THE CALIFORNIA CHESS REPORTER (Vol. XXII No. 1) July-August 1972

WORLD CHAMPION BOBBY FISCHER

   A year ago we wrote on this page, "We wait for Fischer to do what we know he can." He now has done it, and by the good margin of 12.5-8.5. Fischer outplayed Spassky. Of the three games won by Spassky, one was won by the famous blunder BxP (although Fischer could have drawn the game later), one was a forfeit, and the third was practically handed over by Fischer's stubbornly walking into the Poisoned Pawn variation for the second time, although everybody knew that the Soviet chess world would be prepared this time. In other words, Spassky did not actually earn any wins at all in the match.

   Toward the end, Fischer appeared to some to be giving lessons on how to draw chess games (it will be remembered that he is opposed to counting draws in title matches). Bobby drew games in various ways: a pawn down, an exchanged down for a pawn, ahead a pawn but with a bad end game, and with R, B and Kt plus 3 Ps vs. 2Rs and 5Ps!