AThe San Francisco Examiner San Francisco, California Wednesday, October 20, 1971 - Page 37
Championing Chess
Bob Considine, a hearty old athletics supporter, passed a couple of sarcastic remarks the other day about our hero, Bobby Fischer, the chess virtuoso. Robert let it be known he was less than thrilled that Bobby had sacrificed a rook for a bishop in order to launch a furious attack on Petrosian's king's side. “Ho hum,” he said. Or words to that effect.
He did have the grace to admit he didn't know what he was talking about, however, so I have desisted from cancelling my subscription to the paper. Considine is on probation. It is the earnest hop of all of us coffee house chess players that in the meantime he will learn the rudiments of the game.
It is a curiosity, especially to old jockos, that chess is physically demanding, as well as requiring unique mental attributes, when you are competing at Fischer's level. At long last Fischer is going for World Champeen, as they say in Considine's circles. He'll never make it unless he maintains the physique of a top tennis star, the nerves of a race driver, and of course a fully functional set of brains.
Bobby is not an endearing type. He considers himself absolutely the best chess player in the world, and possibly the greatest chess player of all time. This is not sports page boasting, either. Fischer really believes.
Ever since his child prodigy days he has been having hell's own time getting at the Soviets, who have held the World Championship in chess for so long that it has come to be considered Soviet property.
For a time, when he was in his early 20's, our man Fischer openly charged the Soviets with rigging the elaborate championship machinery so that only a Soviet could emerge, in the immortal word of the fights announcer, trumpant.
The idea was, according to Fischer, that the Soviet players would award each other easy “draw” points while fighting all others to the finish. This theory didn't seem to stand up under mathematical analysis, and the Soviets themselves indignantly denied they were throwing games. [Modern Day 21st Century Note: FACTUALLY, former Soviet players went on record, since, providing sufficient testimony of not only cheating, but ordered by the Soviet Government itself, to cheat and win at any cost due to arrogance, poor sportsmanship and lack of morals.] But in the end Fischer did succeed in getting the pre-tournament rules changed — and now look. Bobby's whomping Tigran “Tiger” Petrosian, and after he gets past Petrosian he'll have a crack at Boris Spassky and the world crown.
Fischer is a chess professional, which in the United States is a starvelling trade. The Russians are also professionals, but Soviet style, like super civil servants, subsidized by the state. So long as they stay in the top rank they live well.
Pro Soviet chess players rank somewhere between pro Soviet javelin throwers and pro Soviet folk dancers, I think. The best ones get automobiles and country houses and everything, and are idolized by the masses, who genuinely love chess.
By contrast, our man Fischer lives in hotel rooms and schlepps about from tournament to tournament literally living on his wits and the patronage of a few lovers of the game who happy to have kopeks to spare.
Nevertheless, even if chess makes a pretty miserable profession, it is still the most popular board game in America, and millions of us coffee house types — wood pushers, the professionals call us — enjoy it keenly.
Chess is a crazy game, not all that intellectually demanding, at least on the coffee house level. Although intellectuals sometimes take it up to make up for deficiencies in other areas, I sometimes suspect. Everybody's got to have something he can win at, right?
Anybody can learn the basic moves in a matter of minutes. In a short time anybody can compete in the coffee house game with the greatest of ease and a lot of pleasure. That is a king of plateau in the game, easily reached. Considine could make it.
Getting beyond the rudiments, into tournament play and top level competition requires a specific talent, like any other talent something uniquely directed to the task at hand.
Fischer is a chess genius, which is a step above talent, but the emphasis ought to be on “chess” and not on “genius,” because Fischer's narrowly defined genius does not by any means make him on of the world's great thinkers or philosophers. [Modern Day 21st Century Note: Agreed. The same applies to misogynists Botvinnik and Garry Kasparov and the latter's love of Neocons and their war criminality for profits with impunity... and peddling the deception in the name of “Human Rights”.]
