The Chess Mind

To commemorate what would have been Bobby Fischer's 65th birthday, his adopted country of Iceland dedicated the Reykjavik Chess Festival to his memory and arranged a side event starring four of his contemporaries (Pal Benko, Vlastimil Hort, Lajos Portisch and Fridrik Olafsson, with Boris Spassky as the referee and William Lombardy as commentator) to boot. (Portisch and Hort shared first with 4/6, according to Chess Today.) Kudos to Iceland!

Not to be outdone, the United States Chess Federation dedicates 11 pages in the current issue of Chess Life to Fischer. Is that unbelievably awesome or what? Meanwhile, Europe Echecs, a French-language chess magazine, has dedicated all of their current issue to Fischer. This is understandable, given that he never lived nor won any events in France.

Maybe the USCF thinks it's being patriotic or making a stand against Fischer's anti-Judaism; I don't know. I myself am completely repulsed by Fischer's anti-American and anti-Jewish remarks, and I'm not inclined, as many are, to blame this on some sort of mental illness. All the same, to practically disregard one of the greatest players of all time, clearly the greatest American player of all time, and possibly the main reason why the USCF has any financial assets whatsoever, does not speak well on its behalf. Spend a few pages excoriating his vile comments and noting his character flaws and eccentricities - that's appropriate. But give his legacy the attention it deserves, not just a short article by Larry Evans and a few pages of quotations presented in a space-wasting format. Present a special, perhaps extra issue of the magazine dedicated to him. Rename an event for him. Have an invitational event for American players he competed with, like Evans, Pal Benko, Robert Byrne, Arthur Bisguier, et al. In short, pretend Fischer (really) mattered, both to the chess world at large and to the United States in particular...because he did.