The Chess Mind

We continue to commemorate the career of Bobby Fischer, the late world chess champion, with a look at a win from the middle period of his career. By 1966 he was clearly near the top, but there was a strong case to be made for players like Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, and (by decade’s end) Bent Larsen, too. What was clear is that he was an extremely powerful player on the rise, and that power was seen in a mighty way in the Second Piatigorsky Cup in Santa Monica, California. The event was a double round-robin starring many of the best players of the day, and after the first cycle Fischer’s score was a dismal 3½-5½, leaving him 9th out of 10 players.

At this point, Fischer demonstrated his greatness as a player and turned everything around. In the next 7 rounds, Fischer scored 6½ points to pull into a tie for first with Spassky. They drew each other in the next round, but then Spassky won his last round game while Fischer could only draw against Petrosian. Thus Spassky won first place in the tournament, but Fischer’s fantastic comeback left no doubts about the threat he posed to Soviet hegemony. It took him six more years before he could break through against Spassky and win the title, but performances like this one showed that his time was coming.

As you probably guessed, we’ll take a look at one of Fischer’s games from this tournament. In round 11, he faced the “little Botvinnik”, Hungarian grandmaster and many-time Candidate Lajos Portisch. Portisch, like Fischer, was always very well-prepared in his openings, but wasn’t as good at improvisation. That cost him, as the non-standard position that arose from Fischer’s Nimzo-Indian led to a situation where Portisch followed the “rules” and got into trouble. Generally speaking, two rooks are stronger than a queen, and that’s the material balance Portisch eagerly pursued straight out of the opening. What counts, however, is how well one can coordinate one’s forces, and Fischer’s assessment proved superior, and he went on to win a strategic masterpiece.

If a player of Portisch’s exceptional caliber can seriously misassess such a position, we can too! It’s therefore in our interest to take a careful look at this game. Material imbalances like this one come up from time to time, and it’s rare that we study them in advance. So this is a wonderful opportunity to learn something new, while simultaneously taking an appreciative look at one of Fischer’s many beautiful contributions to our game. I hope, therefore, that you’ll join me tonight – Wednesday night – at 9 p.m. ET – see you then!

(Directions for watching the show live (for free) can be found here.)