Yasser Seirawan Tells Crazy Bobby Fischer Stories

I just have a ton of bobby fisher' stories I'd like to share a few that came to me courtesy of grandmaster miguel angel Quintero's of argentina Bobby loved Argentina and the 60s he went there and played in a number of tournaments and he became very very close friends with mickey out but this story is about Miguel's very very best friend or gate Ruben Eddie Jorge wanted to become a grandmaster and they were playing in a tournament together with Bobby Fischer it's about noon and there's a knock on the door and Miguel answers and there's his best friend forever gay Ruben Eddie a guy he grew up with went to school with played multiple chess games and there's his best friend and Jorge says Miguel in three hours I'm gonna play Bobby Fischer you must help me do something and what the best friend forever say to her game Miguel looked at his friend and he said hora game there is nothing I can do for you in the next three hours that's gonna help Bobby's gonna kill you why don't we just go out to lunch have a very nice under terrorists nice lunch nice coffees and in the evening in after the game you can tell me how close you were to making a draw and just like Miguel predicted Bobby crushed Ruben and what do you know about Bobby Fischer well you know everybody knows that he is one of the most famous chess players in the world you know even people who don't play chess they know about Bobby Fischer right exactly and in Belarus it was he was here bad guy was he a bad guy because of the Soviets and I don't think so you know I grew up when you know everybody was adoring his chess and it was more about the chest than anything else right and on politics it's all didn't matter for people who truly love chess love his games it's that's Bobby Fischer that's true Bobby Fischer that we all love exactly exactly that's his legend and for me when I was growing up in chess and I learned about Bobby Fischer I mean when you talk about Bobby Fischer you talk about the u.s. chess championships and Bobby Fischer from 1957 to 1967 there was those and US Championships but there wasn't really 10 1 in 64 didn't even take place it wasn't helped and in 1962 he skipped it because he was training for the inner zonal but in 1957 it was 14 years old and he was invited to his first u.s. championship now imagine how exciting that was the first time and people were like worried like would he finish in the middle of the field like that would be a great success right right but what if he got crushed what if he just bombed and never played chess again right so there was that risk right Bobby Fischer won the US Championship his first time in the box he won it with eight wins and five draws we score ten and a half out of 13 a dominant performance and he was ahead of a great chess legend Sammy Russia your shirt okay so from 57 to 67 Bobby played and won eight times every single you played it okay - he missed the 62 and 64 wasn't held but eight times he participated eight times he white and the the fun one of course was the one he won 11 zero like nobody since then could repeat that of course back no of course not that's a record that will never be broken but my favorite story was that the arbiter Hans come on at the closing ceremony he comes up to Larry Evans Grand Master Larry Evans he was second place in the tournament and he congratulate slurry Evans for winning the event and then he turns to Bobby Fischer and he says congratulations on your exhibition there was a fellow he was a writer for Sports Illustrated and his editors had given an assignment to go and find Bobby Fischer this is just before the scheduled 1975 match between Bobby Fischer champion and Challenger Anatoly Karpov and everybody was saying will Bobby play this match in 1975 so Jim decided that he didn't want to go and meet Fischer and you know get buzzed off like you know you don't know nothing about nothing I'm not talking to you kind of thing and he really wanted to get into Fischer's history has passed his thoughts and he decided that even though he didn't play chess he would memorize this game and that would convince Bobby Fischer that he was somebody worth talking so he memorized the game even though he didn't even understand all the rules and he came to actually love the game as a result of learning this and then he it inspired him to learn the rules and in the sequence that we've just seen queen h3 check King G 1 how cruel it is epi e1 skirt is again the undoing of Robert Byrne this was considered one of Bobby's greatest gains and not only because of the combination and what he was trying to do is also because Robert Byrne was one of the best grandmasters world he became a candidate grandmaster and always a top player in a u.s. championships and here he was this top Grandmaster with the white pieces and Bobby went through them like a hot knife through soft butter because Bobby wasn't taking a draw Bobby was the youngest US Champion ever at 14 and he was also the only player who won every time he participated and when you talk about US championship records yeah though I think he lost only three games in all this age with 90 games if you think about that so you're absolutely right he played and won 61 James so for every 20 games he won he lost one this story that I'd like to share is the down side of analyzing with a chess genius I got