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1994-01-05
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60 lines
EVANS ON CHESS. June 18, 1993.
By GM Larry Evans (Copyright)
I REMEMBER BOBBY
Genius is a starry attribute. Posterity often finds a genius easier to bear
than his harried contemporaries.
I was a friend and colleague of Bobby Fischer. During his rise to the top we
collaborated on his 60 MEMORABLE GAMES, which was destined to be a classic.
But it almost never saw the light. One day Bobby scratched out all his notes
before returninng the proofs of his magnum opus to Simon & Schuster. Since
the games alone were available elsewhere, he paid back the advance and their
contract was cancelled.
Time passed. They finally asked whether he wanted to pay storage or destroy
the plates. Bobby figured he could save money by storing it in his walk-up
flat in Brooklyn, but I warned that lead plates weigh a ton and might crash
through the floor killing tenants below. "Well, I guess the world's coming to
an end anyway," he sighed. "Maybe I'll let 'em publish it."
Then I realized he suppressed the manuscript because he was afraid of giving
away too many secrets. But by now a few years had safely passed, so we added
10 more games to make it current -- which is how 50 became 60 Memorable Games.
It was a tragedy when Bobby didn't defend his title against Anatoly Karpov in
1975. Fans wondered if he was crazy for spurning millions to crush the darling
of the Kremlin.
Diehards blamed it on a Commie plot. A mathematician claimed that Bobby's
demands -- a match calling for 10 wins with him keeping the title on a 9-9
tie -- gave his challenger a better break than a 24-game tilt where the champ
had draw odds. A psychiatrist opined, "A paramount theme is his refusal to
compromise his principles." A French playwright depicted our hero as "a
persecuted poet who defends human dignity."
All this claptrap, alas, only encouraged him. "When you were the challenger
you didn't think the champ should have any edge," I said.
"That's besides the point!" he snapped. "The Russians always made their own
rules and got away with it. Let's give 'em a dose of their own medicine." I
argued he should set a shining example and that his selfmate only handed them
the title on a silver platter. He promised not to seek any edge in future
matches if he got his way just this once, and reasoning with him was futile.
"It makes no difference whether Bobby obeyed his conscience or was afraid of
losing," I wrote. "He shirked his duty by not defending his title under fair
conditions. He refused to negotiate or compromise and his obstinacy killed
the match -- nothing or nobody else."
But Bobby felt deeply wronged. Years later he was furious when FIDE, the
world chess body, gave Karpov an even bigger edge than he had sought. He
vowed to get even.
Much of the $3.35 million he won against Boris Spassky in 1992 vanished when
he naively put it back in the sponsor's shaky bank. Today Bobby is exiled in
Yugoslavia after America indicted him for violating its embargo on the Serbs.