Searching for Bobby Fischer (12 page)

Karpov’s and Kasparov’s strategies were far beyond most of us in the pressroom. In addition to extraordinary chess genius, world-class grandmasters have a mental file of hundreds of thousands of complex positions and opening variations accumulated from experience and study—an encyclopedia of chess history to help speed their analysis during games. This allows them automatically to play moves that appear esoteric and inexplicable to the amateur. Still, everyone in the pressroom analyzed and tried to beat them to the punch. Movie stars, politicians and journalists scrutinized the boards for a knight fork or a mate in two, tactics far too obvious for grandmaster play. I spent many intense hours trying to relate positions on the monitor to ones I’d experienced with Josh in our
living room. When you’ve traveled six thousand miles to watch chess, you try.

Usually there were about twenty grandmasters in the room, and after virtually every move of a close game, one of them would offer an opinion. “It’s an easy victory for Karpov; Kasparov must resign,” one would say. Minutes later from across the room another grandmaster would slowly rise from his chair and state gravely, as if historians were taking notes, “Kasparov is clearly ahead.” Denker had the habit of changing his mind two or three times a game, and each pronouncement was flashed to Europe and South America by telex. Without the time and quiet to study the position systematically, the blitz analysis of the grandmasters was not much different from Joshua’s fairy-tale interpretations. The intuitions of these sages were affected by wishful thinking and by jealousy, but mainly by the imperative need to say something into a camera or to appease a pesky journalist who was late filing his story. In the pressroom, Karpov’s and Kasparov’s advantages depended not so much on the position of the pieces as on whom you asked, and while the clock ticked to the end of a game, each opinion seemed loaded with significance.

Everything in the pressroom was big news. One afternoon Grandmaster Alexandria, dressed in a black slinky dress, moved through the room like Lady Brett Ashley. When I asked her for an interview, she sat on a stool, crossed her legs and glamorously swept her hair back. Before I had finished my second question we were bathed in spotlights. Every time I interviewed people in the room the same thing happened; cameramen assumed that when the American writer asked questions it must be important.

Dimitrije Bjelica was a dynamo, turning out articles in different languages for various papers. Like a track star he raced from phone to phone, belting out stories. “I never write a thing; there’s no time,” he said. One afternoon while he took a frantic break, I mentioned some piece of gossip about Bobby Fischer. The following morning the story was printed in two different newspapers.

“Who’s winning?” I asked Dimitrije on another occasion. He looked weary this afternoon—weary with chess. He shrugged: who knows, who cares? But a few minutes later he was standing in front
of the cameras discussing the game with crackling confidence, as though he had direct access to Karpov’s brain.

A Russian journalist was making a fortune exchanging dollars for rubles. “There is absolutely no risk,” he said. “Two rubles for every American dollar. You can exchange as much as you want.” A Russian photographer whispered to me that I should watch out for the guy; he was with the KGB. The KGB was like Zorro; the name was on everyone’s lips. They were bigger than life, but maybe they weren’t there at all. How could you know for sure? Maybe the photographer was jealous of the journalist, who carried a wad of rubles as thick as a loaf of bread. Western newsmen were standing on line to exchange their money. At this exchange rate an American would get more than twice as much for his dollar, but the Russian was making a killing; the normal rate on the black market was five rubles for a dollar. “I was with three women last night,” he said. “Do you want Russian women? It’s no problem. You like big women? Whatever you want.” He reminded me of a Puerto Rican fence in New York I’d once known who prided himself on his ability to deliver, on twenty-four hours’ notice, any model of any appliance you wanted.

Each day Alexander Kostyev, the senior coach of the chess department of the U.S.S.R. Sports Committee, was at the match, shaking hands with old friends and watching the monitor. I introduced myself and explained that I would like to visit one of the special chess schools. He was prepared for my question. “It is too bad, but all the schools are closed for repairs,” he said, repeating what I had already heard.

“Surely there must be someplace in Moscow where children are studying with teachers that isn’t closed for repairs,” I said. Kostyev acknowledged that this might be true. “The only thing you can do is to ask the permission of Nikolai Krogius,” he said, referring to the head of the chess department of the Sports Committee. “Unfortunately,” he added, “Krogius is taking his rest in Georgia.”

