The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, Utah, Sunday, February 04, 1996
Chess: Bobby Fischer Continues to Influence Chess by Shelby Lyman
Skeptics said a myth would be destroyed when Bobby Fischer emerged after 20 years of reclusiveness to play a 1992 return match with Boris Spassky. But three years later and apparently $3.35 million richer, Fischer's aura shines as brightly as ever.
Curiously, the fortunes of the former child prodigy continue to point eastward. The first part of his odyssey — the match with Spassky — took him from Southern California to the Montenegro island of Sveti Stepan. Since then, there has been an eventful sojourn, marked by a continual flow of rumors and news reports, in Budapest.
Recently, Kirsan Iljumzhinov — the president of the Kalmyk Republic who is also head of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) — offered Fischer gifts of $100,000 and a piece of land in redress for copyright violations by former Soviet publishers. Now, if he likes, Fischer can build in far-off Kalmykia — a land of sheepherders and subterranean oil deposits — the rook-shaped house he dreamed of as a teenager.
Though he does not play and possibly many never play again publicly, the kid from Brooklyn's presence is large on the world chess scene.
The “Fischer clock” — which adds an increment to a player's allotted time after each move — is increasingly in use.
And “shuffle chess,” a variant in which the pieces are placed randomly along the first rank of the chessboard, has received special attention because of Fischer's endorsement.
Below is a recently discovered Fischer game from a 1971 exhibition in Buenos Aires.
Robert James Fischer (white) vs. Carlos De Leon (black)
Sicilian Defense: Nyezhmetdinov-Rossolimo Attack, Fianchetto Variation
*White threatens 25. Bxd5 Rxd5 26. Re7 with the threat of 28. Qxh7 mate.
