Endgame (9 page)

Shipman, who was rated among the top twenty players in the United States, grasped the boy’s potential. Eagerly, he played him a series of blitz games at one second a move, and Bobby won about a third of them. Shipman remembered: “
I was so impressed by his play that I introduced the 12-year old to Maurice Kasper, the president of the club and a millionaire garment maker, whose beneficent offer of a free junior membership was immediately accepted by Bobby.” Bobby became the youngest member in the club’s history. Kasper told him that he could come every day if he wished. Bobby beamed. He was like a little kid being set free in a candy store.

The Manhattan Chess Club was the strongest chess club in the country and the second oldest. It was founded in 1877, three years after the Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club of San Francisco, and for many years it included almost every great player that the United States produced. Chess enthusiasts from out of town and even from other countries, hearing of the club’s almost mythic history, moved to New York just to become members of the Manhattan, to improve their skills and have a chance to play against the greats. Its popularity was analogous to the way artists flocked to Paris in the 1920s to hone their craft under the tutelage of the masters there. The club had been the site of two World Championship matches (Steinitz-Zukertort in 1886
and Steinitz-Gunsberg 1890–91) and had hosted the annual United States Championship tournament since the 1930s. A preponderance of the members were Jewish, a group that had pursued the game for centuries and was highly proficient at it. More than one million Jews, most of them immigrants, lived in New York City at that time, and many had brought with them their love for chess. In 1974, Anthony Saidy wrote in
The World of Chess
that “
perhaps half of all of the greatest players of the past hundred years have been Jews.” When asked whether he was Jewish, Bobby replied, “Part. My mother is Jewish.”

On the rare occasions when no worthy opponents were available at the Manhattan during the daytime, Bobby would wander into Central Park and play under the open sky at the stone chess tables near the Wollman skating rink. During one long, exasperating endgame, it began to rain, and neither he nor his opponent would let the storm stay their appointed task of finishing the game. Bobby thought and played, pondered and moved, all the while becoming drenched. When he finally arrived home, his clothes soaked, his sneakers squeaking and swishing water, and his hair looking as if he’d just stepped from a shower, Regina was furious. But her anger never lasted long.

The Manhattan Chess Club was organized into four groups, based on playing strength. The strongest was the rarefied “A” group where the masters and experts resided; then there was the “A-Reserve,” consisting of potentially strong players, followed by the “B” group and finally the “C” category, which incorporated the lowest-rated or weakest players, many of whom were hoping to work their way up the ladder. In the first few weeks of his membership, Bobby enrolled in a tournament for C players and won it easily. He advanced to the B group and played tournaments within that section until he eventually won and was promoted to the A-Reserves. Ultimately, in not quite a year, he finished first in that group as well.

Soon he was going to the club every day, staying there from early afternoon until late at night. Regina wanted him to go to summer camp as he had before, but Bobby wouldn’t hear of it. For him, the Manhattan Chess Club was nirvana, and although he hadn’t yet developed a grand plan about dedicating his life to chess, he loved the feeling of winning and wanted to be near the game all the time. The Brooklyn Chess Club only afforded him the chance to play on Friday nights and an occasional Tuesday—the two nights of the
week they met—for a total of about four hours on any given evening. At the Manhattan, though, he could play twelve hours a day, seven days a week.

The game not only engaged Bobby’s mind, it tempered his loneliness, and while playing, he felt more alive. Since it was the summer and there was no school, he’d rise late, after his mother and sister had left the apartment, eat breakfast alone at a diner, and take the subway into Manhattan to go to the club. Regina would constantly monitor him, bringing him liverwurst sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil and a container of milk for dinner, lest Bobby, engrossed in his games, skip his evening meal. At about midnight every night, she’d appear at the club and almost have to drag him back to Brooklyn, the pair taking the one-hour subway ride home together.

