During the summer of 1972 in Reykjavík, Iceland, the Cold War was played out with pawns instead of missiles. The Cold War was condensed to the free world's champion versus the apparatchiks spawned by the Soviet socialist chess machine. When Fischer played Spassky in Iceland, it was an American named Bobby playing a Russian named Boris. He was the maverick American facing off against the establishment Russian. Bobby showed up in Iceland on his own, Spassky arrived with a state-sponsored entourage. Fischer was symbolic of the “American-dream player” who achieved everything through his own effort. Bobby Fischer was the United States’ most powerful unconventional weapon, used to boost nationalism on the home front and to damage the Russians moral.
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By 1934, over 500,000 amateur players had registered with the state chess program. After Mikhail Botvinnik won the World Championship title in 1948, he commenced an era of Soviet domination that extended until a disruption by an American up-and-comer Bobby Fischer.
Chicago-born Bobby Fischer kicked off his chess career at the age of six. While he was learning chess, as a child in Brooklyn, he was essentially a prodigy club player. At age thirteen however, in 1956, Fischer made a colossal leap. That year Fischer had become the youngest player ever to win the U.S. Junior Championship. He had also dominated the U.S. tournament circuit. After Fischer played Donald Byrne, one of the strongest chess players in the 1950s and 1960s, Mikhail Botvinnik, the reigning world champion, reportedly said, "We’ll have to keep an eye on this boy." The fact that he was winning national titles while he was still in middle school was not the surprising part– It was the way he was winning. He didn't just beat his opponents– he humiliated them. The thing he cherished most was watching his opponents …show more content…
Inescapably, the match became a Cold War battleground. The world's only two superpowers were going to lock horns over a chessboard. A game between “the free world” and “the lying, cheating Russians” as Fischer put it. The match was front-page news across the globe. Chess was watched in bars across the United States. Fischer's confidence had risen as he vanquished a succession of world-class players with offensive tactics to not only defeat, but crush opponents. Fischer lost the first game. Some say the first game was a blunder. Others say it was a passion to win at all costs. "Chess is war on a board. The objective is to crush the other man's mind,” Fischer once said. He then forfeited the second game when he failed to appear over a dispute over the cameras in the playing hall. With the score 2-0 in Spassky's favor, Spassky could easily have left for Moscow still in possession of his title, and nobody would have blamed him because of Fischer's erratic behavior. A last minute agreement by Spassky to play away from the cameras permitted the third game to be held. This was a major psychological mistake by Spassky. In the third game, in a small room backstage, Fischer beat Spassky for the first time. The games then returned to the main stage, but without cameras. Winning again in the fifth, sixth, eighth, and tenth game, the Fischer ‘juggernaut’ had become unstoppable and on September 1st, Spassky
By 1934, over 500,000 amateur players had registered with the state chess program. After Mikhail Botvinnik won the World Championship title in 1948, he commenced an era of Soviet domination that extended until a disruption by an American up-and-comer Bobby Fischer.
Chicago-born Bobby Fischer kicked off his chess career at the age of six. While he was learning chess, as a child in Brooklyn, he was essentially a prodigy club player. At age thirteen however, in 1956, Fischer made a colossal leap. That year Fischer had become the youngest player ever to win the U.S. Junior Championship. He had also dominated the U.S. tournament circuit. After Fischer played Donald Byrne, one of the strongest chess players in the 1950s and 1960s, Mikhail Botvinnik, the reigning world champion, reportedly said, "We’ll have to keep an eye on this boy." The fact that he was winning national titles while he was still in middle school was not the surprising part– It was the way he was winning. He didn't just beat his opponents– he humiliated them. The thing he cherished most was watching his opponents …show more content…
Inescapably, the match became a Cold War battleground. The world's only two superpowers were going to lock horns over a chessboard. A game between “the free world” and “the lying, cheating Russians” as Fischer put it. The match was front-page news across the globe. Chess was watched in bars across the United States. Fischer's confidence had risen as he vanquished a succession of world-class players with offensive tactics to not only defeat, but crush opponents. Fischer lost the first game. Some say the first game was a blunder. Others say it was a passion to win at all costs. "Chess is war on a board. The objective is to crush the other man's mind,” Fischer once said. He then forfeited the second game when he failed to appear over a dispute over the cameras in the playing hall. With the score 2-0 in Spassky's favor, Spassky could easily have left for Moscow still in possession of his title, and nobody would have blamed him because of Fischer's erratic behavior. A last minute agreement by Spassky to play away from the cameras permitted the third game to be held. This was a major psychological mistake by Spassky. In the third game, in a small room backstage, Fischer beat Spassky for the first time. The games then returned to the main stage, but without cameras. Winning again in the fifth, sixth, eighth, and tenth game, the Fischer ‘juggernaut’ had become unstoppable and on September 1st, Spassky