Word: fischer
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...then one day he returns. After 20 years, one finally sees his face. ^ Nelson Mandela's face too was hidden from the world for decades. When finally revealed, it had the grace, the radiance that fit the legend. Fischer? The face that 20 years ago was lean and sharp and taut is now merely gnarled. His manner, once simply eccentric, is wild and embarrassing...
...play? He returned to play a man ranked 101st in the world and, except for a couple of games in which Spassky was frankly inept, their play has been roughly even. By world championship standards, Fischer's game has been inferior -- some flashes of brilliance, but some appallingly weak play as well...
Grand masters who 20 years ago would not have dared carry his coat -- the younger ones would not have been tall enough -- now publicly call his play aimless and amateurish. One Russian grand master advises patronizingly that Fischer must "realize that chess has changed in the past 20 years." World champion Garry Kasparov notes the "low level" of play in the match. "Incredibly low," says international master Alex Sherzer, with more than a trace of disgust...
...Game 5, for example, Fischer was adrift, wandering eyeless about the board. His rook moves two squares -- then, on the next move, back one. (Like gaining 8 yds. on first down, then voluntarily taking a 4-yd. loss on second.) A bishop thrusts sharply across the board -- to a useless perch at the edge of play. "What was his ((bishop)) supposed to be aiming for?" asked a bewildered Robert Byrne in the New York Times. A good question made poignant by the source. Thirty years ago, Fischer defeated Byrne in a win so beautiful it was once described as "more...
Game 5 ended in pathos. Fischer's position became hopeless. Ten moves after he should have resigned, he moved his queen -- proud, powerful, the lion of the chessboard -- and retreated it to a corner where it cowered for protection behind three lowly pawns. As Jose Zalaquett, a top Chilean amateur player, put it, it was an almost physical retreat, a folding back into the fetal position, awaiting the final blow...