{"id":425,"date":"2011-09-10T15:43:55","date_gmt":"2011-09-10T15:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/?p=425"},"modified":"2012-12-21T20:18:30","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T20:18:30","slug":"bobby-fischer-against-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/2011\/09\/10\/bobby-fischer-against-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Bobby Fischer against the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

In which I am reminded that once stuff is in your brain somewhere cluttering it up, it can be pretty hard to get it out. Random bits of chess knowledge included.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is probably another of those middle-aged<\/em> things, but I find myself lately reflecting on the reasons why I might have got into particular activities that have been important in my life – including my line of work, of course, but also taking in hobbies and interests, like films and chess. Can one pinpoint influential people, like teachers, or authors whose books you read, or films you saw, that ‘pushed’ you in particular directions? Or can one pinpoint key moments?<\/p>\n

Perhaps I will write another time about my path to becoming a second-generation scientist – though I have written bits about it in different places, I have never collected it all together. One for a rainy day (luckily we have quite a lot of those in Manchester).<\/p>\n

My path to being a teenage chess geek (see my April Fool’s Day post<\/a>) was undoubtedly far simpler – there was a chess boom in England in the mid 70s, and indeed worldwide. This boom could be attributed to one man, the late Bobby Fischer<\/a>, and more specifically to his 1972 world championship match<\/a> in Reykyavik against Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

The 1972 match was the only time, before or since, that chess was the top story on the nightly news bulletins. The reason was the extraordinary drama that surrounded the match, and in particular Fischer and his essentially solo crusade to take the title from the Soviet chess establishment. It made for the perfect piece of Cold War theatre, all the more riveting as it pitted a solitary maverick genus (Fischer) against an entire national system. The Soviet chess system was, of course, backed by the Soviet state from the early 1930s onward as a pre-eminent national symbol of the intellectual superiority (as they saw it) of the communist system. Chess was taught in schools and in youth clubs, and promising players would be picked out for intensive training from as young as 7 or 8 years old.<\/p>\n

I distinctly recall that the first time I read about the Fischer-Spassky match was before it started, in the early Summer of 1972 when I was not quite eleven years old. As I remember it I read an article, probably in the Sunday Times<\/em>, about Fischer, describing his lone path to being the challenger and also indicating that the match actually might not take place at all due to wrangles over conditions and prize money. After that, when the match actually began, I was hooked.<\/p>\n

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