MARK RUBERY CHESS

‘Among this decade’s worst news, for me, was the death of Bobby Fischer. Telling a friend this, I got, “Are you out of your bloody mind? He was a Nazi-praising raving lunatic and anti-Semite. Death is too good for him.” He did, indeed, become all that. But none of it describes the man I knew. Towering genius, riches, international fame and a far from normal childhood might be too heady a mix for anyone to handle. For him they proved fatal. I’m still sad about his death.

It must seem strange to people too young to remember that there was once a chess champion — of all things — who became arguably the most famous celebrity on earth. And that his long-anticipated match against the reigning Russian champion, Boris Spassky, was broadcast and watched worldwide as if it were the Super Bowl, except that chess drew a much bigger audience.

We ordinary mortals can only try to imagine what it might feel like to be both young and so greatly gifted at a complex art. And to be better at it than any other living being, past or present. There are plenty of geniuses and lots of famous people, but few are both. Is anyone really capable of surviving such a double burden?

Getting Fischer on my show that first time, before the big match, was considered a major catch at the time. If anyone in the audience shared my image of what a chess genius probably looked like, Bobby’s entrance erased it. Once seated, he was something to behold. Six foot two (tall in those days), athletic in build, perfect in grooming, and with striking features. The face radiated intelligence. You couldn’t confuse him with anyone you’d ever seen. And there were the eyes. Cameras fail to convey the effect of his eyes when they were looking at you. A bit of Svengali perhaps, but vulnerable. And only the slightest hint of a sort of theatrical menace, the menace that so disconcerted his opponents. Looking out over the audience, I could clearly see entranced women gazing at him as if willing to offer their hearts — and perhaps more — to the hunky chess master.

I’m surprised in writing this how much emotion there still is in the subject for me. There’s no story like it: genius kid, precocious, plunged into triumphant victory, money and world fame — no one under 30 should be subjected to fame — then gradual decline into raving lunatic. “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.’

The solution to today’s position is so fantastic that many doubt that it occurred in actual play. It was used in the Netflix film ‘The Coldest Game’ that was described by one critic as ‘an oddly-disjointed spy-thriller that can’t be saved by barrels of vodka, a fistful of cocaine, or a good Bill Pullman performance that it brings to the chessboard.’

BLACK TO PLAY AND WIN