tons of Bobby Fischer stories and this one comes courtesy of Robert Byrne and Robert tells me the story of the Havana chess olympiad 1966 where he's playing on the American team and the American team is being led by none other than Robert James Fisher Bobby was the only one on the team who had a suite in the evenings the whole team would congregate together at Bobby's sweet and they replay the games that they just played that afternoon in the Olympiad Robert was saying this was really the highlight of the Olympiad and everybody on the team would scramble to get to Bobby sweet because Bobby would show the game he played and analyze and explain what was going on these lectures these moments were just absolutely absolutely awesome Bobby Fischer Cuba match man Olimpia US vs. Mongolia Bobby man what's your name [Laughter] so Bobby is showing a game that he had played that day somewhere is Bobby is moving the pieces and explaining he then in a derogatory way calls his opponent of pizza and he goes and the pizza played this move and as he was making the move Bobby starts chuckling and laughing and then kind of laughing really really hard the kind of painful [Laughter] he literally falls off his chair on the carpet going back and forth rivering an absolute joyous abandonment laughter about his opponent's moves the five grandmasters on the team are looking at the position because the pizza played a reasonable move and they couldn't understand why Bobby was laughing nobody saw the refutation and Robert was in a panic and absolute stone-cold panic because he's laughing and Robert doesn't see why Bobby's so no congratulate about is above then Bob sees the reputation and Bob starts laughing and then collectively around the table all five see the move Bobby who's now in tears just barely makes it back to the table and makes the move that Robert Byrne anticipated in boom boo-boom boo-boom and bingo bango so Robert tells me the story decades later that he was an abject terror he would not have seen the move and that Bobby would realize that nobody seemed to move and kick everybody out and think of them as postures to Robert Bobby Fischer thinking he was a weak player so the moment he saw that winning move he said the relief that I felt was almost the taste of honey the reason for my interest in chess really starts with Robert James Fisher Bobby Fischer it was 1972 I was 12 years old when chests came into my life and about that period of time Bobby Fischer was playing against the evil Soviet Union's Boris Spassky and the it's really really really hard to recapture the excitement of that period I mean they even called it Fischer mania and there was a worldwide coverage and I think seriously for the better part of two months Bobby was front-page coverage not even before the match had started he was already front-page coverage because it was having a very hard time getting Bobby to Reykjavik Iceland where the match took place and there was a great deal of speculation he just wasn't going to make it yeah so going back for a moment one of the things that the US Championships historically they weren't really always tournaments on the contrary there were a lot of match-play like there might not have been you know ten really good players but they're usually was one and maybe two and they often played matches well when you go back in the times of Bobby Fischer this 57 to 67 and the fact that Sammy reshef ski was one of the most successful US Champion and then here along comes Bobby Fischer's he was champion it was mad it was like thirty years his junior right exactly but it was natural that one day Bobby Fischer would play Sam Reshevsky match and that was arranged by Jacqueline Piatigorsky didn't the play between New York and Los Angeles I don't thought it was all played in Los Angeles but it's one of those matches that just like blew up like Bobby would later in his life get a reputation as a very difficult man and he ended up forfeiting the last game of the match and reshef ski was declared the winner even though the match was tied and this was always a bone of extreme contention between these two great champions in 1972 I was 12 years old Bobby Fischer played Boris Spassky the World Chess Championship match to really understand what was going on I strongly suggest you see the movie Bobby Fischer versus the rest of the world because there you can see the archives and brought it what it all meant it was again front-page coverage for the better part of two months and I just got caught up that excitement I just thought that this was the coolest thing you know in American playing for the World Championship and stuff bobby fischer of course in 1972 was arguably the biggest celebrity in the world Muhammad Ali hadn't yet really become Muhammad Ali he he was very very well-known of course but Bobby was like known throughout the world and we expected that Bobby was going Bobby had said that all he ever wanted to do was play chess and that when he became the world champion he would be an active world champion so we had all expected Bobby to kind of lead a parade of a new era in chess and I had a very dear friend his name was Emma Watson mr. emmett was kind of this curmudgeonly old journalist from Seattle who who had created a society for lesser Seattle and going back more personally to my life in 1972 I was 12 and basically I was a good kid