BOBBY FISCHER FOR BEGINNERS, The most famous chess player explained

Author: Renzo Verwer, translator: Peter Boel

New in Chess (Alkmaar, Holland)

128 pages (paperback)

$16.95

 

Reviewed by Anthony Saidy

    

When already in the first paragraph of the first chapter I read that Bobby's mother was “born Regina Wender Pustan,” Pustan being her second husband’s surname, I brace myself. But as one who has made an occasional error in print, I can assert that this Dutch author, born the same year that Fischer became world champion, has kept them to a finite number and succeeded in delivering what the title promises. The initial 74 pages are a biography cum psychological impressions of Bobby, full of anecdotes and even reminiscence by a girlfriend I’d never heard of. Verwer has consulted the books and periodical literature about his subject, including the American journalists who uncovered the identity of Bobby’s probable father, Nemenyi. To my surprise, Bobby told an Icelandic interviewer that his best or most beautiful game was indeed “The Game of the Century” vs. Donald Byrne, which I had always thought over-rated. 

 

Other errors noted: p. 12, Carmine Nigro, not “Negro” was the first mentor; p. 20, read conspiracy for “combine”; p. 39, Bobby was not literally “homeless”; p. 55, Jeremy Silman was not on the beach with Bobby picking up girls, he just posted the story on his website; the last note on p. 96 is gibberish. More serious is ascribing “paranoid schizophrenia” (p.68) without attribution to any professional who knew Fischer. I am a physician with psychiatric knowledge who knew the subject, and I do not agree with that diagnosis.

 

The final 54 pages consist in ten games, lightly annotated under supervision of GM Karel van der Weide, a full tournament and match record, sources, a brief bibliography, and a semi-relevant glossary of terms, in which Zwischenschach does not belong in English. No index.

 

I was close to Bobby Fischer at various times in his life, ending in 1979. Without my personal intervention, he would not have arrived in Iceland to contest the 1972 match. I shall tell my part of the story at some point. Psychologist J. G. Ponterotto has just written an article, A PSYCHOLOGICAL AUTOPSY OF BOBBY FISCHER, which he is expanding into a book. The definitive, but probably not final book, called ENDGAME, is to appear in February from the pen of foremost authority, biographer Frank Brady.

 

The character of Bobby Fischer, whether mad or just maddening, continues its hold on the popular imagination, even inspiring a feature film last year from actor-director Damian Chapa. I await some day Fischer - The Opera. Indubitably a great tragedy.