When Vishy Met Bobby...

   

         When Vishy Met Bobby

Vishy Anand: 'I found Bobby Fischer         surprisingly normal and calm'




An article on Guardian.co.uk has been getting mentions on chess blogs everywhere -- not too surprising in that it features the

current World Champion talking about one of his greatest predecessors: Vishy Anand: I found Bobby Fischer surprisingly normal and

calm. Here's the portion that relates to this blog:-

Q: The BBC showing the documentary Bobby Fischer, Genius and Madman. You met Fischer in 2006, a couple of years before he died. What

was he like?

A: I found him surprisingly normal. Well, at least not very tense. He seemed to be relieved to be in the company of chess players. He

was calm in that sense. He was also a bit worried about people following him, so the paranoia never really went away. But I am really

happy I got the chance to meet him before he died in 2008. It was weird as well because I kept having to remind myself that this was

Bobby Fischer sitting in front of me!


Q: Were you tempted to whip out a pocket chessboard and challenge him to a quick blitz game?

A: No, because he whipped out his pocket chess set first and we started to analyse some recent games I'd played.


Q: Really?

A: Yes, I showed him some of my games from Wijk aan Zee and tried to share some interesting developments. He was sort of able to

follow everything – he hadn't lost his sharpness for chess – but his methods were a bit dated. In that sense he had fallen behind.


Q: How do you mean?

A: Well, he had some suggestions, and he was sort of in the ball park … but when I would tell him that the computer says white is

winning here, for me that was a sign to move on – but for him it was a starting point to argue with me! [Laughs]. I found it

difficult to say to him 'No, no, no – these computers are really strong. You shouldn't be arguing with them!"'



Q: The American Bobby Fischer, who died at the beginning of the year, was chess crazy, paranoid, misanthropic. You met this chess

genius two and a half years ago in Iceland, where he was living in exile. How did that happen?

A: I played in a tournament in Reykjavik and the Icelandic grandmaster Helgi Olafsson asked me if I would be interested in meeting

Bobby Fischer. Olafsson picked him up from his flat, while I waited in the car. Fischer probably wanted to avoid my knowing which

apartment was his.


Q: What did you talk to him about?

A: Fischer told me how he sometimes rode around Reykjavik with the bus, in order to see the city. He complained that he could not get

Indian balm [Amrutanjan] in Iceland. Suddenly he wanted to go to McDonalds. So there he was, this legend of the chess world, asking

me if I took ketchup.


Q: Did you talk about chess?

A: Of course. We were standing in a park and Bobby pulled out an old pocket chess set and we analysed a couple of games between

Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi in 1974. He wanted to prove that all world championship games after his victory were prearranged.

He did not convince me.


Q: Why did Fischer specifically want to meet you?

A: Perhaps he felt an affinity. We are both from countries in which chess was not popular until we came along. I am not Russian and

Fischer felt persecuted by the Soviets in the past. And there is evidence to suggest that Soviet grandmasters actually ganged up

against him.


Q:If you could go back in time, which world champion would you have most liked to have faced at their peak? Mikhail Tal or Bobby

Fischer. How would I have got on?

A: Well, it depends whether the time machine drops me back in 1960 or 1972 or it puts Tal and Fischer in 2011. It would make a big

difference.



Q: Fischer proposed a new variation of the game, which is called Fischer Random Chess. He wanted the pieces in the starting position

to me shuffled before every game. Would that not be a more creative form of chess?

A: I do not think much of a random placement of the pieces. That is perhaps something for people who were previously active and now

have very little time. They don't want to study openings theory. But the opening systems are part of chess.


Looks like we won't be seeing Anand anytime soon in another chess960 tournament. In fact, that assessment complements an item posted

by Thechessdrum.net just after Fischer's death in January 2008: Fischer wanted to play Kasparov, Anand.

A story from the Iceland’s Morgunbladid has stated that Bobby Fischer desired one last match with Garry Kasparov and/or Viswanathan

Anand. [...] In interviews he stated that he would only play Fischer Random, but there was keen interest in a match with a top

player. [...] Anand had been asked about a match with Fischer and expressed keen interest in the possibility.
It's not clear from that account whether Anand's 'keen interest' for a match applied to chess960, or was reserved for traditional

chess, where he would have trounced Fischer. The Chess Drum's post leads to another account of the Anand - Fischer meeting, this time

preserved on video -- Fischer Remembered | Macauley on blip.tv -- where Anand speaks about the Reykjavik meeting at both 5:50 and

7:40 into the clip.



Q:    SPIEGEL ask Vishy:    In recent times the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen has been in the headlines. He is seventeen and at the beginning of the month

he was, for five days, the number one in the unofficial world rankings. How good is he?

Anand: He will sooner or later become World Champion. I like him, he is a Monty Python fan, just like me.


Mr Anand, we thank you for this interview...