It was the fourth game of the match. After two draws, Kasparov had lost the third game. On the TV monitor he appeared tired, and now he strode around the stage, trying to rouse himself. Eric Schiller, Kasparov’s American friend, was edgy and banged the
pieces for emphasis while he analyzed in a commanding voice. When he offered an opinion, newsmen jotted it down in their notebooks. “Gary’s okay,” he said to one. “I spoke to him this afternoon. Had a little cold but he’s feeling much better.”

“Bruce,” Arnold Denker called to Pandolfini in the whiskey voice of an old gin-rummy player from the Catskills, “Bruce, I switched hotels. Now I’m at the Rossiya. But what a mistake. The room is just terrible.” Then, turning to someone behind him, “It doesn’t work. Did you look at the skewer after rook takes pawn?” Then back to Bruce. “There’s no hot water, no room service. The Cosmos was terrific. They had everything. Stay where you are.”

Denker, suntanned, fit and smiling in a neatly pressed summer suit, looked young for his seventy-one years. Speaking to Josh, he pointed in the direction of Miguel Najdorf. “That man is a living legend. He beat Alekhine. Botvinnik.” Josh looked confused; he glanced around the pressroom, assuming that Alekhine and Botvinnik were at one of the tables. “He beat Bobby Fischer,” Denker added.

“You beat Bobby Fischer?” Joshua asked, finally impressed, and Najdorf smiled.

“Did you ever play Bruce Pandolfini?” Josh asked, glancing respectfully at his teacher.

“Miguel, I still remember the game against Botvinnik in forty-six,” Denker said. “It was forty years ago and I remember every move.”

A journalist asked Denker what he thought of Kasparov. “He’s a genius!” he exclaimed. “Half-Jewish, half-Armenian. How could he miss? If only Petrosian had been half-Jewish. Because he had the other half, the Armenian.

“Miguel, have you ever gone back to Warsaw?” Denker went on. The silver-haired Najdorf shook his head without taking his eyes from the position on the board. Born in Poland, Najdorf had sought asylum in Argentina in 1939. Back home, his family had been murdered in a concentration camp.

Grandmaster Iosif Davidovich Dorfman, Kasparov’s top aide, came into the pressroom and agreed to answer a few questions. I asked him whether or not Kasparov’s Jewish background was a disadvantage in the match. “It seems clear,” I said, “that Karpov’s
team is much stronger. I’ve been told that most top grandmasters are afraid to associate themselves with Kasparov.” Dorfman, himself a Jew, looked uneasy and, before saying anything to me, spoke in Russian to a man standing nearby. Then he replied that if I asked these kinds of questions he wouldn’t be able to continue the interview.

KARPOV CONSIDERED HIS
position for half an hour, then pushed a black pawn and looked confidently out at the audience. Kasparov appeared to be startled. Reporters raced around the pressroom looking for their favorite players to interview, while grandmasters moved pieces and scratched their heads. “He played my move,” Denker said merrily.

After a minute or two, Kasparov pushed a pawn in defense. “That was idiotic,” said Eric Schiller and banged down his rook. “Gary, what are you doing? You’re gonna blow another one.”

“Eric, what’s the big deal?” said Denker. “I like black’s position, but it doesn’t mean he’s winning.”

Mikhail Tal moved around the pressroom like a cat. In 1960, at the age of twenty-four, he became the youngest man ever to win the world championship and according to Fischer was one of the ten greatest players who ever lived. During an era when grandmasters were fighting for microscopic positional advantages and chess seemed to be evolving into an era of draws spiced by occasional dry technical wins, Tal blasted everyone off the board. In the spirit of the nineteenth-century romantic players, he went for the home run, sacrificing his queens and rooks for mate while many of his defeated opponents claimed lamely that his thrilling sacrifices and combinations were unsound. Now, at forty-eight, wild gray hair flowed from his head, and his eyes bulged with genius, or perhaps madness. He moved from one table to the next and paused for a moment, glaring at the position. While he stared there was complete silence. Eventually he would move a piece or two, and the grandmasters would nod. For several minutes after Tal moved on, they left the position alone, as if it were holy, but eventually their own ideas began to take hold again and they would start moving the pieces and making predictions to reporters.

Now Karpov played pawn takes pawn. “He’s made a mistake,”
shouted Denker. “Where’s Najdorf? I’ve gotta make a bet with Najdorf. I’m gonna give him eight to five.”

“Gary’s okay, Gary’s okay,” Schiller muttered, trying to reassure himself. Tal, Polugayevsky and Josh Waitzkin saw winning chances for white; Dolmatov and Dvoretsky liked black. The place was going berserk; someone was winning.

