AThe Vancouver Sun Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Saturday, May 22, 1971 - Page 35
For Those Watching, An Aura of Genius by Bill Rayner
Some say watching a chess game is like watching grass grow.
Not so.
Even to the most casual chess player in the audience, the Bobby Fischer-Mark Taimanov match out at the University of B.C. is a combination of fascination, suspense and endless speculation.
The setting is this: Fischer and Taimanov sit at a specially constructed chess table in the center of the stage at the Student Union Building movie theater.
The stage is brilliantly lighted by fluorescent lights, hastily installed at the demand of Fischer.
The audience, which has ranged from 50 persons up to more than 200, sits in darkness. They follow the play from two demonstration boards. A huge sign on the stage implores: “Silence Please.”
The first 10 moves or so of each game are played quickly as the combatants run through well-memorized variations. Those spectators keeping score of the game scribble down the moves hastily.
When the play slows down, several rush out of the theater to the lobby, there to check the sequence of moves, argue and speculate.
A theoretical novelty in the opening is analyzed. Taimanov and/or Fischer is pronounced in trouble and /or in a winning position.
Sometimes the discussion reaches a level several decibels above the required whisper.
Then Fischer and Taimanov may glance distractedly toward the source of the trouble. Referee Bozidar Kazic of Yugoslavia walks out from his position behind the wings to gaze sorrowfully at the audience. An official of the B.C. Chess Federation scurries into the lobby to shush the crowd.
Apart from the three glum Russian advisers to Taimanov — who are spending less and less time in the theater — the audience is almost exclusively pro-Fischer.
They have learned to look for that tell-tale sign of Fischer irritation. When he is upset, when the taut spring inside is wound to its very tightest, his right leg begins to move.
Up and down the knee jerks, faster and faster, almost uncontrollably. Then, with the problem solved, or the irritation removed, it slows down.
When Fischer, tall, gangling, looking all the world like a painfully shy teen-ager, comes loping up the aisle from the stage and through the lobby after the close of play, he is regarded with awe. He looks at no one, and no one dares approach him.
Sometimes someone says, “Good game, Bobby.” Sometimes he will say “Thank you,” sometimes not.
At the end of Friday's first adjourned game, which Fischer won brilliantly in 89 moves, the audience burst into applause. It was a spontaneous acknowledgement of this giant among them.