Throughout that summer and during the next few years, Bobby began making chess friends at the club. At first his friendships were mostly with older players—but perhaps as a result of Bobby’s now being a member, or because of a shift in the club’s policy, promising players Bobby’s own age or just a few years older were permitted to join, and these, finally, were children he could relate to. Many would remain lifelong friends or competitors-in-arms. William Lombardy, who’d go on to win the World Junior Championship and enter the pantheon as a grandmaster, was six years older than Bobby and at first beat him most of the time. He was an intense and brilliant young man who possessed a great positional sense. Bernard Zuckerman, who was almost as studious as Bobby in analyzing games, especially the strategy of opening moves, was born just days apart from Bobby and ultimately would become an international master. Asa Hoffmann—like Bobby, born in 1943 and the son of two Park Avenue lawyers—became a master and was also adept at other board games, such as Scrabble and backgammon, in addition to chess, and acquired a reputation as a “money” player: that is, his ability often increased in proportion to the wager or prize. Jackie Beers, a short young man with a charming smile and a ferocious temper, earned Bobby’s respect because Beers could sometimes hold his own with him in speed games; and James Gore, a tall redheaded boy who dressed conservatively even as a teen and who adopted a condescending attitude toward anyone he defeated, had a great influence on Bobby. All of these young players would eventually be surpassed by Fischer, but they tested him with daring alternative variations, and his play sharpened as a result.

Bobby would play as many as a hundred speed games against his friendly foes on any given day. Eventually, as the boys blossomed into their teens and then became young men, Bobby emerged as a leader of sorts: Whatever he wanted they gave him; wherever he went they followed. “One more,” he’d say voraciously, setting up the pieces, and no one refused him. Dr. Stuart Margulies, a master, who was several years older than Bobby, said in retrospect, “
I adored playing with Bobby, just
adored
it!” Playing with Bobby was like reading the poetry of Robert Frost or taking a long hot bath. You came away feeling better for it. Perhaps you learned something, or perhaps the concentration required calmed you, even if you did lose a preponderance of games. Players would often smile when they resigned a game to Bobby, showing admiration for his brilliance.

One of the first grandmasters whom Bobby met at the club was Nicholas Rossolimo, the U.S. Open Champion and former champion of France. The day they met, Rossolimo was sitting on a sofa, eating a bagel with lox and cream cheese, and he spoke to Bobby with his mouth full. Because of that—and Rossolimo’s pronounced accent—Bobby couldn’t understand a word.
Nevertheless, the boy was impressed at being in the presence of a champion, and awed that Rossolimo would deign to talk to him, mumbler though he was.

Within a few months after joining the club, Bobby, together with Lombardy and Gore, dominated the weekly speed tournaments, which limited players to ten seconds a move.
Eighty-year-old Harold M. Phillips, a master and member of the board, wistfully likened Bobby’s style of play to that of Capablanca, whom he remembered well from when the young Cuban joined the club at seventeen in 1905.

Although Bobby’s life now revolved around the Manhattan, there were other pawns to capture. Nigro brought his student to the 1955 United States Amateur Championship, held at the end of May, during the Memorial Day weekend. Because players of master strength weren’t eligible to enter, the tournament encouraged the participation of weaker and less experienced players. It was a Swiss System tournament (in which players with like scores keep getting paired until a winner emerges after a specific number of rounds are played), with each contestant playing six games. The tournament was held at a resort at Lake Mohegan, north of New York City, in Westchester County.

As Nigro drove out of the city, he and Bobby held their usual conversation, the boy questioning theories he’d read and asking about the strength or weakness of moves that he or an opponent had made during games at the Manhattan Chess Club. After a while, Bobby switched to questions about the weekend’s tournament. Who did Nigro think would enter? How strong would the other players be? How did he think Bobby would do?

Sensing that Bobby felt insecure, Nigro tried to reassure the boy and explained how important it was for him to gain competitive experience. Bobby became quieter, finally biting his nails and staring out the window at the scenery as their car turned off the highway onto the road that cut through the fields alongside the lake to the resort.

