Game one began on 30 September. Halfway through, when Fischer found himself unexpectedly on the defensive, the lights blew. The clocks were stopped and Petrosian left the stage; Fischer, meanwhile, carried on—sitting there and staring at the board. His Soviet opponent complained to the arbiter that Fischer was benefiting from free calculation time—contemplating his next move in the gloom while his clock was not running. Fischer allowed Schmid to restart the clock, while he remained thinking in the darkness.
Fischer won that first game, his twentieth consecutive grandmaster victory. But any expectations that he would dispatch Petrosian in the fashion in which he had destroyed Taimanov and Larsen were to be dashed in game two. Fischer, suffering from a bad cold, played poorly. When he offered his resignation, the audience began loudly to chant Petrosian’s name. Did Fischer at last have a real fight on his hands?
With one win apiece, there followed a series of three draws. Fischer’s fans were in a state of high anxiety. For the American—who sought to win every game—a draw was a semidefeat. For Petrosian, who sought in every game not to lose, the same result was a partial triumph. What Fischer needed was to restore his psychological advantage with a second victory.
Once it came, in game six, Petrosian collapsed. He took a few days off, complaining of exhaustion, and was diagnosed with low blood circulation. Fischer identified this as the moment of his opponent’s psychic disintegration. He said, “I felt Petrosian’s ego crumbling after the sixth game.” Petrosian’s comments support that: “After the sixth game Fischer really did become a genius; I, on the other hand, either had a breakdown or was tired, or something else happened, but the last three games were no longer chess.” Indeed, when the Armenian returned, Fischer quickly wrapped up the proceedings. President Nixon wrote to Fischer, “Your victory at Buenos Aires brings you one step closer to that world title you so richly deserve, and I want you to know that together with thousands of chess players across America, I will be rooting for you when you meet Boris Spassky next year.”
Although there were no major rows, Petrosian complained later, “A player feels at a disadvantage when he knows that he is playing in the city and the hall where his opponent wants to play, that the lighting is such as his opponent ordered, that while one of the players will receive a superpurse, the other will not. It is not that without a superpurse it is hard to play chess, but that you unwittingly begin to feel a certain discrimination, a sense of injury, almost of humiliation.” He added that tortuous match negotiations left Fischer’s opponents softened up, much as troops under attack in the trenches were softened up by a preliminary bombardment. This formed the basis of a warning to Spassky.
Flattened: (from top) Mark Taimanov, Bent Larsen, and Tigran Petrosian. NEW IN CHESS MAGAZINE
In Moscow, Petrosian was credited with having accomplished what Taimanov had not: at 6.5 to 2.5, this was defeat with dignity. But a non-Soviet player was now the challenger for the world crown for the first time in a quarter of a century. Spassky was asked about his prospects of retaining the title but gave nothing away: “The one thing I can say is that I think the match will be a very interesting one.” All the evidence suggests that, privately, Spassky was convinced that he could and would win.
8. TROUBLE IN PARADISE
What I really like is when I’m in a festive mood and my friends are in a wonderful mood, too….
— BORIS SPASSKY, ON LEAVING FOR REYKJAVIK
On 19 June 1972, the chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Committee for Physical Training and Sport—in short, USSR sports minister Sergei Pavlov—held a farewell reception for Boris Spassky and his team on their departure for Reykjavik. His deputy, Viktor Ivonin, joined them, together with Viktor Baturinskii. Spassky and Pavlov made short speeches.
This was no joyful sendoff, as for smiling troops departing to war with flags waving and families cheering. The atmosphere seemed strained, an air of battles being refought, entrenched positions justified. Spassky told them that his group had gelled and thanked the Sports Committee for its organization. He felt well prepared and well rested. He had lost some weight and even felt younger. He singled out grandmaster Isaac Boleslavskii for his usefulness and mentioned that he had played a sparring game with Anatoli Karpov. Then he justified his decision not to have a head of delegation, a doctor, a cook, or a translator in Reykjavik: “Such people would have had to be compatible with the team.” He also rebutted rumors within the chess community that he had not worked hard enough. The match, he prophesied, would be a celebration of chess.
