The Battle of the Brains

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grades. "School is for dumb bunnies," he said. "The teachers are all nitwits." He was a shy, secretive, suspicious kid who did not take to his new notoriety, in school or out. Nevertheless, looking back, he regrets leaving because "you should finish what you start." Then after a pause, he adds: "Besides, it might have helped me to be more rounded socially."

Fischer had other problems. Returning from a tour abroad, he found that his mother had put an ad in the New York Times offering Bobby Fischer chess wallets complete with his gold-stamped profile and signature. Acutely embarrassed, he demanded that she cancel the ad. Their relationship became increasingly strained. She was a political activist who had taken Bobby on civil rights marches when he was a child (one of his signs read END JIM CROW). To gain financial support for Bobby and the U.S. chess team, she went on hunger strikes, picketed the American Chess Foundation and at one point actually chained herself to the White House gate. When Bobby was 17, she left Brooklyn and later went on a peace march from San Francisco to Moscow, where she met a British doctor. She married him soon afterward and dropped out of Bobby's life.

That left Bobby to fend for himself. The rent on the Brooklyn apartment was only $53 a month, but he was occasionally in need of pocket money. Once, needing a dollar to go to the movies, he put on a crude, slouch-hat disguise and went into a chess parlor on 42nd Street to hustle the local patzers (unskilled players) into a money match. The "Boy Robot," as he was then called, was recognized immediately.

In 1962 Fischer went to Curasao, the Netherlands Antilles, on a more difficult mission: to hustle the Russians out of the world title. Fischer failed to qualify in the Candidates' Tournament, a competition between eight contenders. Storming back to the U.S., he bitterly accused the five Soviet players of "cheating" by playing for draws against one another and to win against the Western grand masters. Scoffed Izvestia: "Fischer is disturbed. He scarcely restrains himself from crying, and like a capricious child who cannot get sweets, builds up a string of accusations, one more ridiculous than the last."

The war was on. Doggedly holding to his conspiracy theory, Fischer accused the F.I.D.E. of being "Communist dupes." He claimed that the Russians hired photographers to harass him. He walked out of tournaments. He complained about the lighting, the scheduling, the spectators, the air conditioning, the living conditions, the purses. Sighed Chess Life in an article entitled "The Self mate of Bobby Fischer": "Finally the U.S. produces its greatest chess genius, and he turns out to be just another stubborn boy."

Not quite. Last year, to prevent any chance of collusion, F.I.D.E. ruled that after 1972, draws will no longer count in candidate and world championship matches. Chalk one up for Bobby. As for his other crusades, U.S. Grand Master Isaac Kashdan says: "He has improved the lot of all the grand masters. They didn't realize what he was doing at the time, but his demands for better lighting, better pay, more reasonable playing conditions have benefited all players." Other grand masters, however, refuse to grant that Fischer had anyone but Fischer at heart. Says one: