A< Prev Index Next >
Evans On Chess Sun, Jun 11, 1972 – Page 189 · The Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, Indiana) · Newspapers.com
Fischer Lore
From the moment he exploded upon the world as a 13-year-old prodigy, Bobby Fischer brought more excitement and vitality to the scene than any other player since the legendary Paul Morphy. Each Fischer game is a struggle from opening to ending: there are no easy draws if he can help it. Small wonder so many books appear on him.
Profile of a Prodigy by Frank Brady (McKay $1.95) traces Fischer's stormy career through 1964. Six booklets Bobby Fischer his games and his openings cover the period 1955 through 1971 ($13, Chess Digest, Box 21225E, Dallas, Tx 75211). And in his classic My 60 Memorable Games (Simon & Schuster, $6.95) Fischer annotates his own best efforts, including 3 losses, from 1957-67.
If I had to choose his most brilliant game it would be #48, for which l contributed this preface in Fischer's own collection:
K. F. Kirby, editor of the South African Chess Quarterly, summed up the astonishment and admiration of the chess world when he wrote: ‘The Byrne game was quite fabulous, and I cannot call to mind anything to parallel it. After White's 11th move I should adjudicate his position as slightly superior, and at worst completely safe. To turn this into a mating position in 11 more moves is more witchcraft than chess! Quite honestly, I do not see the man who can stop Bobby at this time…’
And one can add nothing to Byrne's own words: ‘And as I sat pondering why Fischer would choose such a line, because it was so obviously lost for Black, there suddenly came 18…NxB. This dazzling move came as the shocker…The culminating combination is of such depth that, at the very moment at which I resigned, both grandmasters who were commenting on the play for the spectators in a separate room believed that I had a won game!’
