Competition / Gamesmanship

"When you play Bobby, it's not a question
  of whether you win or lose, it's a question
  of whether you survive."

                - Boris Spassky
             Soviet Russia: World Champion
             chess player up to 1972 when he
             lost to Fischer in a famous match in
                   Iceland.

Robert J Fischer is now a citizen of Iceland. The
United States government took away his passport
when, in 1992, he entered the former Yugoslavia
to play another match with Boris Spassky for a purse
of five million dollars. Fischer ignored the US Government's
order and for a while lived in Japan where he married a
Japanese woman chess champion.

The match in the former Yugoslavia was virtually an
exhibition. Fischer won, but the purse was split
3 million for Fischer, and two million for Spassky.
You wouldn't be too far off to conclude they were friends,
and are still friends. Boris Spassky is an admirable man,
educated, sophisticated, and humane. I met him at
a chess tournament at a hotel near LAX, Los Angeles.
He is witty, urbane, has lived in Paris, and does
what educated people do: attend the opera, the theater,
and seek culture and Peace.

If any chess players read this, and are curious about
precisely what Spassky means when he talks about
"surviving" Bobby's chess skill, take a look at game one
from the 1971 Interzonal match Fischer vs Bent Larsen.
played in Denver. In that game Fischer sacrificed his Queen,
early in the game, in the center of the board, yet won
handily against a world class Grandmaster. Additionally
Fischer won the next five games as well, winning the
match 6-0. Bent Larsen suffered a psychological collapse.

Barry