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Title: Bobby Fischer Goes to War : How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time by David Edmonds, John Eidinow ISBN: 0-06-051024-2 Publisher: Ecco Pub. Date: 02 March, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Why This Book Bobby Fisher Chess Master
Comment: I found the other reviews interesting and decided to write my own. I met Bobby Fisher recently in France and honestly wrote my account of the tea shop, Q & A's, and dinner with Mr. Fisher. It seems that Amazon has removed my review which makes me sad. Should anyone not believe me I can provide you with Bobby Fishers international cell phone number and you can call him yourself. Bye for now, I need to go finish a game of computer chess.
Rating: 4
Summary: One of the Best "Chess Books out There.
Comment: This book should delight both the hard core as well as the casual chess fan. It is a well written "newspaperlike" account of perhaps the most famous chess match of all time. I confess that like most chess fans from the USA I was a huge Fischer fan as a child and teen. I figured he stopped playing professionally because he was afraid of losing. This book posits the same theory.
I lived through the match, following it very closely, but didn't realise the Soviet side until reading this book. The authors have done an excellent job bringing that to life.
A few things I did wonder about: there was no mention of the strange re-match Fischer had with Spassky in the 90's, nor much elaboration of matches he played in the 80's with a friend who had been interviewed by the author.
But those are minor issues.
If you are interested in chess and Bobby Fischer, this is the definitive work to read.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Mother of All Matches
Comment: If Bobby Fischer's name is affiliated with a book, it comes to reason that there is some amount of weirdness forthcoming. I am not referring to the chess books Fischer wrote, as those are guidelines to chess perfection. This refers to any discussion of his life, which this book does. The world's greatest chess player, Fischer, has lived his personal life much less logically than his life is an eight by eight square cell.
To help the nonchess reader sort out the menagerie, authors David Edmonds and John Eidinow provide a "Dramatis Personae," listing 21 Americans, 24 Soviets, six Icelanders, four match officials, and six sundry others, explaining their relationship to the Reykjavik, Iceland chess match. They also include a short glossary to educate us in the vocabulary of competitive chess.
The book begins with a vital quote by Boris Spassky, "When you play Bobby, it is not a question of whether you win or lose. It is a question of whether you survive. This sets the tone for all that follows.
Edmonds and Eidinow lay out the social mire Fischer was growing up in, and his quick rise to chess dominance.
In 1954, when Fischer was 11, he was attending matches and doing well enough but not at his later prodigy level. In that year, as he is quoted, he "just got good." Modern chess history, or at least for one its most colorful characters, begins then.
1972: Boris Spassky was the champ. He deserved to be there. Bobby Fischer was the contender. He deserved to have the opportunity. Between these two men stood a world of complex politics, money, national pride, idiosyncrasies, and suitors to the game. Reykjavik, Iceland was the location of what has become one of the most legendary chess matches ever, between Spassky and Fischer.
Early on during Fischer's career, he had the same impact Michael Jordan would later enjoy later enjoy as professional basketball player. "Fischer-fear" was the description of some players' psychosomatic illnesses from Fischer's intimidation. Opponents would make mistakes as a result. Fischer had the bravado of Muhammad Ali, but none of his class. He would take this personality and boorish demands to the match.
Boris Spassky is painted differently. A product of the Soviet support system, he became professional about the game. Affable and popular, an opposite to in every way to Fischer, he still had what Fischer lacked -- the title "World Champion."
The bulk of the book moves on from biography and personality profiles. It follows the path the chess culture -- all chaotic in its apparent systemic approach. Going from the need to compete to the actual match turned through every convoluted corner, with Kissinger's involvement, the FBI, the KGB, and as much intrigue as a James Bond movie.
The travails of the match are outlined as needed (but not heavily), highlighting the most interesting parts and never boring nonchess players. The psychology of the players and chess players in general is discussed, as is the history of modern champions, providing a field for tension and a framework for the match.
This was in the midst of the Cold War, and the Soviets -- not just Spassky, owned the chess champ title. Nixon was president. Fischer, the bombastic, arrogant American who hated Russia, had a knack for successfully risking it all on the board by knowing the principles of chess as a sublime art form. Spassky, the methodical Russian, against Fischer, became a symbol of the Cold war itself. The image of the match was only half of the matter. Neither man was the caricature the press saw them as, but such are the stories of legend.
I fully recommend "Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time," by David Edmonds and John Eidinow. Oh, and if you somehow missed the big news back in 1972, Fischer won the match.
Anthony Trendl
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Title: The Radioactive Boy Scout : The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor by KEN SILVERSTEIN ISBN: 037550351X Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 02 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Linguist and the Emperor : Napoleon and Champollion's Quest to Decipher the Rosetta Stone by DANIEL MEYERSON ISBN: 0345450671 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 02 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Bobby Fischer Rediscovered by Andy Soltis ISBN: 0713488468 Publisher: Batsford Pub. Date: 28 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Wittgenstein's Poker : The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers by David Edmonds, John Eidinow ISBN: 0060936649 Publisher: Ecco Pub. Date: 17 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Garry Kasparov on My Great Predecessors, Part 2 by Garry Kasparov ISBN: 185744342X Publisher: Everyman Chess Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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