasp of this elusive figure, I needed to know more about his origins.

Bobby was born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn by a single mother, Regina Fischer. She told people his father was a German biophysicist named Gerhardt Fischer. The couple divorced when Bobby was a toddler. That’s about all that was known.

The dearth of details about Gerhardt and his role in Bobby’s life whetted my curiosity. What was he like? Did he share his son’s intellectual gifts? What kind of relationship did they have?(Read More Here)

Bobby Fischer

There is no doubt that throughout the history of chess there have been many superb players who have reshaped and redefined the way the game is played. This list is an attempt to examine and categorize the greatest of those. [Seguir leyendo en Listverse]

Vía Microsiervos.

.on september first in the year…

.1653 composer johann pachelbel was born and centuries later their canon in d appears in seul contre tous directed by gaspar noé.most classical music is a lot of stuffy rubbish but this is one of my favourites.

.1752 the liberty bell arrived in philadelphia.and then it cracked.

.1914 the last known passenger pigeon martha named for martha washington died in the cincinnati zoo.the body was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the smithsonian institute where it was skinned and mounted.

.1920 richard farnsworth was born and went on to a permanent place in my memory for riding a lawn tractor from iowa to wisconsin in the straight story directed by david lynch as well as an uncredited role in the wild one and the role of a shot-dead-in-the-end sheriff in misery.

.1922 lily munster was born.

.1929 anne ramsey who played that no good ma fratelli in the goonies was born.

.1967 die hexe von buchenwald ilse koch committed suicide in prison at the age of sixty proving it is never too late to give up.

.1972 bobby fischer conquered boris spassky in reykjavík iceland becoming world chess champion.decades later on september eleventh 2001 bobby said I say death to President Bush! I say death to the United States! Fuck the United States! Fuck the Jews! The Jews are a criminal people. They mutilate their children. They’re murderous, criminal, thieving, lying bastards. They made up the Holocaust. There’s not a word of truth to it. They are the worst liars and bastards. Now what goes around comes around. They’re getting it back, finally. Praise God and, you know, hallelujah. This is a wonderful day. Fuck the United States. Cry, you crybabies! Whine, you bastards! Now your time is coming.so all in all probably a very interesting person to play chess against.even if you did lose.

.1974 johnny the homicidal maniac author jhonen vasquez was born as part of some experiment inspired by the fly.they have never written any thing i did not like though my wallet sincerely wishes they would.

.1981 adolph hitlers chief architect albert speer died making love in london.

Episode “melarat” itu juga yang membuat Bobby Fischer merasa kian tersisih dari komunitas catur New York. Ia memutuskan pindah ke California pada musim semi 1968. Perubahan ini memberi arti tersendiri pada dirinya. Pada masa yang ia sebut “wilderness years”  ini, hari-hari ia jalani tetap dengan semangat memperdalam catur. Tetapi, ia juga mulai bertingkah aneh: menyusuri tempat-tempat parkir dan menyebar selebaran berisi pesan tentang supremasi kaum kulit putih.

Di saat itulah, ternyata, Bobby Fischer mulai berkenalan dengan gerakan anti-Semit. Malam hari, setelah bergelut dengan buku catur, ia menyempatkan diri membaca buku Mein Kampf dan The Protocols of the Elder of Zion. Bobby mulai gandrung pada sejarah Jerman dan Hitler-nya, serta mengoleksi semua yang berbau Nazi. Ia malah jadi pemuja Hitler. Inilah yang dikemudian hari sangat mewarnai sikapnya terhadap bani Israel, atawa kaum Yahudi, dan Amerika.

Pengaruh pandangan Hitler itu ia tampakkan secara jelas lewat berbagai wawancara di pemancar radio. dalam wawancara per telepon pada Januari 1999, yang disiarkan langsung oleh radio Bomba di Baguio, Filipina, misalnya, ia menyebut-nyebut adanya persengkolan Yahudi di Amerika Serikat yang berusaha menyikat dia. Kaum Yahudi disebutnya pencuri dan pendusta. Malah, Israel dikatakannya negara bandit. “Yahudi memang brengsek sepanjang sejarah” katanya saat itu.