In reply, Pavlov dwelled on the historic nature of the event that was about to take place. In spite of all the difficulties in the negotiations, the Soviet conditions for the match had been satisfied. Those in the room would have understood that the chairman’s allusion to “difficulties” was not referring only to the Americans or FIDE, but also to the world champion. Then Pavlov uttered two warnings to the team. Firmness was essential. If someone behaved toward them in a “boorish way,” they must be boorish back. Pavlov tried to make this sound like a little joke. But it was clear to the audience that he meant what he said and that the remarks contained an implicit reproach. The word boor had already been used in a personal attack on Fischer in the Soviet chess magazine 64—an attack ordered by Pavlov. The chairman went on to caution the team not to be caught up in the Fischer mystique—the notion that the U.S. grandmaster was bestowed with some kind of transcendent, irresistible power. Then he wished Spassky victory, the assembled party raised their glasses, and the reception was over.
What exactly was Pavlov hinting at? What “difficulties” had Spassky and his team created? Little was known about the Soviet chess machine in the West, except that it was phenomenally successful; but the image was of ruthless efficiency, of a culture and political system that permitted no dissent or internal squabbling. The reality, at least in the buildup to Reykjavik, was the reverse.
Boris Spassky and the chess authorities had been bracing themselves for a duel with Fischer since the spring of 1971, before the American had even taken on Taimanov in the first of the Candidates matches.
Normally, grandmaster arrangements would be managed through the USSR Chess Federation, but because of his position as world champion, Spassky jumped a stage of the administrative hierarchy, discussing his plans directly with the State Sports Committee leadership. A significant first meeting took place on 1 March 1971, when Spassky and his trainer, grandmaster Igor Bondarevskii, met the deputy sports minister, Viktor Ivonin, to discuss the champion’s program for the year ahead. This meant a schedule that would cover both his personal training and the array of commitments incumbent upon him as world champion, the training he would carry out for the trade union chess club, his participation in matches, international tournaments, public chess duties, even rest and recreation. The world champion was ex officio the leader of Soviet chess.
Viktor Ivonin is a central figure in our story. His daily record of the meetings and talks he held offers a unique contemporaneous source for the Soviet side of the championship. Sports Minister Pavlov had taken personal charge of the USSR preparations for the Munich Olympics, so Deputy Minister Ivonin became the senior governmental point of reference for Fischer’s challenge.
Short, shrewd, jolly, and still full of energy in his seventies, Ivonin is evidently a survivor. His career opened on the floor of a Leningrad electric power station, where at fourteen he started as a metal worker during the siege. There he became a Party activist, beginning the ascent that has taken him through all political upheaval to the spacious office he now occupies as the executive director of Russian Lotteries. He progressed steadily through the ranks of the Komsomol, went briefly to the Sports Committee, and then, in 1962, moved to the CPSU Central Committee, working in the sports section (he was a sports enthusiast). In 1968, when Pavlov became chairman of the State Sports Committee, he asked Ivonin to become his deputy: they had known each other well in the Komsomol and the Central Committee. Ivonin thought high
ly of Pavlov, but he hesitated for a short while because Pavlov was notoriously difficult to work with. They ended up being colleagues for fourteen years.
The deputy sports minister Viktor Ivonin. Trying to get through to Spassky? VIKTOR IVONIN
Politically, there was more to the story. Pavlov was on his way down. A tough Stalinist who had gained entry to the highest echelons of the Party as head of the Komsomol, he was a professional propagandist and orator, skilled at brutal assaults on those he and the authorities regarded as “enemies of the state.” He was known for his violent temper—though, says Ivonin, “the whip was not his principal weapon.” In the mid-1960s, he backed the hard-line Aleksandr Shelepin, who mounted an unsuccessful challenge to Brezhnev’s leadership. Shelepin was ejected from the Party Secretariat, dispatched to the outer darkness of the trade union movement. Pavlov fell with his mentor, and when, in 1968, he accepted an offer he could not refuse to become head of the State Sports Committee, it was a substantial loss of rank, influence, and authority. As first secretary of the Komsomol, he was a full member of the Central Committee; as chairman of the Sports Committee, he was reduced to being a nonvoting (“candidate”) member. However, he made the best of it, coming to be seen as a fine statesman of sport.
