The Unstoppable American: Bobby Fischer’s Road to Reykjavik

[John Upham]

Richard James has reviewed The Unstoppable American: Bobby Fischer’s Road to Reykjavik

by GM Jan Timman

from New in Chess

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[Matt Mackenzie]

"....effectively ending Taimanov's career"?? Well up to a point, Lord Copper.

[JustinHorton]

Fischer started out by sweeping the field at the 23-round Palma Interzonal

Not by the definition of sweeping I'm accustomed to.

[John Upham]

Fischer started out by sweeping the field at the 23-round Palma Interzonal

Not by the definition of sweeping I'm accustomed to.

It is not so easy to discover who writes the publisher's blurb but they do tend to "big things up a bit" in my experience.

[Paul Cooksey]

I'm not going to risk reading the review in case it has spoilers for this very obscure part of chess history.

[John Upham]

I'm not going to risk reading the review in case it has spoilers for this very obscure part of chess history.

Paul's comment begs the question: which World Championship games have been annotated most times in differing publications?

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I'm not going to risk reading the review in case it has spoilers for this very obscure part of chess history."

That reminds me of the American woman queueing to see "Titanic" berating someone in the queue for discussing the scenes where Titanic sinks. "You've ruined the story now!"

[John Upham]

"I'm not going to risk reading the review in case it has spoilers for this very obscure part of chess history."

That reminds me of the American woman queueing to see "Titanic" berating someone in the queue for discussing the scenes where Titanic sinks. "You've ruined the story now!"

May I cite "Snakes on a Plane" as an excellent example of an appalling film killed by its very own title?

[Nick Ivell]

I'm a sucker for anything about Bobby, so will probably buy the book. Anything written by Timman should be good anyway.

A word about Fischer's KID. It was historically dodgy. He was wise not to risk it against Botvinnik.

I have played through many of Fischer's games in the KID where he was positionally lost. But of course, having a positionally won game against him was not the same as ending up with the full point! And I don't believe that in the above game, Nf4 would necessarily have resulted in a win for White.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I have played through many of Fischer's games in the KID where he was positionally lost. But of course, having a positionally won game against him was not the same as ending up with the full point!"

Well, yes. He was a very good practical player. There was a chap called Tal who set his opponents problems and they struggled. Morphy played some dubious openings and still won. I don't think it's fair to get Stockfish considering the positions for hours and then say the human got it wrong...

[Nick Ivell]

And this thing about Fischer never accepting short draws.

I give you RJF v Benko, US Champs 1960-61. Yes, Bobby was White! Not a game you will find in his 60 memorable.

[JustinHorton]

And indeed

[IM Jack Rudd]

How curious to see a draw in that particular opening.

[Angus French]

Those two games were played when Fischer was aged 17 and 15 respectively.

In my database I can find 284 Fischer draws, 35 of which were under 25 moves with just 2 of those being when Fischer was age 20+ (one of the two was against Petrosian in the Candidates final of 1971).

[Matt Mackenzie]

That last game was when he wasn't feeling well, though he didn't use that as an excuse at the time.