In the midst of the bedlam, Kostyev, who was in charge of youth chess in the U.S.S.R., appeared with a short, handsome man dressed in a stylish tight-fitting sport shirt, Levi’s and cowboy boots, who was holding the hand of a skinny little boy. “This is Yugenil Gik and his son Sasha,” Kostyev said to Josh. “Would you like to play a few games with him? Sasha is a talented seven-year-old player.”

Gik was one of Karpov’s aides and a collaborator with the champion on many books. He hadn’t been in the pressroom long before journalists were throwing questions at him about the match. We walked to a chess table near the telex machines, trailed by reporters and photographers. Gik was congenial but said little; he waved to people with the relaxed assurance of a winner. “Is Joshua a champion for his age in the United States?” he asked. I said that he was among the strongest players for his age.

The children began to play. Josh moved too rapidly and blundered away a pawn on the seventh move. Sasha took more time and Gik smiled. Pandolfini shook his head: C’mon, Josh, concentrate, slow down, play chess. Photographers snapped the kids from all angles.

I asked Gik if the size of Karpov’s team was an advantage to him in the match.

“Karpov plays the game, not his team,” he answered curtly.

“Is Karpov nervous about the match?” I asked.

“Karpov is never nervous. He doesn’t know what it is to be nervous.” Now Gik twitched when his son neglected to take a pawn that was a sitting duck. At first Josh had been distracted by the photographers, but soon he began to develop an attack. Sasha, a dreamy little boy, didn’t seem to notice.

The Karpov-Kasparov game hung in the balance. Reporters hurried around the room asking questions. Several of them asked Gik
about Karpov’s position, but Gik waved them aside. Sasha’s position had become desperate; he was staring blankly at mate in three. The tendons in Gik’s face were bulging; he was furious. It was an emotion I knew well. It was all the father could do not to grab his son and scream, “What are you doing! Look at the board! You’re throwing away the game!”

“Do you want your son to become a chess professional?” I asked Gik a few minutes later.

“Why not, if he had talent,” he answered in disgust. A dozen moves into the second game Sasha had lost his queen and was struggling to play on. When Gik barked at him to resign, the little boy turned over his king, more upset by his father’s anger than by the chess game. Josh began to set up the pieces again, but Gik said, “Enough,” and led Sasha out of the pressroom.

A half hour later, Karpov and Kasparov adjourned in a fairly even position. The following morning
Pravda
carried an analysis of their game, and beneath it a photograph and caption describing the match held at the same time between little Sasha Gik and the American boy Josh Waitzkin. The caption didn’t mention a winner.

11

NOT CLOSED FOR REPAIRS

O
n a damp chilly morning a few days later, Josh, Pandolfini and I stood on a corner watching several hundred Russians standing in line to get into a large supermarket. We were waiting for Anna, a chess teacher at one of Moscow’s prestigious sports schools, whom we had met at the Hall of Columns. She had agreed to allow us to visit her class even though she knew that if her superiors found out she might be dismissed.

After a twenty-minute wait, I saw Anna walking stiffly toward us. She was a beautiful, statuesque woman, and for some reason this made her extreme nervousness more unsettling. She understood English quite well but could barely speak a word and became flustered and turned beet red when she tried. As shoppers glanced at our display of pantomine and Pidgin English, we eventually pieced together her plea that we not talk English at the school; if we were spoken to, we should just nod. School administrators would be standing at the front door, and we should walk quickly past them.

We hurried into the school without incident. Anna stationed us in the back of her classroom and gave each of us a thick stack of three-by-five cards of endgame positions with illegible notation. After our cloak-and-dagger introduction, we expected something fantastic; perhaps we would be privy to secret research or a high-tech learning device.

The classroom was designed for hard work, with worn desks and uncomfortable wooden benches anchored to the floor. On the wall
were photographs of Karpov and other great Russian grandmasters and a bulletin board celebrating the chess accomplishments of past students of the school. In this “sports school,” one of two in Moscow, young chess players took a class each morning with Anna in addition to a normal secondary-school curriculum. Twenty-five nine- and ten-year-old children were in the room, an elite group selected for their ability from many thousands of youngsters in secondary schools throughout Moscow. All except one were boys. We looked at the backs of their heads and wondered which among them would be the Karpov or Botvinnik of the twenty-first century.