On Chess and Nuttiness

From this:


To this:



I just finished Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall - From America's brightest prodigy to the edge of madness, by Frank Brady. It involves two of my favorite topics: Chess and unstable people.

Bobby Fischer's singular brilliance on a chess board was fascinating. And the ungodly amount of time he put into mastering that game left enormous holes in his social development. The result was a brilliant but moody and unstable chess prodigy who reached the peak of world chess domination and then disappeared into seclusion only to emerge decades later spouting conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic venom.

It's just odd.

The first thing I took from the book was complete appreciation for what Fischer accomplished in Chess. Fischer's contribution altered how the game was played and created a new generation of chess players worldwide.

A few highlights: He was the youngest grandmaster in the history of Chess (13); he won a completely unheard-of 20-straight games on his way to qualifying for the World Title match with Spassky; he won two consecutive US Championships without losing or drawing a single game (11 victories each year); and he so thoroughly scared the Soviet chess machine that seven of the nation's top Grand Masters were assigned to find weaknesses in his game (Including "master of endgame," "master of openings," etc.).

There was also this: He expected to be treated like a king at all times and required all demands (no matter how ridiculous or inconvenient) be met 100%. Moody and fragile does not begin to describe his obstinacy. I came away believing that moodiness was not an intentional strategy of psychological warfare as much as an accurate reflection of his personality.

He won the title, made such ridiculous demands for his first scheduled-defense of that title against Karpov in 1975 that he resigned the title without a game (leaving millions of dollars on the table) and disappeared for about 20 years. He became a vagrant, literally went into hiding and "wandered" Los Angeles with a new beard to hide his identity.

He surfaced only to play a game against Spassky in 1992 in violation of international sanctions in Yugoslavia as it was being torn asunder by war (he posed with Milosevich). That led to him hiding in various placed all over the globe and surfacing only enough to spout hate-filled rants. Apparently unsatisfied with being merely allowed to travel despite his status as a fugitive from the law, he then applauded the 9/11 attacks, thus provoking the repeal of that passport.

After being arrested in Japan, he renounced citizenship and negotiated Icelandic citizenship. He died in Iceland a bitter and ranting victim of too many perceived slights to count.

Unfortunately, 1950s US policy helped create "Crazy Bobby" because the CIA had 750 pages worth of file on his mother because she attended protests and tapped his childhood phone because he frequented a Russian bookstore to study chess. In other words, its easy to believe in conspiracies when your phone is tapped from an early age and you are followed and approached by agents in black suits and sunglasses. I'm not saying it makes his later paranoia logical, but it sure didn't help. I have yet to discover one positive impact of Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunts.

I recommend the book highly as both fascinating and educational. It's a great read and a sad, sad story.

I started playing chess at age five and have started teaching Jacob how to play this year. Its a game I too-often stray from and always wish I could play more. It set me once again to search for a local chess club. Once again to no avail, but I'm now going to find a way to play one way or the other.

Bobby Fischer is an example of how not to raise a promising-child, but the greatness of the game benefitted from having devoured his sanity.

The Most British Letter Ever

(from "Motoring With Mohammed" )


Dear Eric, 


Many thanks for your letter. I was away in Spain for a few weeks.  I visited Galicia where people are so melancholy...then on to Leon where they are also melancholy.  I traveled to Portugal and found the people there even more melancholy. The friend I was with thought he was going to die so we left the day before the Great Fire of Lisbon- having eaten and drunk far more than was good for us. I spent a few days in Cairo, where people thought my Arabic hilarious.  I found the Egyptians anything but melancholy. The cafes there serve a milky drink with nuts in, which is ambrosial. I rowed around the Nile in the sunset, and listened to a tape of readings by Benjamin Zephaniah, an English Rastafarian poet, in the City of the Dead under the shadow of the Qait Bey mosque. It's beginning to get cold in San'a, which always makes me want to go on walks. PM is right in recommending Jabal Bura. I once went walking there, climbing the last part of the mountain with my nose on a level with a donkey's farting fundament. A Bura burro. There's a strange bit of forest along the way- loud with the cries of baboons.  What I'm trying to say is I should love to go on a trip with you. You asked what you could bring.  A piece of cheese would be nice, and a supply of cigarette bangers. The sort that you put in a cigarette and blow up the end.  
Hope to see you soon, 
                                                        
                                                                                                                        Martin

If you read this letter and it doesn't make you happy, try reading it in a jaunty british accent.  If that still doesn't make you happy, you are most likely dead inside and thus very melancholy and I pity you.

Submerged

There is not a whole lot better than getting two paychecks on the same day, let alone the Friday before a holiday weekend. I decided to celebrate this rare event by purchasing a new video game, which had been taunting me for some weeks.  And I have now played the game, "LA Noire", every day this week, and completed it just last night.  To say I am addicted to the game would be an understatement.