I mean I was a good I was really good and one of the things I really loved to do was sleep no problem my parents said to me in a 7:30 time to go to bed no arguments I just went to bed oh is this great and I recall this very vividly because it made a very strong impression upon me is for some reason we had gone to a party as a family and the point was it was past my bedtime suddenly he was like 8 o'clock you know let's get out of here people and 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock and somewhere around 11:00 we made our departure and we were going home and as we got home we did what most Americans they turn on the lights they turn on the TV and I was just making a beeline straight to that and really it's it's really ironic and turning on the TV it was a Johnny Carson show and I didn't really care I didn't even know Johnny Carson was I was just going to bed and he says welcome welcome welcome we have a very special guest to star this evening we have world champion Bobby Fischer and Emmitt called me up and said yeah has come on down for dinner and I go where are we meeting blah blah blah so I go to the Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle and much to my surprise we went into a restaurant where the like this this whole room was reserved for this amazing table of 40 persons and I said to Emmitt like gee I thought we were having dinner and he said we are do you turn immediately you know wait for the commercial break waiting for Bobby Fischer to come up so Bobby comes on and there he is a standing ovation everybody is very very excited about world champion Bobby Fischer and he answers all of the normal questions in the most positive light you could possibly can imagine he's going to you know hold the World Championship for the next 10 years he's going to play in all the greatest tournaments he's going to raise the prestige of chess chess chess grandmasters are going to be the new sports stars America is going to wake up to the world of chess and I was like tell me more tell me more suddenly the show was over so all of these gentlemen none of whom might ever met my life we began to have you know three course for course by of course dinner and at the end at the very end guy taps his glass and he says well welcome again everybody to Sports Illustrated and you will get together with all of the our had heads of all of the offices of Sports Illustrated from all over the world and he turns to me and he says yes like whatever happened to Bobby Fischer and I mumble some apology and non-answer and he said well the reason is is in 1973 we had a dinner just like this what we're holding now and all of our editors from around the world were trying to understand how we were going to explain to our subscribers that the sports superstars of today or chess grandmasters and we didn't want to lose our readership by equating chess as a sport but we expected you know million-dollar events million-dollar tournaments so whatever happened to Bobby Fischer and I went you know like ah darn it and I recall this very vividly turning to my mom and saying now at this point you got to understand I'm a real beginner I mean you know just really really ranked and I recall turning to my mom and saying mom I have a question she says yes so I says how can he call himself world champion he never beat me I don't know I mean we got a right to somebody all right that the mayor the governor goodgoodgood I go to bed and I can tell you that on many occasions there was like almost this this incredibly powerful hope that Bobby would play for our Olympic team how cool that would be that he would come back and play on our Olympic team or visit a u.s. championship or visit a tournament and then the excitement was building well when's his next event gosh we can't wait for Bobby to play again and when's his next event and so forth and so on and it seemed like Bobby wasn't playing and he had said in a lot of his interviews before he won the World Championship that he wanted to be a very active world champion so we're really looking forward to his play and there was Bobby sightings everywhere like everybody said oh I saw Bobby at the Pasadena Public Library or Bobby visit I remember Bobby Fischer in like 1974 visited the America was it 74 73 I'm not sure visited American Open and literally you cannot get the chess players to leave their boards while their clock is ticking even on a four-alarm fire yeah you know like they're still thinking I gotta save my bishop you know I gotta got to do something but literally the whole tournament hall emptied out because the rumor was Bobby Fischer was there and everybody wanted to go and get a picture with Bobby and chess really kind of swept the nation and for myself I kind of got caught up in that bubble of enthusiasm that brought Bobby brought to chess and not just the not just the United States but throughout the entire world my friend vessel he had organized a match between yattaman and Garry Kasparov in Prague and I was invited to be a commentator and at the time vessel was ahead of check-check telecom and later developed a telephony company called Euro tell Bobby Fischer was very interested in what the grandmasters union was trying to do and he had contacted mr. bessel and so I had this really nice suite you know open bar the chairman of the GMA and said could he come to Brussels and