Fischer-Spassky - 50th Anniversary Exhibition

[Paul Habershon]

Part of the problem was an over-rating of the 2 bishops. Bobby loved having BxN played against him.

Though an exception is Fischer playing the Exchange Lopez.

https://youtu.be/A7tTHKVgPmw

[Nick Ivell]

Yes. The Exchange had great surprise value for him, and he did a lot of work on it. It was hardly 'natural' Bobby though.

The same could be said for the Nimzo. Yes, I know there were famous wins against Portisch and Spassky but what about the loss to Petrosian in the Candidates 1959?

No one ever talks about it. Instead, it's all about game 5 v Spassky; but Boris was terrible in that game, blundering at the end when there was still a lot of work to do.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Spassky's absolute low point was surely game 8, where he was genuinely little better than a patzer.

After that he markedly improved for the rest of the match, but the damage had already been done.

[Nick Ivell]

I feel that the die was cast with Spassky's terrible play with White in games 3 and 5. Formerly, Spassky had always done well with White against Fischer, although a lot of the time Bobby was over-pressing.

Back to Bobby's weaknesses (I love a discussion about chess, rather than about personality).

He was very much a bishop man. Not a knight man. There are very few games in his canon where I would have said to him 'great work with the knight, Bobby'.

Ironically, the final game of his perfect US championship featured a N v B ending, so rare with Bobby. It was, of course, a position where the superiority of the N was not open to question. Even so, Saidy could have drawn with correct play.

[Nick Ivell]

In fact I associate great work with the knight with Fischer's opponents.

I refer the curious to 56. Nh5! in the aforementioned game v Eliskases. Textbook tactics.

[Nick Ivell]

Fischer v Unzicker, Siegen 1970.

Great use of the knight, Bobby!

There are always exceptions...