Fischer’s car pulls in at the back entrance. Ignoring the animated, smiling faces of the young autograph hunters, the challenger, head down, strides through the door, along the narrow corridor, and left onto the stage. He barely glances into the auditorium. His clock is already ticking; if he is black, he now catches sight of Spassky’s first move. A quick handshake with his opponent, who only half rises, and Fischer slumps down into his chair. For a minute or two he surveys the board. Then, once he makes his move, several more are fired off in quick succession in response to Spassky’s.
Both players are well turned out. For game one, Spassky chose a formal suit, but by now he usually opts for smart casual: sports jacket, white shirt and tie, light-colored slacks. Sometimes he sports a cardigan, too. (Moscow and Los Angeles are suffering under heat waves, but in Reykjavik the weather is unusually miserable for this time of year, cold, cloudy, and wet.) The champion’s jacket goes on the back of the seat. Fischer’s wardrobe of suits spans the rainbow, from blue to an unfortunate maroon, the latter tailored locally. He has gray and black suits, too. A brown cardigan worn below his jacket combats the chill. His shirts also come in a range of garish colors, including canary yellow.
Both players have startling powers of concentration. In each session, which can last up to five hours, they leave their seats only for short periods to stretch their legs. When Spassky rises, he does so carefully and deliberately, eyes still on the board; Fischer bounds up in one movement. Nikolai Krogius identifies two typical Fischer poses at the table: “in one of them he would lean back in his armchair and swivel it slightly (his arms on the armrests), his gaze seeming to bore into the board from afar; in the other, his armchair would be moved as closely as possible to the table and his head, supported by both his hands, would be bent over the board.” Occasionally he picks at his nose. He has been seen putting his fingers in his ears. Krogius observes how Fischer covers his eyes with his hands but leaves chinks through which to observe his opponent.
Spassky too has a variety of postures. One is sitting upright, chin in hand, elbow on table; another is head in hands, blocking out extraneous sound and vision. What to do with those fingers? He might drag them through his thick mane of hair, place the tips in his mouth, or cup them on the bridge of his nose. There are times when he stares, not at the game, but at the rear wall—though it is clear that he is still computing permutations. After making his move, he jots it down with, in the words of one reporter, “the air of a man penning a note to a secretary.” The inscrutability into which he has long since trained his otherwise expressive features is a tremendous asset. Fischer once described what it was like facing Spassky across the board. He has “the same dead expression whether he’s mating or being mated. He can blunder away a piece, and you are never sure whether it’s a blunder or a fantastically deep sacrifice.” The only giveaway for those fluent in body language is an almost indiscernible compression of the lips in complex positions.
Energy levels must be kept high during such sustained periods of mental effort. During the match, Spassky sips at a glass of orange juice or pours himself a cup of coffee from one of two thermos flasks he brings in. Fischer has ice water, tomato juice, or cola. There is food behind the curtains, backstage, out of sight of the spectators. Fischer’s aides bring in supplies especially for their man, which they wrap in tinfoil. It is a smorgasbord of cheese, fresh fruit, cold meat, and herring. Before game fourteen, Cramer announces that they have added an extra foodstuff—hard-boiled eggs. Spassky has sandwiches.
The platform is carpeted green, with an extra rug under the table and chairs. There are a few unassuming potted plants on stage. The hall can hold around 2,500 on its deep purple seats. It varies from half-full to full to capacity. Sundays are busiest. Most of the spectators are male. They have paid the equivalent of $5 to watch—or, for the dedicated, $75 for a season ticket. Some have high-powered binoculars that they train on the two contestants, trying to read clues to their thoughts.
Lothar Schmid is positioned at the back of the stage. He has started the clock; he will take in the sealed move at adjournment, and open the sealed envelope at the beginning of the next session. But his principal task becomes policing the noise in the auditorium, which he does like a teacher in charge of a remedial class.
By now, Schmid has developed several ways of pleading for quiet. He might deliver a short speech before the game: “Do not even whisper,” he begs. Once the game is in motion, he will walk to the edge of the stage, placing a finger to his lips. He presses the button that lights up the neon sign, which is in English and Icelandic: SILENCE, PöGN.
