Pawn Sacrifice

The Queen's Gambit led to talk of Bobby Fisher's career, and the astounding world events of the match with Boris Spassky in 1972.  Which led to the film Pawn Sacrifice (2014) with Tobey Maguire as Fisher and Liev Schrieber as Spassky. 

Almost immediately, you see Fisher as a thoroughly obnoxious, screwed-up guy.  Even telling his own mother to "move the f**k out" at the age of about 15 and flying off the handle on everyone else from beginning to end.

I had Bobby Fisher Teaches Chess on my shelf by about age ten (1976).  I know we tend to idolize people, but I find it hard to believe he was anything like that.  But as you look more deeply, you find more wild incidents and disturbing tangents; raging outbursts and a head full of conspiracy theories.  How much of it was real, and how much was part of the stress or strategy or meta-game, or just a guy trying to cope with unwanted fame?  What's clear is that Fisher was a fascinating person, and I found Maguire's portrayal to be exceptional.  He was clearly in than mind-space as an actor, and never wavered, however difficult it was to watch.

Liev Schrieber did a good job as Spassky, though it was a surprisingly small role overall.  I wondered two things right away: how to pronounce his name once and for all, and did he actually speak Russian.  The first one is easy: it's LEE-ev; you can see him explain it to Stephen Colbert here.  And no, he learned the lines phonetically, which he says was “one of the scariest things I have ever done.”

Before watching it, I had seen some articles from chess masters talking about how sloppy the boards and games were, but I honestly never saw it.  The bottom left corner was always black, and even if it wasn't, that would take away maybe 0.08 stars.  However, did they in fact not stop and point out the famous pawn sacrifice move that I assume the movie was named after?  I thought their description of the famous sixth game was off: they were saying he was using completely original moves, where after looking a variety of analyses, I found this one from agadmator to be the most down-to-earth.  Sure, a c4 opening looks alien to me, but it quickly turns into the Queen's Gambit Declined, and the analyst says it was the first time Fisher played that position as white in his entire career.  So, the moves were not unknown to the world.  The movie did seem to exaggerate the descriptions of moves and games throughout, but it was a drama after all.  I am not opposed to making the story a little more entertaining.  Let the analysts do the analyzing.

There is a fascinating interview with Spassky about his reaction to the movie over at chess24, which gives more about the mental states of the players of the big match than I have seen anywhere else.  About Fisher during the match: "I felt sorry for him. I could see that the guy was going mad! I had a good relationship with Bobby. It’s Korchnoi who needs to hate his opponent to play normally. I’m absolutely not like that. Sitting opposite me was a child who was losing his mind. What kind of hatred could there be?"  Check out the link for more.  It's short but very revealing.

So it was a good movie but a bit hard to sit through due to the constant discomfort.  I don't expect that it had much impact on the game or industry, as it's not that easy to find any timely press about it.

On a personal note, I did fire up a chess app over the weekend and see just how much I had forgotten.  I never played in any tournaments other than a few in high school.  I don't even remember how those turned out.  I did get to be known as a good player among friends and have had some epic games with my long-time friend Doug.  While being in the crew of the HMS Surprise filming "Master and Commander" there was a lot of chess and other games being played between scenes.  I had the pleasure (well it wasn't a pleasure at the time) of being one of three people beat simultaneously by Al Sorkin, who went on to be captain of the Star of India.  That whole experience boiled down to: don't play chess with sailors, and (unrelated note) don't play dominoes with Australians.  Some groups have more time, more experience, and a much more serious take on their games.  And now, I can just beat a dumb AI ranked at 1100.  But I could work my chess brain back into shape, I suppose, if I need that kind of mental strain in my life again.  ;-)