blah blah blah so Bessel brought Bobby over and Bobby didn't want to stay at the hotel he because he was afraid he'd be recognized right in like the bad bad media people would see him and of course since Brussels was the head of NATO you know you got media up the UK after ying-yang he wanted to stay in Bethel's home private home in vessels fine Bobby turned down a million dollars from Johnson & Johnson for maybe shampoo might do a commercial get a million dollars for baby shampoo and the point was was well why did you turn down the million dollars he says well I don't use baby shampoo I don't know if it's good I can't I can't tell everybody to go out and buy it you know I don't use I don't have a baby but Bobby didn't want to go anywhere Bobby we didn't want to go to restaurants for dinner at like let's order the food and bring the food here so Bobby was really really secluded in vessels home and is getting more and more more frustrating for vessel because he really wants to show him the beauty of Brussels and Belgium Bobby is refusing so a week goes by and then totally unexpected Bobby says let's go to a bar God says Bell I mean like sure any kind of oh yeah a bar where there's lots of girls lots of women well said that's all I happen to know one or two let's go to this bar I mean these types of stories were incredibly incredibly common and they had as just anyt isie because we couldn't believe that anybody would turn down a million dollars and keep in mind these in nineteen seventy two dollars today they use a word billion and it would be just as outlandish as it was to use a million so they go to a bar and instantly two women come over and ask them if they want company and would they buy them a glass of champagne and Bessel's happy to do this so Bessel's got his back to Bobby and Bessel's talking to the woman and but he's really here bobby's conversation back here and the conversation goes something like and so what do you do for a living and Bobby says I am the world chess champion and the lady says ok come on seriously yesterday it was dolly day I got the world chess champion if you're the world chess champion what's your name and she goes Robert James Fisher I'm known as Bobby Fischer the woman says I know that name I know who you are I still don't believe you're Bobby Fischer show me proof Bobby had spent the last 10 15 years hiding his identity now he's in a situation where he wants to prove that he really is the world's champion and he has nothing no driver's license nothing that says Bobby Fischer watches and no business card or anything like this so the so vessel by this time is turned around and is vouching for him yeah he's really Huy says he is the girls look at one another they look at the two gentlemen and say okay we believe you just buy us another glass of champagne and as the as time progressed to 1975 Bobby had to defend his championship title in those years the championships occurred in a three-year cycle so by the third year of 1975 Bobby was due to play in this case Anatoly Karpov the new Soviet superstar and Challenger and in those days Ferdinand Marcos was the president of the Philippines and he had offered five million dollars for the World Championship match to be played in Manila again this is really really was an landish sum of money let's go back to 1972 in 1972 the World Championship match the bidding started at $100,000 100,000 American dollars I meant to say and there was a contest for the bid between the cities of Belgrade Yugoslavia Rekha Vik Iceland and the prize fund went up up to a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars one hundred twenty five percent above the minimum requested amounts if you go back to the match that was held in 1969 between Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky I believe they played for a sum of twenty thousand rubles so you went from twenty thousand rubles to a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars will stay at the figure for a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars per second because I'd started with my lecture like would Bobby even play and Bobby's basically said no a hundred twenty-five thousand not enough not enough I want double that amount and everybody was angry with Bobby Fischer most especially the fee day at that time the president of the fee day was a fellow by the name of Max irva Max irva as you may know was a former world champion holding the post and Max irva had worked very very hard to get the two bidders to raise their bits to a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars he was patting himself on the back for a job well done there's Bobby Fischer saying double it I ain't playing so people upset with miyabi so there was a fellow philanthropist from the UK his name was Jim Slater he said okay put up or shut up I'll double the prize fund I'll double the prize foot now you Bobby come and sit down and play Bobby went to Iceland and nearly forfeited back well Spassky is waiting right and it waiting and wondering whether Bobby will show or not show and there's absolutely dead silence in the hall that's another story so again you've kind of got to put it in perspective of 20,000 roof holes a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars doubled at the very very last moment I mean last moment to two hundred and fifty a quarter of a million dollars this