Noise prevention sees the hinges of the doors oiled regularly to keep them from squeaking. Carpenters construct soundproof boxes at the entrances to the hall: the aim is to muffle the sound of clinking crockery from the restaurant. The sale of cellophane-wrapped food or candies is banned, though the Icelandic Chess Federation refuses to ban children, too, as Fischer wants. The place, Fischer charges, is “being turned into a kindergarten.”
But the hall is still, by championship standards. The highly chess-educated audience is as well behaved as any chess audience anywhere in the world. Inevitably there are disturbances and mishaps. Fischer complains that a man is snoring; Schmid immediately dispatches the ushers to rouse him. On another occasion, someone drops what sounds like a hefty piece of metal—the sound bounces off the walls, echoing around the auditorium. The audience do not resent Schmid for his admonishments—indeed, his predicament earns him sympathy. “What do [the Americans] expect him to do?” asks one. “Use nerve gas?”
Understandably, many spectators prefer to watch the match not in the hall—where they may be the target of a Fischer glare—but on the television monitors in the cafeteria. There they can sit chatting over the moves, eating hot dogs and pastries, drinking beer. They can also wander downstairs and sample the boisterous atmosphere of the analysis room. Here one of the visiting grandmasters will be explaining the nuances of the position and trying to predict what comes next. Bent Larsen, in town for a short period, is the punter’s favorite. Blunt and droll and voluble, his comments are sometimes greeted by applause—the rumble filters through to the auditorium, leaving Schmid at a loss.
At the end of a game, a pack of enthusiasts waits by the side entrance. Fischer ignores them all. He straps on his safety belt, as his driver—normally Palsson, occasionally Lombardy—slowly tunnels an exit through the crowd. Back in the auditorium, Spassky is more leisurely in his departure. A disappointing game may find him staring at the board for some minutes, lost in thought, contemplating how, where, why it went so wrong. Lothar Schmid comes to join him, the consolation of company. The champion puts on his jacket and slowly walks out. The auditorium is emptying now. Schmid collects up the pieces and stores them away.
Look skyward and you can see a man climbing across a platform just beneath the roof of the hall. He is smuggling out the closed-circuit video of the match. Chester Fox is determined to take possession of this, but the person responsible for closed-circuit TV, Gunnlaugur Josefsson, believes the American producer has no right to it. It is Josefsson who arranges the video’s thrice weekly escape.
The champion alone with his seconds, (left to right:) Ivo Nei, Nikolai Krogius, Efim Geller. CHESTER FOX
Nonmatch days have also developed a more reliable tempo. The Icelandic Chess Federation committee gathers almost daily to discuss the latest crisis. The treasurer, Hilmar Viggoson, has the task of devising ever more ingenious schemes to compensate for the loss of film revenue. Some suggestions come from the public, after he placed an advertisement in a newspaper appealing for ideas. The most successful venture is commemorative gold coins. They sell out quickly. “We made a fortune from this,” says Viggoson.
Preparation for the next game remains the priority for the two contestants. Between periods of analysis with his seconds, Spassky relaxes with tennis—when it is not raining or too windy—or by seeing a movie. (When Larisa arrives, the TASS corre
spondent accompanies her to a film that would never reach the screen in Moscow, about a priapic monk who takes charge of a nunnery.) During the course of the two months, a number of close supporters of Fischer’s arrive to cheer him on. There is his early mentor, Jack Collins, his sister, Joan Targ, with her family, and his friend from Los Angeles, Lina Grumette.
Fischer works alone until late at night to the accompaniment of rock music; then he swims at the hotel, plays table tennis or tennis, or goes bowling at Keflavik. Archie Waters, a second-rate chess player, is Fischer’s favored table tennis partner. As for tennis, he has a number of opponents to choose from, including Svetozar Gligoric and Robert Byrne, both of whom are quite a few years older than Fischer. Byrne says they walked onto the court at eleven o’clock at night: “He saw that I could only play for twenty minutes, and for all these twenty minutes we merely warmed up. Then, noticing that I was already panting, he said: ‘Okay, that’s the end of the knock-up. Now we’ll start playing.’”