Lebih tegas lagi dalam siaran langsung wawancaranya dengan pemancar radio itu juga, beberapa saat setelah tragedi Word Trade Center (WTC), 11 September 2001. Bobby Fischer sendirilah yang menghubungi Pablo Mercado, karibnya yang menjadi penyiar radio Bomba. Fischer menyatakan dukungannya atas serangan ke WTC dan Pentagon itu. Ia menganggap peristiwa tersebut sebagai harga yang harus dibayar Amerika atas sikapnya terhadap dunia selama ini, terutama Palestina.

Ia bahkan menyebutnya, Israel dan kaum Yahudi-lah yang bertanggung jawab memicu serangan 11 September. “Amerika dan Israel telah membantai warga Palestina selama bertahun-tahun. Kini, pembantaian itu pun berbalik arah,” katanya.

Beagle dispatch:  New York City.

Heading to the big apple tonight on a business man/party boy red eye flight.  Landing in time for an early morning on the Brooklyn scene.  Will the Stumptown taste the same?  Will hurricane Bill deliver epicness on a scale similar to the rise of chess phenom, Bobby Fischer???

Check mate, Laurence Fishburne! I want a cookie!!!

Richie will answer these questions and others upon his return from his four day junket of delight, excess, and extreme sports.

GET THE RAD!!!

Go Extreme Vert!!!

So we played Spain last night, the number 2 team in the world- http://zonadostres.com/?p=2636 …basically if your spanish isn’t up to par it says we lost.

They are a very good team, and well deserving of their number 2 ranking. However, since yesterday I’ve been inundated with questions from my friends about Ricky Rubio, the 18 year old spanish prodigy drafted into the NBA this summer. Since he’s a point guard and I got to play against him, everyone wanted to know how good he is.

playing D against rubio

The answer is mixed. He is good, in fact he is very good. He moves and passes the ball with such ease and grace, like a young Baryshnikov floating down the court, he effortlessly finds a crack in the defense then exploits it with style, showmanship and creativity, a fan’s dream. And his ability to read a complex game at a young age parellels another prodigy, Bobby Fischer. However on a purely technical level his shooting needs lots of work, he’s not quite as quick as I thought and he’s still physically very small. Maybe I’m nit-picking, after all he is only just 18 years old. When I was 18 I played basketball against kids that looked like Daniel Radcliffe from the first Harry Potter. Rubio on the other hand is playing against Men, men who are some of the best basketball players in the world and he’s excelling.

Maybe the expectations are too high, when people dub him the next Magic Johnson or Pistol Pete Maravich (http://www.nbcolympics.com/basketball/news/newsid=221449.html) his possibility of failure increases, how can anyone live up to that? The pressure to become the ‘next’ basketball legend can be excruciatingly tight, especially for an 18 year old.

I think I might compare Rubio to Yao Ming. Stay with me here, I know there is no physical comparison and they play completely different positions, after all Yao is 7′6″. The similarity could hinge on his ability to handle the spotlight. When Yao Ming first joined the NBA in 2002 he was the first player from China, and scouts raved about his abilities. Therefore he had a tremendous amount of pressure to perform, he literally had hundreds of media waiting for him after practices, let alone games, and I’m sure he was painfully aware he represented a billion Chinese people and their sporting ambitions. The expectations were herculean, his game was anaylzed constantly, his abilities dissected daily. It made you wonder how anyone could be successful with this hanging albatross around their neck. However, ultimately Yao did succeed and remains one of the best in the NBA at his position, I can’t say enough how much I respect him for becoming the player he is in the face of that. Many a lesser man would have stumbled and faded into the background.

Yao

So for Ricky Rubio to turn into the future legend many expect and hope for, it will hang on his ability to handle the constant pressure that will come with being a prodigy. In today’s digital, global world his every move will be criticized and dissected, and will increase ten-fold when he reaches the NBA. After seeing him in person, there is no doubt he possesses the intangibles that only the greats have, but we will have to wait to see if he possess the inner fortitude that Yao, Lebron and other prodigies turned stars have shown.