had the chess world in a tizzy by 1974 late 74 when the bidding for the match was going to be taking place Manila announced there's no reason for anybody else to bid against us we're putting up five million an extraordinary sum of money and we were absolutely sure that Bobby would play that Bobby would win like oh man this is the greatest thing you know like oh they're gonna play a match Bobby's gonna come back on the world stage this is so cool this is so cool there's no way that Bobby's gonna turn down five million there was a way he wanted probably to play the kid from Russia Karpov and beat him I mean it would be an easy task on the other hand part of him knew he could lose and that's death to Bobby he didn't want to risk that so what came out was a series of new demands on the rules those days it was very simple you played a twenty four game match if the world champion scored 12 points he was going to retain his title whichever player scored more than 12 points meaning specific 12 and a half or higher they're gonna win the match Bobby said that the original match for the world championship Steinitz blackburn 1886 or so was the first to win 10 games first to win 10 games drawers were not counted it was only victories and losses that were counted and he wanted the first to win ten games which meant that the match could be an open-ended affair and literally theoretically at least be played for months and months and months and months and months the Soviets objected and said 24 games is sufficient number and it all came down to a vote in the feed a the feed a was the world and is the World Chess Federation and as a political body it was very similar to the United Nations that was a time of the communism and socialism in Europe and essentially in the General Assembly of the United Nations the Soviets had all the votes there was a lot a lot of times in the 70s that the u.s. especially were resolutions about Israel were concerned would routinely lose a hundred and fifty to three objections so having Bobby Fischer's rules changes decided by the General Assembly of the fidei which again really resembled the Soviet votes it was an you know Bobby who's gonna lose the vote as it turned out the United States Chess Federation and its delegates really really worked very very hard and it came down to one vote in the Soviets way and Bobby didn't get his way it was one vote just one vote and Bobby lost the vote and the Soviets were all happy because they knew that Bobby was stubborn and if he didn't get his way it was the high way the world champion chess player has until midnight tonight to decide whether to abide by the international rules of chess or give up his title if Fischer defaults the title would go to the Challenger Soviet Grandmaster Anatoly Karpov so almost immediately when the vote was tallied Bobby got the call that he had lost the vote he'd already prepared his statement and he forfeited his World Championship title he didn't play in manila and this less left is all like utterly a god we couldn't believe it you know like gosh how could you turn down five million dollars interesting Allah enough if you remember ali-frazier the Thrilla in Manilla well that was the sporting event that picked up the five million dollars that was uh naughty Bobby Fischer small world the two games I'm about to show you are to my mind extraordinary I mean simply astonishing okay and what this game was was again let me set it up for you in 1972 Bobby Fischer beat Boris Spassky became world champion didn't play another game for 20 years okay now how rusty would you or I be if we didn't play chess for 20 years okay this is Game one of that match I was in Seattle and we were getting this fax and we just couldn't wait for the next pax right is the ink okay and I get the telephone reports from George Stefanovich and in Yugoslavia you know what was going on and it was like oh it was really exciting so Bobby's white hasn't played for 20 years and what we're about to see is a guy who played perfectly okay every move of this game is simply excellent like it's too weird for words right a so here's old man Bobby Fischer that Boris Spassky has just put down and it's Game two and I'm in like open mouths astonishment in Seattle still recovering from Game one and the fact that Bobby played 50 flawless moves after being absent from the world of chess for 20 years I just couldn't imagine how rusty I might have been so because we're you know the whole office in Seattle was like you know everybody's like eyes on the fax machine in the chess board I have established a telephone hook up with George stefanov itch the journalist who is in the press ENTER and it was like okay this is Howard okay Spassky has played queen pawn Bobby of course has played Kings Indian defense Bobby provoke Boris Boris has sacrificed upon Bobby took the pawn of course Boris defended well but gave exchange to win back pawn Bobby took exchange and now I think he's winning you know like to zero I mean this is like unbelievable 1980 I have been invited to Argentina to play for a chess club called the conics Club and it was sponsored by our freedom boggle and Arne freed was a German industrialist and he wanted to be the proprietor of the best chess club in Holland and we had dinner one night and he was telling me a story about Bobby Fischer I was like immediately all ears Bobby