Word: chess
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...intervene "for the good of the country." Kissinger was not referring to his latest secret maneuverings for peace in Viet Nam. He was talking about peace in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the confrontation between Bobby Fischer of the United States and Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union for the world chess championship. After weeks of petty infighting, the stormy encounter of East v. West, of Boris the witty, urbane champion v. Bobby the temperamental, demanding challenger, had grown into an international incident. To avoid a stalemate, Kissinger, a chess player himself, put through a call to Fischer and implored...
...those who know him best, Bobby was merely being Bobby. "He is," says U.S. Grand Master Larry Evans, "the most individualistic, intransigent, uncommunicative, uncooperative, solitary, self-contained and independent chess master of all time, the loneliest chess champion in the world. He is also the strongest player in the world. In fact, the strongest player who ever lived...
...refused to enter the past two world championships, which are held every three years, charging that the long, grueling play-off rounds favored the "Russian cheaters." Four years ago, unable to gain a title match outside the Fédération Internationale des Echecs, the governing body of world chess, he stormed into retirement to "plot my revenge." Then, 18 months later, he suddenly stormed right back with a "new sense of mission," entered the championship play-offs and demolished one grand master after another. Now the knight-errant of the royal game, rated a solid 5-to-2 favorite...
...first game was played across the $5,000 marble and mahogany chess table on the stage of Reykjavik's Sports Hall. On the 29th move, when it seemed that the game was destined to be a draw, Fischer boldly picked off an unprotected pawn with his bishop. A gasp of astonishment swept the 2,000 spectators in the hall. It was, as any amateur could see, a "poisoned pawn." Trapped behind enemy lines, the bishop fell six moves later, and Spassky, making the most of his advantage, went on to win. The second game, boycotted by Fischer in a dispute...
...winning the world title from Petrosian. "I never thought about making chess my life," he says. "It came suddenly upon me, and now the chess figures are like my relatives. I know the peculiarities of each one, but I do become discouraged when I see too much of them." For all his outward cool today, Spassky, like Fischer, was an intense, flashy competitor while he was on the way up. When he blundered away his advantage and lost one game in 1958, he wept openly. "You will understand Spassky better," says one friend, "if you know that his favorite writer...