When Spassky and Bondarevskii arrived at Ivonin’s office, the central question was the probable identity of the challenger for the title. Spassky and Bondarevskii said Fischer would certainly be a contender, and they predicted he would reach the final. Forecasting his challenger was vital. Chess players cannot train effectively in a vacuum; the training has to be tailored to the opponent they expect to confront.
Although the world championship cycle still had a long way to run, from this moment, Spassky’s preparation would be focused on the American. Ivonin held a further series of meetings to appraise Fischer’s chess qualities. The tone was one of respect, almost awe. His technique was exemplary. He looked after his physical fitness. The enigma of his personality was discussed with curiosity and apprehension. There was longstanding resentment at Fischer’s earlier claims that Soviet players were dishonest and sold victories to one another for money. But was Fischer a genius, or mad, or both? The question was raised with Sergei Pavlov at the Sports Committee in March.
Old habits die hard. Not long after this committee meeting, an article entitled “The Subject Is Fischer” appeared in the magazine 64. This served up 1,400 words of acidic anti-Fischer vituperation. A non—chess journalist, Anatoli Golobev, wrote the piece under Pavlov’s instructions. This extract gives the flavor: “A difficult childhood predetermined his place in the chess world as well as his ignorance in most spheres of social life, unthinkable for a contemporary cultured person”—presumably a broad hint that Fischer was nekulturnyi, rude and uncouth. “By the way, much of his ‘extravagant behavior’ stems from this—from his mixture of ignorance and childlike spite.”
It may have been their minister’s style, but several other members of the committee regarded this heavy-handed mauling as a hugely embarrassing mistake. When all was said and done, they knew Fischer as an exceptional player. The grandmasters also despised the item as the political journalism of a chess nonentity. Mikhail Beilin was head of the Sports Committee’s Chess Department from 1967 to 1971. He recalls, “Many in the chess world were sympathetic to Fischer: when you look at his games, you’re not interested if he attended school or not.”
The committee members resolved that henceforth only serious and objective articles on Fischer as a chess player should appear in Soviet chess magazines—personal criticism was to be outlawed. It was a decree they stuck to in the face of a number of provocative Fischer outbursts—such as at the time of the Larsen match, when he bragged that he would destroy any Russian he faced. Pavlov had to be restrained from demanding a tough rejoinder in the Soviet press.
Nevertheless, even articles praising Fischer’s chess tended to remind Soviet readers of his less laudable characteristics. He caused genuine umbrage in the Soviet official breast. No doubt bound up with this hostility was the Soviet sense of inferiority. In an internal report, the Director of the Central Chess Club, Viktor Baturinskii, complained angrily and inaccurately: “Fischer is provided with considerable moral and material support, and for these purposes the U.S. Chess Federation has received around $200,000 from various organizations.” He went on, “Appearances by Fischer are organized in the press, on the radio and on television, during which he gives assurances that he will become world champion in 1972 and makes insulting remarks about Soviet chess players.”
The pattern of approbation followed by condemnation was repeated in an article by international master Vasili Panov. Comparing Fischer and Spassky, the author noted: “Both are masters of the art of fine maneuvering and of combinational attack, both have the ability to squeeze out the smallest positional advantages, and both have perfect endgame technique… the creativity of Spassky and Fischer represents the culmination of all the achievements of the second half of the twentieth century.” But in the same article, he homed in on another aspect of Fischer’s character, quoting the American: “‘Chess provides me with happiness and money…. I follow what happens to my capital closely. I want to have a magnificent villa and an expensive car of my own….’” Panov seemed horrified. “American patrons of the arts, now paying generously for Fischer’s appearances, do not know much about chess. But they understand success! For them there are only winners and losers. And only success pays!”
