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1994-01-05
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Evans on Chess. November 5, 1993. Copyright by GM Larry Evans.
HOW GOOD IS BOBBY?
It's fun to compare champions who lived in different eras. But who can say
with any certainty whether Muhammed Ali was better than Joe Louis?
Fortunately Gary Kasparov and Bobby Fischer are still with us. After Bobby's
comeback in 1992, a chess magazine promptly crowned him "the peoples champ."
Bobby insists he is the legitimate titleholder who has never been defeated
and showed he still can play some great chess, but at 50 and past his prime
is he still a worthy contender?
Surely Gary at 30 versus Bobby at 30 would have been a dream match. Nowadays
a duel is unlikely but not impossible; and the purse might even top $10
million.
"Fischer was my boyhood hero but I'm 20 years younger, in better shape, and
play better chess," said Gary. "Look, if a sponsor puts up enough clean
money, I'll play. Why not?"
Dirty money is an allusion to Bobby's $5 million rematch against Boris
Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992, widely seen as an attempt by the Serbian
regime to distract attention from its atrocities in the civil war. Bobby won
by 10-5 with 15 draws but lost most of his prize money because the sponsor
fled the country when his bank failed.
Bobby now fears extradition to America where he faces charges of violating an
embargo against the Serbs. At last report he was holed up in Hungary as a
guest of the Polgar family, which is trying to raise millions for his match
with Judith Polgar, 17, ranked number 20 in the world. She told friends that
Bobby is still very strong and usually beats her in skittles games.
Fischer told reporters the main obstacle to a match with Kasparov was the
fact that the USSR never paid any royalties on his book MY 60 MEMORABLE
GAMES. So at a press conference in London, I asked Gary if he would help
Bobby collect the royalties due from Russia.
Kasparov replied he was only nine years old when the Russian edition appeared
and that the whole country had collapsed since then. Later a reporter told me
Gary should offer to pay the royalties out of his own pocket if Bobby would
agree to play!
The match might be a lot closer than you think. Before he quit in 1972, Bobby
notched a record rating of 2785. Today Gary stands at 2815 -- a new high. But
over the last 20 years the system has sustained about a 100-point inflation,
so these statistics don't give us too much to go on.
A more relevant clue to who is greater is the result of two title matches. In
1972 Bobby beat Spassky by five points in 20 games; in 1993 Gary also beat
Nigel Short by the same 12.5 - 7.5 or 62.5%. But most experts would argue
that Spassky in his prime was better than Short right now. Score one for
Bobby!
Chess now requires enormous stamina and constant practice, yet age and rust
are Bobby's weak spots. "Today a few months away from the arena can be
fatal," said Kasparov. But even if Bobby gets slaughtered, most fans will
choose to believe he was beaten only by Father Time.
You can't kill a myth.