Fischer’s favorite leisure activity, however, is bowling. Even this is a means to a chess end, as Victor Jackovich from the U.S. embassy recalls. The most junior diplomat, Jackovich was assigned to take Fischer to the bowling alley in the American air base:
Fischer demands sole use of the-pool. “The point is, I have no swimming costume.” HALLDOR PETURSSON
Bowling was partly a physical exercise and partly a mental distraction. That’s all it was. Bowling as a sport had no interest for him. He would always bowl out of turn. I would bowl, and his second, the Reverend William Lombardy, would bowl, and Fischer would bowl, and I would bowl, and Fischer would stand up. And if I went over and said, “No, it’s not your turn, it’s the father’s turn,” Lombardy would signal me to say no, no. And he told me later, ‘It makes no difference. It’s just throwing a ball at a bunch of pins, it’s not real bowling here, it’s not a game.’ And I remember a person at the base coming up to Fischer and with the best of intentions trying to tell him, “Look, let me show you what you’re doing wrong with your hook,” or whatever, because his balls were going all over the place. Fischer very curtly, very abruptly, told him, Look, I throw this heavy ball in order to exercise my arm, in order that I can be in better physical shape, in order that I can sleep better, in order that I can play better chess. That’s it.” He wasn’t impolite about it. I think the American was a bit taken aback because he thought this was his opportunity to show Fischer something, help him out. But Fischer didn’t care.
Fred Cramer compiles a timetabled daily duty roster, which he writes on Loftleidir stationery and sends to Frank Skoff, with a copy for Lombardy. They are a reminder to Skoff of his numerous tasks, though these vary from day to day. He must regularly comb the playing hall for cameras. He must chase up the Mercedes-Benz automatic-shift car, as promised by the Icelandic organizers. He must arrange the laundry. He must ensure there is a tennis or table tennis or bowling partner for Fischer, available at all times, and that the facilities are unlocked and ready for Fischer to walk straight in.
In general, have each activity so set up that Bobby can be doing it on thirty minutes notice or less. Don’t leave any blank spots. Don’t leave anything to anybody else, even Sammy. (Of course, we count on him—and various others—heavily, but you must, in all cases, be so set up that Bobby can go, regardless of any other individual. Always have at least three of four backup men at each point.)
Skoff should always have suitable clothing ready for Bobby’s activities. He should try to ensure the facilities are not used “for other persons or other activities.” He should always be looking to add to the list of potential playing partners for Bobby. “Bear in mind that people do other things. Some even leave Iceland.”
As the sun sinks on a Friday night, the mood lifts in the American camp and among the championship organizers. For twenty-four hours, Fischer is locked away, observing his Sabbath. There is a temporary armistice between Fischer and the organizers. It is all quiet on the Loftleidir front.
In the Fox tragicomedy, it was far from quiet. The central issue now was not whether the cameras would be permitted in—most of the parties concerned had reluctantly abandoned any such hope—but whether Fischer could be made to pay. Chester Fox maintained he had so far spent up to $200,000 on setting up the film coverage and estimated his lost earnings at $1.75 million. He wanted compensation and threatened to sue Fischer “for every cent we can lay our hands on.” To cover himself, Fischer asked the Icelandic Chess Federation to deposit $46,875—half the loser’s share of the prize fund—in his bank account. The ICF refused.
Legal proceedings continued apace, with Fox going to the U.S. federal court to claim that Fischer had intentionally inflicted upon him “grave financial harm.”
On Fischer’s behalf, Cramer shrugged off the impending court action: Fox was merely trying to upstage Fischer—as usual. Fox’s lawyers obtained an order from a federal judge, Constance Baker Motley, to freeze a portion of Fischer’s prize money. “All we really want is to make sure that this historic game is preserved on film for posterity,” explained Fox’s attorney, Richard Stein. He would rather serve the order on Fischer privately, but if Fischer refused to meet him, he might have no option but to do so publicly, even if that meant walking onto the stage during the game. From this point, four helmeted policemen stood backstage to protect the challenger in case someone tried to thrust the papers on him.
