Fresh insight on Fischer’s ”BLUNDER”
Probably no other single chess move in the history of the game has been the cause of so much fascination, controversy and debate as Bobby Fischer’s 29th move in the dramatic first game of the World Championship match in Reykjavik in 1972.
Challenger Bobby Fischer
World Champion Boris Spassky
The game was rapidly heading towards a quick draw when Bobby–to the amazement of every grandmaster watching in the tournament hall– suddenly captured a poisoned pawn
29…Bxh2?
Spassky played the obvious 30.g3, sealing in the Bishop, and threatening to retreat his King to capture the piece. Soon Spassky was up a Bishop for two pawns and Fischer’s game was on the verge of collapse…
One more tiny imprecision by Fischer at a later stage was all that was necessary for Spassky to win the first game after the adjournment.
Incredibly, the whole world–NOT just the chess world–started to talk about Fischer’s ”blunder” on move 29. The Reykjavik match had suddenly become front page news all over the world, and would stay that way for the next two months…
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FAST FORWARD to earlier today, Australian GM Ian Rogers recounts a fantastic conversation that he recently had with Czech/German GM V. Hort while playing in the CHESS TRAIN tournament.
The affable Vlastimil Hort was a guest of Bobby Fischer while the American superstar was living in Budapest in the early 1990’s. Hort managed to get Fischer to talk about the first game of the Reyjkavik match…
“Bobby gave the point to Spassky,” said Hort. “It sounds crazy but that is what he said. Bobby was so confident that he would win the match that he gave away the bishop and the first game.” LINK
‘‘According to Hort, Fischer even said that he considered throwing the third game as well but thought better of the idea, not because he felt that a three point margin against Spassky was too difficult to overcome, but because he feared that the world body FIDE would then find an excuse to stop the match and declare Spassky the winner. (The Soviets were already publicly complaining that the second round forfeit by Fischer was an insult to the reigning World Champion.)
So Fischer won the third game and the fifth and the sixth and the eighth and the tenth before, according to Hort, taking his foot off the accelerator and coasting to victory.”
That is correct. After 10 games Fischer was in the lead by a whopping 5-2 (draws not counting). Fischer was just THAT good: he essentially won 5 games in a row! The final score was 12.5 to 8.5
Rogers (center) accepts his prize with runner-up GM Martin Petr (second from right), as GM Vlastimil Hort, who finished third, looks on | photo: Anežka Kružíková LINK