Fischer okay tell me what happened with Bobby Fischer he loved the Dutch team competitions and he wanted his own team he wanted it to be the champion of Holland so he got it in his mind that he wanted Bobby Fischer as an honored member of the conics Club so he called up the Secretary of Bobby Fischer and said can I arrange a meeting with Bobby Fischer yes you can but there's a $5,000 fee so in those days the idea was that bonny Bobby would accept business offers and would meet meet you in person for $5,000 yeah you'd so that this he used this as a kind of filter to avoid talking with people that he didn't want to talk to and people who paid him $5,000 he kind of considered them serious there no problem said aren't freed and he came to Pasadena met with Bobby at his favorite restaurant and told him look I need you to play one game I'm gonna pay all your expenses you know it's first-class treatment all the way hotel travel food everything I'm gonna give you $100,000 and you'll play a very very very weak player because we're in the lowest division Bobby said who will be my opponent and arm freed said well I'm not sure that I suspect the player will be about 1200 okay so Bobby this is really a very very weak amateur player well this is a no-brainer right I mean just this is simple this is simple and Bobby started asking will there be a gate what do you mean well people have to buy it take it no on the fifth league Dutch team competitions we don't charge people entry fee who watch the games will you sell posters posters yeah you're gonna sell posters of the event no you're just gonna come and play a single game you're gonna get on a thousand dollars and paired to pay a 50000 right now to sign this agreement will there be media well no I hadn't even thought about that and Bobby just kept asking all these questions about different commercial right so Bobby nodded his head and he said well let's talk about this tomorrow and let me think about it and this continued day after day for a couple of days that each time Bobby would me epochal that be a list of questions and demands and while Paco was trying to get him to do was for a hundred thousand dollars played one game here here's the money would you please come to my club employ well at this point I'm freed starts to realize that something's wrong with the conversation because Bobby is is raising a whole host of questions he never even thought about much less had any intention and now the agreement has to be all changed to be saying we're not going to do posters we're not going to do t-shirts we're not gonna we're not gonna exploit Bobby in a commercial fashion and so forth and so on what kind of pieces are we gonna play with you know and all of these questions what kind of chess clock are we using it would meet in the park each day there was a particular bench that Bobby liked and then they would go for a walk and continue their talks well some where during this whole meeting in Pasadena aren't freed understood Bobby was gonna refuse him and that he wouldn't take the money and and arm freed realizes that my God if he goes home tomorrow back to Amsterdam he's gonna have no proof that he ever even met with Bobby Fischer Bobby's gonna say no and that's it so he decided that he just needed proof that he had actually met with Bobby and to have a photo taken of him and Bobby together but Bobby didn't want any photos taken so what aren't free did he hired a private investigator to take a photo of the two of them together with a lens photo from afar the third day that they were going to meet and we're gonna meet a part in a park in Pasadena and they had been walking through this particular part and Bobby really had his favorite spot a really beautiful seating area with birds and that added up so this was Bobby's favorite spot and they were going to meet at noon and aren't Fried's there but there's no Bobby Bobby was actually quite punctual in such meetings and this was very surprising for aren't free darn treats in a suit and tie looking very proper I'm free and instantly got concerned like because Bobby should be there five minutes goes by ten minutes goes by 15 minutes go spice is still no Bobby Fischer so now aren't Fried's getting really concerned that he's in the wrong spot of the park so he's doing his best at mapping and making sure that he's in the right spot he's convinced he's in the right spot e and then he heard this well he's looking around and they're inside the trees and bushes is Bobby eye Bobby what are you doing inside the trees come on out says aren't for it no you come on in corn free comes in clay under the brushes you know and what's going on Bobby says somebody's following me so there have this bit of a conversation and RF he's looking around and aren't realizes that the private investigator he hired had indeed the following Bobby Fischer Bobby realized he was being followed who was now panicked and paranoid that somebody was following it just a classic classic classic tale [Music] do like to share know he declined $100,000

Channel: Mass Refuge

Views: 168,810

Keywords: Chess, Bobby Fischer, Yasser Seirawan, Ben Finegold, Comedy, Magnus Carlsen, Top10, Memes, Humor, Championship, Anna Rudolf, Alexandra Botez, World Champion, Karpov, Kasparov, Nakamura

Id: orsNQjZBGc8

Length: 45min 12sec (2712 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2019