On 27 August, the ICF came to a settlement with Fox. In return for Fox’s agreement neither to block the prize money nor to bring a lawsuit in Iceland against Fischer, the ICF gave up its share of any profits he had made from the film rights so far (and still hoped to make in the future). Not for the first time, Fischer was absolved of responsibility for his actions. Once again, the Icelanders had lost out. Eventually Fox would abandon the legal fight; it was only throwing good money after bad.
18. CHESS CONTAGION
You know that creativity and money accompany each other. The question is which is more important: money in order to play chess or chess in order to earn money.
—MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK
To the rest of the chess world, Fischer’s conviction that the game’s elite could and should command the same respect and rewards as screen idols, boxing stars, golfing celebrities, or Formula One racing drivers was in the realms of fantasy. Up to the 1970s, chess was Western sport’s poor cousin, never quite shaking off its character as a strictly cerebral game for passionate amateurs, inevitably bespectacled and boasting bad haircuts, playing in the smoky back rooms of tenebrous, sequestered clubs or on the bare boards of dank church halls.
A decade before Iceland, Fischer complained, “Reshevsky and I are the only ones in America who try to make a living. We don’t make much. The other masters have outside jobs. Like Rossolimo, he drives a cab. Evans, he works for the movies. The Russians, they get money from the government. We have to depend on tournament prizes. And they’re lousy. Maybe a couple of hundred bucks.” Thousands enjoyed the game, but nobody could make a living wage from it. There was little prize money in tournaments, little demand for books and coaches. In 1962, when Donald Schultz, later president of the U.S. Chess Federation, was setting up a tournament in a small town in upstate New York, he thought of inviting the teenage superstar, Bobby Fischer. “I contacted the chess federation office in New York and they put up $500—which doesn’t seem much now but was a lot then, and certainly no one else was doing it. And we brought Fischer to our tournament.”
For those U.S. players whose life was chess, old age could be tragic. In December 1971, a stalwart of the American chess world, then in his seventh decade, Hans Kmoch, wrote to the mayor of New York, John Lindsay, with a desperate request for financial assistance for himself and his crippled wife. Kmoch had labeled the thirteen-year-old Fischer’s match against Donald Byrne “the Game of the Century.” He was at the time earning $1,000 a year from his chess, which even in 1970 was barely subsistence level. The letter to Lindsay ends, “We would greatly appreciate it if you
could tell us to whom we could apply to get the necessary assistance to keep us alive.”
Yet nine months after that plea, chess was featured daily on the front page of the nation’s newspaper of record, The New York Times. All three major U.S. TV networks dispatched crews to Iceland. To the astonishment of television executives, when Channel 13’s afternoon show broadcast the games as they were relayed by a special telegraph hookup from Reykjavik, it was soon drawing over a million viewers, the highest ratings public television had ever achieved. The thirty-five-year-old presenter, Shelby Lyman, a Harvard dropout and former sociology lecturer, provided move-by-move analysis, often performing for five hours at a stretch. A guest would join him, and in between moves they would chat about various aspects of chess. “But the move was the most important thing. Whenever there was a move, a tiny desk bell would ring and I’d announce, ‘Okay, we have a move!’ A woman would come in and hand it to me, and I’d say, ‘You won’t believe it. Fischer has done something we didn’t even consider!’ It was very dramatic.”
One reporter did a tour of twenty-one bars during a game, to discover that eighteen of them had their televisions tuned to this program and only three were showing the New York Mets base-ball game that drinkers would normally have demanded. When, on one occasion, Channel 13 TV executives chose to show the Democratic presidential convention rather than the chess, they were quickly forced to reverse their decision when hundreds of people rang in to complain, some threatening to burn down the station. So successful were the broadcasts that Lyman began to command huge appearance fees for promotional campaigns. As the match moved into its second half, the multinational computer giant IBM stepped in with a $10,000-a-week grant to fund a nationwide broadcast of the Sunday game.
Bobby Fischer Goes to War Page 23