My 60 Memorable Games was an immediate success. If Fischer had never played another game of chess, his reputation, certainly as an analyst, would have been preserved through its publication.
Bobby withdrew from playing competitive chess in late 1968, and with the exception of one widely praised game played as part of the New York Metropolitan League in 1969, he took an eighteen-month hiatus, to the consternation and curiosity of the chess world. He wouldn’t explain his reasons, later telling one interviewer that he’d refused to play because of undefined “hang-ups.” To another, he was quoted as saying that he avoided competition “to plot my revenge. I wanted to come back and put all those people in their place,” but the venue, prize fund, and roster of competitors all had to be right. And so he refused offer after offer, opportunity after opportunity.
Then, unpredictably, he made an exception: He’d play in the “USSR vs. the Rest of the World” match. On March 26, 1970, Bobby flew to Belgrade and lunched at the Hotel Metropol with chess columnist George Koltanowski and Larry Evans, who was reporting on the match instead of playing in it and would act as Fischer’s second. Optimistic and uncharacteristically friendly, Bobby autographed cards for most of the hotel waiters. When a female chess columnist asked him for an interview after lunch, he agreed; she shrieked joyfully, hugged Bobby, and kissed him on the cheek. Bobby accepted it fairly calmly, then Evans remarked: “This is not surprising, but if you see Bobby kiss the girl, then you have a news item!” Even Bobby laughed. Afterward, Bobby went to inspect the lighting and playing conditions at the theater inside the Dom Sindikata, on Marx-Engels Square. Often used for trade union meetings, the huge domed theater had been modified for the match. It met with Bobby’s approval.
Bobby walked into the enormous theater, ready to play his first game, and looked up. Hanging on the wall was his photograph, three stories high. Looking around, he saw equally huge pictures of the twenty competing grandmasters. There was the brooding Mikhail Tal, he of the disconcerting stare; Bent Larsen, his blond hair brushed straight back; Mikhail Botvinnik, who looked like a conservative businessman; the Czechoslovakian Vlastimil Hort, just a few months younger than Fischer; Bobby’s friend Svetozar Gligoric, the handsome, mustached Serbian whose personality made him one of the most popular players; and the swarthy Tigran Petrosian, whom Bobby was about to play.
Bobby initiated an unexpected variation in response to Petrosian’s opening. He revealed later that he’d manipulated the Russian into a variation that Fischer had studied years before, and for which he had originated a favorable response. The two dueled for the first half of the game, but Bobby clearly had the advantage after that and he won on the thirty-ninth move. After all the first-round games were over, a jury chose Fischer to receive the best-game award. The audience applauded for three minutes, despite attempts by the ushers to keep them quiet. Bobby had triggered similar reactions at other tournaments and matches; fans often wrote him admiring letters. He’d even received some marriage proposals. Commenting on his win afterward, Bobby said: “I could have played better.”
For the third round, excitement in Belgrade was so great that fans filled the large hall to capacity in less than half an hour. Black market vendors left their normal posts in front of theaters and cinemas, and stationed themselves in front of the Dom Sindikata to peddle entrance tickets to the match, which were in great demand. President Ribicic of Yugoslavia, who’d attended the first two rounds, came back to see the third.
Fischer drew the game, then relaxed and looked at the rest of the games. Samuel Reshevsky’s game vs. Vasily Smyslov had been adjourned. Back at the Metropol Hotel, Bobby sat down with Reshevsky to analyze the position and consider possible strategies the older grandmaster might play when the game resumed. After ten years of bitterness and competition, this was the first time Fischer had had a friendly interchange with his American rival. (The next day, Reshevsky won his game.) In Bobby’s fourth and final game he managed to hold on to a draw.
The Soviet Union won by one point over the Rest of the World: 20½–19½, and the Russians were shaken by their near defeat. “It’s a catastrophe,” said one team member. “At home they don’t understand. They think it means there’s something wrong with our culture.” On the top four boards, the Soviets managed to win only one game out of a possible sixteen. Bobby Fischer was the high scorer for his team, with a 3–1 score against Petrosian (two wins and two draws). As the winner of the second board he also won a Russian car, the Moskvich.
He wanted to win the car, not to keep the car. Once he had it, he chose to sell it immediately. He said: “Last year in the United States, we had 56,000 deaths as a result of car accidents, and I decided I’d rather use buses.”
All of the players gathered together after the match to pose for the official photographs. As was typical, Bobby was not there. Argentina’s Miguel Najdorf, who knew Bobby fairly well, said: “He prefers to enter chess history alone.”
If Bobby Fischer was ever going to become the World Chess Champion, he would first need to finish near the top at an Interzonal, and he did this quite easily at Palma de Majorca in 1970. After eleven rounds, nearing the tournament’s midpoint, Fischer was in second place, one-half point behind the leader, Efim Geller of the USSR. Fischer and Geller were to meet in the twelfth round in a pivotal matchup.
Geller had not yet lost a game in the tournament. Perhaps more important, he’d beaten Fischer in their last three meetings and had more wins against Fischer than any living player. Here was a definite challenge for Bobby, and he attempted to stay focused and confident by carefully studying Geller’s other games in the tournament. Geller, who talked like a sailor and who had the look and build of a wrestler, arrived with his tie loosened, and wearing rumpled clothing.
Within the first few minutes of the game, Geller insulted Bobby by offering him a draw after his seventh move. Fischer sat back and initially laughed, and Geller chimed in. Bobby then responded with a statement that no one but Geller heard clearly. A bystander reported that Fischer had said, “Too early,” but Geller’s face turned red, suggesting that Fischer’s reply had been more caustic. Speculation was that Fischer’s response had been along the lines that early draws were solely the property of the Soviet state. When the official book of the tournament was published, the editors wrote of Geller’s seventh-move affront: “But why would Geller expect Fischer to take a quick draw? Fischer’s entire record as a player shows his abhorrence of quick draws and his wish at every reasonable (and sometimes unreasonable) occasion to play until there is absolutely no chance of winning. No draws in under 40 moves is an essential part of his philosophy.”
In subsequent moves Geller blundered badly, and Fischer won the game, beating a man who’d become a personal nemesis.
Bobby seemed to have come of age at Palma. Despite besting twenty-three of the world’s most eminent chess players, though, he remained relatively unimpressed with his performance: “I am satisfied with the result, but not with my play.” When reminded of his disastrous performance at the 1962 Candidates, he said: “Maybe this was a good thing. I didn’t have the maturity to handle it then.” He certainly had it at Palma.