When they arrived at the tournament site, and Nigro was about to pay the $5 entry fee and enroll Bobby as a member of the U.S. Chess Federation, as was required of all participants, Bobby lost either his nerve or his will and said he didn’t want to play. He said he’d seen people swimming in the lake and rowing boats. He’d rather do that, he felt. There was also a tennis court! Nigro tried to bring his attention back to the reason they were there. Bobby argued that since the hotel room was already paid for (only $3 a night for each person, a special rate given to tournament participants) and they were going to stay the weekend anyway, he wanted to take advantage of the sports possibilities.

Nigro realized that Bobby was trying to stave off what he feared would be an inevitable loss. He persuaded the boy to change his mind and urged him to the board. Bobby played, but because of either his wavering confidence or interest, his efforts resulted in a minus score. Years after, Bobby recalled that he was unhappy with the outcome and took to heart Nigro’s advice: “
You can’t win
every
game. Just do your best
every
time.”

A few months later, determined to make up for his poor showing, Bobby mailed in his registration to play in the U.S. Junior Championship in Lincoln, Nebraska. Nigro couldn’t take time off from his teaching schedule to accompany him, nor could Regina leave her job and studies, especially since she’d been home ill with a chronic lung problem for three weeks. So Bobby elected to go alone.

He stood impatiently at a ticket window in Pennsylvania Station where Regina was attempting to buy him a ticket to Nebraska via Philadelphia.
She’d saved the money for him to go and was determined to get him there. The plan was for Bobby to take the train to Philadelphia and meet another player, Charles Kalme, who was also going to attend the U.S. Junior. The two could then travel the almost 1,400 miles together. “How old is your son, ma’am?” the ticket agent asked. Told that the boy was twelve, the agent refused to sell her a ticket. “He’s too young to travel all that distance alone.” “But you don’t understand,” she argued. “He must go! It’s for his chess!” The agent peered over his glasses and looked at Bobby. “Why didn’t you tell me the boy was going for medical care?” Years later, Bobby laughed in reminiscing about the incident: “And he sold us the ticket without further talk. He thought there was something wrong with my
chest
!” With some trepidation Regina sent her little chess duckling on his way, but not before draping a large U.S. Army surplus dog tag around his neck, engraved with his name, address, and telephone number. “In case …,” she said. “Don’t take it off!” And he didn’t.

Charles Kalme, a Latvian-born sixteen-year-old, was a handsome and polite boy who’d spent years in a displaced persons’ camp and was the reigning U.S. Junior champion. He and Bobby played dozens of fast games during the two-day trip and analyzed openings and endgame positions. Kalme, considerably stronger, was respectful of Bobby’s passion.

Unfortunately for the participants in the U.S. Junior, the city of Lincoln was embroiled in a heat wave of more than one hundred degrees during the run of the tournament, and Civic Hall, the ballroom where play took place, seemed to have little if any air-conditioning. Going into the ten-round tournament, twelve-year-old Bobby was the youngest of twenty-five players. One contestant was thirteen, and there were several twenty-year-olds, all rated quite highly. Ron Gross, slightly older and more experienced than Bobby, later reflected back on Bobby’s performance there: “Fischer was skinny and fidgety but pleasant in a distracted way. He wasn’t a bad loser.
He would just get real quiet, twist that dog tag even more and immediately set up the pieces to play again.”
Regina called Bobby every day at an arranged time to see if he was all right, and when she received the telephone bill at the end of the month, it came to $50, more than she was paying for rent.

Bobby, dog tag entwined, managed to compile an even score, with two wins, two losses, and six draws, fretting afterward that “I didn’t do too
well.” But he was awarded a handsome trophy for achieving the best score of a player under the age of thirteen. “I was the
only
player under 13!” Bobby was quick to point out. The trophy was quite large and heavy, yet he insisted on carrying it back to Brooklyn rather than have it shipped. “
It gave me a big thrill,” he remembered, despite not having won it for exceptional play. His traveling companion, Charles Kalme, repeated his win of the previous year and was crowned the champion once again. He didn’t return to the East Coast right after the tournament, so Bobby journeyed alone, this time by bus, looking out the window sometimes, but mostly analyzing games on his pocket set.