Boris Spassky in Udine!

So just how many times can you say, if you’re a very modest chess player like yours truly (my dad taught me when I was a kid), that you’ve shaken the hand of a Grand Master who was world champion in 1969? Ah, but this isn’t just any old Grand Master. This is a man who in 1972 saw defeat, perhaps in the same way as George Foreman did against Muhammad Ali in Zaire (as poor old George said of that world title event: “I was depressed for one year”!), against one of the most brilliant and yet lunatic chess players in the world (brilliant in that the man “only” had an IQ of 180, on his lunacy, more in a second or two!), in what’s been deemed as the greatest chess final of all-time, against America’s Bobby Fischer in the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik!

And why lunatic? Well, because during the final Fischer didn’t like the sound of the television cameras, or the lighting, or the chairs or several other small details. So “out-of-this-world” was the man (a Jew but a proclaimed anti-Semitic!) that when Nixon got the news that “capitalism” had prevailed over “communism” (the Russkies at that point had been perhaps the greatest in the world at chess), he was obviously happy, but had half-jokingly turned to his side-kick, Dr. Kissinger, and said as Fischer was to return to New York: “Have his plane hijacked to Cuba”!

As Spassky himself said in the wonderful book on that epic final, “Bobby Fischer Goes To War” (see cover):”When you play Bobby, it is not a question of whether you win or lose. It is a question of whether you survive”!

A double honour for me as I also got to ask him if he thought that had Fischer NOT been so picky with the lighting and what-not, could he have possibly won that final? He told me that his fellow “Soviets” are the ones who instead drove him crazy (read: KGB)! During the final both U.S. and Soviet secret services were also monitoring the match as it was after-all during one of the “hottest” moments during the Cold War period between the two (rival) nations.

Thanks to the local tourism folks and the City of Udine, Spassky was invited for two days to Udine during the wonderful event known as “Bianco & Nero” (Black & White, the official colours by the way of Udine). He spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of chess aficionados, including Udine’s mayor Furio Honsell who is a mathematician by profession. Spassky, clad in running shoes (he’s been living for years in Paris with his 3^rd wife) gave a few lessons on some of his previous and more memorable matches and the following day took on 20 players simultaneously outdoors and on the doorsteps of City Hall, winning naturally and also drawing with some of the younger champions (all pics by M. Rimati).