First Moves
Grandmaster Blitz in Bryant Park Bobby Fischer Against the World premiered in Manhattan
on May 24. But even before the high-profile reception that attracted Dr. Henry Kissinger, as well as stars of the board and screen to the HBO Theater, chess was drawing crowds a few blocks away. Two events brought hundreds to Bryant Park, the 10-
acre respite of trees and grass near the famous crossroads of 5th Avenue and 42nd Street marked by the New York Pub- lic Library. A seven-round, 57-player blitz tournament drew 31 masters, including 12 grandmasters (GMs) and five inter- national masters. “It was likely the strongest outdoor tournament ever held in the U.S.,” event organizer and Mar- shall Club VP Larry Price said. GMs Tamaz Gelashvili and
Aleksander Lenderman tied for first at 6, with GM Robert Hess, Leonid Yudasin and SM Yaacov Norowitz a half-point behind. At the same time, Justus Williams and Josh Colas, both 12 and
the youngest African-American masters ever, teamed with National Master Alena Kats, 15, to treat the public to simultaneous action. Spectators four-deep crowded into the park to watch. Price, a former television producer, promotes chess on
behalf of the Marshall Chess Club throughout the City. Among other things, he’s run organized GM simuls at eight Jets home games, attracting 500 players, and arranged for the Marshall Club to run the chess concession at Bryant Park. “The entire event was generously sponsored by HBO,” Price said. “The best part was that it was so much fun for everyone.”
A smaller, but important omission is
the reason for Fischer’s indictment by U.S. authorities in 1992. Onscreen, Kas- parov explains only that Fischer “broke a law.” Younger viewers should be informed that Fischer’s “championship match” reprise with Spassky amounted to big business and PR for a government actively involved in genocide. At the time, U.S. businesses of all types, including USCF, were enjoined from commerce with what was then Yugoslavia, where the match took place. The last third of Garbus’ film docu-
ments so convincingly Fischer’s descent into a querulous paranoia that repeated viewings finally led me to accept Bobby’s
10 Chess Life — August 2011
“insanity defense,” a position I had resis- ted for some time. But the seeds of Bobby’s tragedy were
not in chess but in his genes. The chess geniuses I’ve spent some time with— the great Garry Kasparov (the sort of well- rounded genius Fischer only fancied himself to be), Anatoly Karpov, and Boris Spassky—behave with remarkable nor- mality. There is evidence, not examined in the film, that both Fischer’s biological father, Paul Nemenyi, as well as Bobby’s half-brother Peter Nemenyi, exhibited eccentric and paranoid behavior. Ironi- cally, it may be that chess, as Reuben Fine once mused, could have sheltered Fischer, allowing him a tenuous finger-
hold on real life, and that his decision to abandon that game after 1972 exposed him full-force to his inner demons, with no one’s pesky moves to distract him. Bobby Fischer Against the World is a
riveting and important film that has received well-deserved critical praise, played to great interest at this year’s Sun- dance Film Festival, and has been selected to kick off this summer’s HBO On- Demand documentary series. Every chess fan should see it—and, for a change of pace, you can be comfortable knowing that it will be gripping as well to non- chess family and friends. It’s perhaps the most compelling narrative about chess on modern film.
uschess.org
PHOTO COURTESY OF HBO
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