Evaluating Fischer as both a man and a player became a high priority. In June, after Taimanov’s defeat, a bruised Taimanov and his now abject team manager, Aleksandr Kotov, gave an assessment of Fischer to the Sports Committee. What was remarkable about Fischer, they said, was his “demonic influence over his opponent when he sits at the table.” The long-held view of Soviet grandmasters that Fischer was a tournament player, not a match player, was inaccurate. Kotov and Taimanov blamed themselves for underestimating Fischer. They were struck by his habit of continuing to study chess even over dinner.
It was not all gloom. They thought their experience showed that Fischer was slow to get into a match; in the first three games he was sweating. A potential Achilles heel for the American was his narrow opening repertoire. Finally, said Taimanov, there was only one player who could beat him: Boris Spassky.
Together with a note from several other Soviet grandmasters, this review of Fischer was passed on to Spassky, though Fischer’s matches against Larsen and Petrosian were still to be played. At the beginning of June, Spassky’s team was assembled. It consisted of three grandmasters: his longtime coach, “Father” Igor Bondarevskii; Nikolai Krogius, a psychologist; and Efim Geller. Krogius had been part of Spassky’s training team, with Bondarevskii, since the autumn of 1967 and was to continue working with him until 1974.
Each had a specific task. Bondarevskii’s job was to study in minute detail 500 of Fischer’s games in an attempt to identify deficiencies and weaknesses. Krogius had developed a technique for appraising players’ psychology and was now applying it to Fischer. He aimed to find the critical positions in his games and assess Fischer’s thought processes, studying also his reaction to defeat. He would carry out the same process on Spassky and compare the two. Geller would concentrate on the openings.
Later, Krogius complained that Spassky had ignored the results of his toil, just as Geller grumbled that Spassky had not followed his openings advice. Ivonin recorded in his diary that Spassky had paid little attention to the notes on Fischer commissioned from other leading Soviet grandmasters such as Tal, Smyslov, and Petrosian, nor had he taken the opportunity to discuss Fischer with them in person. The champion had his reasons, some less respectful than others. “We don’t need general advice from old men,” he opined to Ivonin. And he was determined that these “old men” should not discover any of the new weapons he was developing for use against Fischer. “The most important thing is we won’t be able to tell them anything; we’re scared information may leak.”
It was and remains quite normal for grandmasters to fear that their ingeniously worked-through ideas might seep out to the wider world, but Mikhail Beilin describes this as a Spassky obsession and claims that the champion had been suspicious of others since childhood: “He would keep quiet; it was his nature, and he wouldn’t trust or believe anyone.” The world champion also believed that some grandmasters, Petrosian for one, actively disliked him. He had grounds to be wary. Because foreign travel and the other rewards for success were so dependent on the favor of the authorities, Moscow chess was a wasps’ nest of rivalry, intrigues, and plots.
So for Spassky the formation of a tight, loyal team was vital. To Bondarevskii, Geller, and Krogius, an Estonian player was added. Ivo Nei had captured the USSR Junior Chess Championship in 1948. He was only an international master, a lack of foreign tournament play having cost him the chance of the grandmaster title. Baffled by the choice, some put it down to Nei’s being a close friend of his fellow Estonian Paul Keres, whom Spassky was said to have idolized. Certainly Spassky was an admirer of Keres. But talent with a tennis racket was the primary reason for Nei’s selection. A former Estonian tennis champion, his major role was to keep Spassky physically fit. He was likable and ebullient, and according to Nei, he and Spassky enjoyed a freedom of conversation the champion did not share with the others. Looking back, Spassky says he trusted Nei, and it is probable that he felt more at ease with the unpretentious non-Muscovite than with the other denizens of the Central Chess Club.
Bobby Fischer Goes to War Page 11