The Battle of the Brains

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"What he has done is good for chess, but that was not his intention."

His intention, then and now, is to win the world title. He thought a lot about that in 1968, when he went into seclusion in California with his chess books. Once hopeful of challenging the Russians directly, he soon realized "that it was unrealistic of me to think they would give me a match for the title. I thought that they had a lot of self-respect; you know, I thought that they were like me. I shouldn't have had to play all the qualifying rounds out, but world opinion didn't do it for me. I figured that I'd have to come back and do it myself."

Come back he did. On a March afternoon in 1970, he strode resolutely across the stage of the Dom Sindikata Theater in Belgrade, sat down behind two ranks of white chessmen, reached across the table and shook hands with former World Champion Petrosian, shoved the king's pawn two squares forward, punched the button on the dual-faced time clock, pulled a Parker Jotter from inside his black and white checked Hong Kong suit, scribbled the notation PK4 on his score sheet and dug in. Nearly five hours and 39 moves later, Petrosian surveyed the shattered remains of his Caro-Kann defense, stood up and shook Fischer's hand.

Slam! Chop! From that day on, Fischer has been a man possessed. Needing to place only sixth or better at the interzonal tournament in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, to qualify for the next round of the world championship, he not only won by a wide margin but swept his last seven games in a row. That advanced him to a match against veteran Soviet Grand Master Mark Taimanov in Vancouver last year. Fischer defeated him in six straight games. Then, last July in Denver, Fischer took on Denmark's Bent Larsen, ranked second only to Bobby in the West, and stunned him by again winning six straight games. The 19 straight victories were without parallel in grand-master chess history. Declared Sovietski Sport: "A miracle has occurred!" Then nine months ago, Fischer tangled with Petrosian again in Buenos Aires and dropped him 61-21 to win the right to meet Spassky. After the Petrosian match, Fischer was reluctant to fly off in a private plane for a brief vacation. "I don't know about the plane," he said. "Suppose the Russians ... like, did something to the motor or something. I mean, people don't realize how important chess is to their image. They'd really like to get rid of me now."

At Moscow's Central Chess Club, however, the reaction was summed up by one player who observed: "Well, we've still got Spassky." Spassky himself is happy that chess has a Bobby. "It would be an awfully dull world without him," he says. Like Fischer, Spassky comes from a broken home and also had a games-playing sister. (Iraida went on to become the Soviet checkers champion.) During World War II, Spassky's parents were separated; he was evacuated from Leningrad and lived for a period in an orphanage in the Kirov Region. He learned the game when he was five. At ten, he played former World Champion Botvinnik in an exhibition match—and won. Said Botvinnik: "This boy will become world champion."

At 18, Spassky was named an international grand master (the youngest ever until Fischer won that distinction), and in 1969 he proved Botvinnik a prophet