AThe Ithaca Journal Ithaca, New York Friday, November 05, 1971 - Page 18
Fischer-Spassky: Chess Passion in Russia; Title Match in Spring by Harry Trimborn
(Los Angeles Times Service) Moscow — The park was silent and cold under a gray sky. The only sound came from crows scavenging for food in the snow.
A half-dozen men in dark overcoats stood like black silhouettes in the ankle-deep snow, watching two men move small carved figures on a board resting between them on a park bench.
They were playing chess.
In their concentration, the two players and the onlookers ignored the cold and snow to surrender themselves to a Russian national passion succeeded in popularity only by soccer.
It is a passion, assisted both morally and materially by the government, that has enabled the Soviet Union to dominate the game among the estimated 60 million chess players around the world.
Russia has held the world chess championship since 1948 with the crown won by five Soviet players in succession.
In fact, such dominance worries some Soviet players. They are concerned that the game is becoming “stagnant” in the Soviet Union. As one avid player put it.
“We have been dominant so long in chess, and have gotten so used to winning that I think it has made us complacent. There are no great named these days. No young players are coming up.
“It would be a good thing if Fischer takes the title from Spassky.”
The reference was to the world championship match to be held next spring between the imperious 28-year-old American challenger, Robert J. “Bobby” Fischer and world title holder Boris Spassky, 34, of the Soviet Union.
Fischer, a Brooklyn high school dropout, is considered by many, including himself, to be the best chess player of all time. He won the right to meet Spassky by defeating another Soviet player, former world champion Tigran Petrosian, 42, in the challenger-round series in Buenos Aires last month.
The threat from the United States in the wake of Petrosian's defeat has electrified the Soviet chess world with anticipation and excitement for an event still months away. It is an excitement that reaches into almost every home in the Soviet Union.
Despite some fears that Russians are losing interest in chess, the game remains highly popular.
In attempting to explain the game's popularity, international grand master Yuri Averbakh declared:
“This wise game provides extraordinary vistas for the imagination and combines with remarkable harmony the unhampered flight of thought with the sober logic of calculations.
There are more than 4 million registered members of the U.S.S.R. Chess Federation who participate in chess leagues, clubs or who have signed up for tournaments. The United States has only 25,000 registered players.
There are 25,000 first-degree players in the U.S.S.R.
From there the ranking climbs to candidate master, master, grand-master, international master and finally international grandmaster.
On top of the pyramid stand 37 grandmasters, 33 of them international grandmasters, who equal in popularity and prestige top political leaders, scientists, star athletes and musicians. The United States has 11 grandmasters.
The chess stars are among the nation's privileged elite. They are pampered by the government with better housing, better pay and such rare baubles as expensive foreign cars.
A grandmaster receives a 300-ruble ($333) monthly salary that goes with the title — nearly three times more than the pay of the average Soviet worker.
The title does not prevent a grandmaster from holding another job at full salary, and many do have other jobs that they can leave temporarily in order to train for a match.
Like a star soccer player or
popular actor, the chess stars are usually besieged by fans seeking autographs whenever they appear in public.
And when they can't see them in person, the fans can always read about them and their activities in newspapers and magazines which devote much space to the game.
In addition to general publications, there are specialized works that deal exclusively with chess, like the magazine Chess in the U.S.S.R., which has a circulation of about 40,000. There is also a weekly chess newspaper with a similar circulation.
Competitions at all levels are followed with great interest. They are reported in detail in the nation's media. The Soviet news agency Tass provided play-by-play coverage of much of the Fischer-Petrosian match.
The top contests in Russia are staged and treated as high drama. They are usually held on the stages of theaters that draw standing-room-only audiences. The overflow waits outside and follows the games on billboard-size chessboards which show the moves made by the players inside.
While chess is actively encouraged among Soviet youngsters, officials attempt to shoot down the “western concoction” that it is a compulsory subject in school. Said Averbakh:
“There is no denying the fact that chess is very popular among Soviet youngsters. But it is merely by personal initiative that in some of the schools, teachers who are chess enthusiasts inculcate in their pupils an interest in the game, which, by the way, greatly facilitates a youngster's development.”
However, other chess officials admit that a promising youngster is pushed to develop his talent. He is even given time off from school studies to devote it to chess and is sent to tournaments and special schools for training.
Averbakh said the popularity of the game in Russia is rooted in history, and “has a rich, age-old tradition in our country.”
Chess, he said, came to Russia from Persia sometime prior to the 9th century. As a game easily accessible to most Russians, it was ideally suited to the quiet lives and long winter nights of the inhabitants.
But Averbakh and other Soviet masters insist chess only became a truly national sport since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
According to Alexander Konstantinnopolsky, deputy director of the Moscow Chess Club, the government declared the game a national sport in 1923.
Konstantinnopolsky gave credit for Russia's dominance in chess to former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik for introducing the concept of physical training in the game.
“It was Botvinnik,” Konstantinnopolsky said, “who first stressed that a man must be physically fit. He himself did exercises every morning and he was in such good shape that he was able to beat the great (Mikhail) Tal (for the championship in 1961) when Botvinnik was 50 and Tal was only 25.”
He added:
“But Botvinnik was an exception. A chess player reaches his prime around 35 and at 40 starts to go downhill. The reason is mostly physical.”
A U.S. study has shown that chess played at the championship level is as physically strenuous as a game of football or several rounds of boxing.
This is why Russian chess contenders undergo training for important matches, much like a boxer preparing for a fight. In addition to intensive study of their opponent's chess tactics and strategy, they have special diets and engage in regular physical training sessions.
Petrosian skied regularly, while Spassky, a track star in his earlier years, is an active swimmer.
They also train psychologically. Botvinnik, who was irritated by distractions, practiced chess moves for hours with the Moscow Radio blaring in his ears. He once trained for a match against Tal, a chain smoker, by having his trainer constantly blow smoke in his face.
