Bobby Makes His Move

To all outward appearances, the drama that ran at the Teatro General San Martin in Buenos Aires during the past month had all the color and excitement of a library reading room. There, sitting in mute isolation on the vast stage, two men huddled over a small table for hours like grad students cramming for their final exams. At the slightest stir in the sellout audience of 1,200, red signs flashed SILENCIO. The tension was almost palpable. Grand Masters Bobby Fischer of the United States and Tigran Petrosian of the Soviet

Union were playing for the privilege of meeting Russia's Boris Spassky this spring for the world chess championship.

The matchup between the wily Armenian and the Brooklyn kid was a classic encounter of East v. West, old pro v. young upstart. Ticket scalpers asked --and got--triple the cost of admission. Hundreds of other enthusiasts stood in line for up to nine hours to buy tickets. For each game in the best-of-twelve series, the theater was filled with elegant ladies peering through pearled opera glasses and vested gentlemen following the play on pocket chess sets. Another 3,000 fans crowded into the lobby, where they could watch and argue each move as it was relayed from the stage to a huge demonstration board. Radio Argentina provided play-by-play coverage, and an international team of reporters filed stories to an estimated 60 million chess players round the world.

Last week, during the crucial ninth game, the flashing SILENCIO signs could not still the sudden bursts of applause. Finally, after four hours and 27 minutes, Petrosian studied the shattered remains of his French Defense and resigned the game--and the match--to Fischer. While hundreds of fans jostled into the auditorium chanting "Bobbee! Bob-bee!," Fischer disappeared out the stage door and went bowling till 3:30 a.m. Headlined the Buenos Aires daily Cronica: A GENIUS, WITHOUT A DOUBT. At Moscow's Central Chess Club the reaction was summed up by one player who sighed: "Well, we've still got Spassky."

At home the response was lukewarm at best. The New York Daily News, one of only two U.S. dailies that bothered to send an expert (U.S. Grand Master Robert Byrne) to cover the match, ran most of its accounts on the obituary page. Said Fischer: "Around the world I'm better known than Joe Namath. But in the States I'm a nobody."

A dropout from Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School, Fischer himself has never had any doubt about his rightful place in the chess hierarchy. In 1957, as a 14-year-old schoolboy, he strolled into the Manhattan Chess Club in sneakers, dungarees and T shirt and won the first of his eight U.S. championships. For the past decade, he has repeatedly proclaimed himself the "unofficial world champion." Charging that the members of the powerful Russian team "cheated" by playing for draws against each other but to win against Western grand masters, he declined to enter the last two of the world championships--which are held every three years. When officials at the 1968 Chess Olympiad turned down his demands for better playing conditions, he refused to play and went into retirement "to plot my revenge." Eighteen months later, he returned to active competition with a "sense of mission." If he could not change the system, he would win in spite of it.

Last year, in the long grinding playoff rounds for the world championship, Fischer demolished the field at Palma de Mallorca, Spain, by sweeping his last seven games. That earned him the right to meet Soviet Grand Master Mark Taimanov in Vancouver six months ago. Though many experts predicted Fischer would win by a score of 61 to 41 (one point is awarded for a win, i for a draw), he stunned Taimanov by taking six straight games. Then it was on to Denver in July and a match against Denmark's Bent Larsen, who is, next to Fischer, the most formidable player in the West. Again Fischer won by the astounding score of 6-0. His 19 consecutive victories were without parallel in the long history of grand-master competition. Declared Sovietsky Sport: "A miracle has occurred."

Nervous Collapse. Shortly before meeting Fischer in Buenos Aires, Petrosian praised his rival as "an aggressive player with brilliant innovations." But a team of Soviet experts had helped the 42-year-old grand master bone up for the match. "I will find the formula," he said. His game plan was hardly a secret. A former world champion (1963-69), the short, dark Armenian is renowned as the game's most brilliant defensive player. Skillfully maneuvering his pieces into a kind of impenetrable Maginot Line, he tends to outlast rather than outfight his opponents. In his first play-off match against West Germany's Robert Huber, Petrosian's patient, cautious, glamourless game resulted in six straight draws. Buckling under the pressure, the young German grand master lost the seventh game and then, on the verge of nervous collapse, forfeited the match. Tigran's next contest, against Russia's Viktor Korchnoi, was more of the same; after eight straight draws, the exhausted Korchnoi blundered and Petrosian moved in for the kill. Says former World Champion (1935-37) Max Euwe of The Netherlands: "The man plays like a snake. He waits for you to make one false move and then he pounces."

In marked contrast, Fischer is the relentless aggressor. Now 28 and near the peak of his considerable powers, he no longer favors the flashy, intricate but error-prone attacks of his younger days. He has become the classical tactician, launching his assaults from solid positional bases, overpowering rather than dazzling his opponents. Paradoxically, his celebrated killer instinct was the one trait that seemed to threaten his chances against Petrosian. Prematch speculation had it that Fischer, the only grand master who consistently prefers to risk defeat rather than settle for a tie game, might be a setup for the Petrosian ploy of forcing draws. Said U.S. Grand Master Larry Evans, who served as Fischer's second in Buenos Aires: "The only way Petrosian can beat Bobby is by boring him to death."

In the first game, the foxy Petrosian did just the opposite. Countering Fischer's predictable king's pawn opening with the aggressive Sicilian Defense, Tigran went by the textbook through his first ten moves. Then on his eleventh, he offered a surprise pawn sacrifice that was undoubtedly the fruit of the Soviets' intensive analysis of Fischer's game. Though he had seized the initiative, Petrosian, seemingly unaccustomed to the role of aggressor, was unable to take advantage of his superior board position. Pressed for time (each player is allowed 2 1/2 hours to make the first 40 moves), Petrosian faltered long enough in the late going to allow Fischer to score a comeback victory.

Desperate Attempt. Sniffing and sipping hot tea while he fought off a cold, Bobby began the second game by boldly launching an early attack without first castling his king into a protected corner--a basic defensive maneuver taught in every chess primer. That indiscretion proved costly; it ultimately gave Petrosian an opportunity to pin Fischer's exposed king in a devastating crossfire. Backed into a corner after the 32nd move, Fischer pondered his plight for ten minutes and then resigned. His win streak ended at 20 straight, Bobby suddenly seemed to lose his momentum.

The next three games were draws. Struggling to break the old Petrosian pattern, Fischer grew increasingly edgy. He kept to himself more than usual. He stopped working out at a local athletic club. He changed hotels to escape distracting noises. Something must have worked; in the sixth game, he regained his form and battered away at Petrosian's defense in a battle that took two days and a total of eight hours to complete. In the end, thwarted in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to salvage a draw, Petrosian gave up. Pleading "low blood pressure," the Armenian asked that the next game be postponed. He was past help. Fischer took the next three games in stunning fashion and won the match 6 1/2 to 2 1/2. Afterward, Soviet Grand Master Yuri Averbakh, Petrosian's trainer, explained that "Tigran's spirit was completely broken after the sixth game. Anyway, it is impossible to win a world title when you are over 40. Spassky is 34 and will demand the maximum from Fischer."

In Russia, where chess is not only the national pastime but a symbol of Soviet culture, the maximum will also be demanded of Spassky. Since the championship play-offs were first instituted in 1948, the Russians have had a monopoly on the title. Indeed, no Westerner has ever even made it to the finals and the Bobby v. Boris encounter is already being heralded as the match of the decade--if not the century.

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