The Brady Bunch

In Blitzing Fischer, I wondered how much of Frank Brady's latest book on Bobby Fischer, 'ENDGAME' (Crown Publishers), overlapped his previous work 'Bobby Fischer: Profile of a Prodigy'. I have a copy of the 1989 edition of 'Profile of a Prodigy' (Dover Publications), which purports to be

an unabridged and unaltered republication of the 1973 revised edition of the work first published in 1965 by the David McKay Company, Inc., New York, under the title Profile of a Prodigy: The Life and Games of Bobby Fischer.

I also have a copy of the 1965 David McKay edition, making it easy to compare all three books by Brady. Since both editions of 'Profile of a Prodigy' lack a table of contents, I created them myself and appended them to the bottom of this post (the chapter summaries are mine), along with with a copy of the contents of the new book 'ENDGAME'. You can see immediately that the first eight chapters of the 1965 edition of 'Profile of a Prodigy' match the first nine chapters of the 1972/1989 edition. Indeed, substantial portions of the two editions are identical.

I calculated that a page of the 1965 edition has approximately 400 words per page, while the denser 1972/1989 edition has about 500 words per page. This implies that chapter two of the 1972/1989 edition has about 50% more material than the earlier edition. This is just a rough estimate and not to be taken too seriously. Consider those per page estimates together with my calculation that 'ENDGAME' has about 400 words per page and you can get a good idea how much new material there is in 'ENDGAME'.

Since all but the last chapter of 'Profile of a Prodigy' (257 pages) overlap the first ten chapters of 'ENDGAME' (205 pages), it's clear that 'Profile of a Prodigy' has more detailed coverage of specific tournaments in Fischer's career. In fact, 'ENDGAME' sometimes mentions an event only in passing where 'Profile of a Prodigy' has a round by round description of the same event. The most important event in Fischer's career, the 1972 title match with Spassky, was reduced from five chapters and 28.000 words to one chapter and 12.000 words.

As a balance to this reduced material, the last third of 'ENDGAME' covers material which transpired after the finish of the 1972 match. The most important were the 1975 default against Karpov, the 1992 return match with Spassky, Fischer's detention in Japan, and his final years in Iceland. 'ENDGAME' also has substantial fresh material from Fischer's early years. This, along with new angles on Fischer's life in other chapters (e.g. money, the Church of God), made for a particularly pleasurable read.

Back to my original question on overlap, the two books have enough differences that they complement each other nicely. Both are worthy elements of any serious chess library.

***

[Chapter, start page, description]

Profile of a Prodigy (McKay, 1965):-
-- --- Introduction (December 1964)
01 001 Early years
02 017 Thru Zurich 1959
03 028 Thru Leipzig 1960
04 042 Thru Ginzburg 1961
05 057 Thru Curacao 1962
06 074 Thru Varna 1962
07 079 Thru end-1963
08 084 Thru end-1964
09 092 Psychology & future
-- 101 75 games [last is Fischer - Benko, U.S. Chp 1963]
-- 249 Index of players
-- 251 [last + 1]

Profile of a Prodigy (Dover, 1989; 26 photos):-
-- --- Introduction (October 1972)
01 001 Early years [Chapter intro: 'When I was eleven, I just got good.']
02 015 Thru Zurich 1959
03 030 Thru Leipzig 1960
04 041 Thru Ginzburg 1961
05 048 Thru Stockholm 1962
06 053 Thru Curacao 1962
07 064 Thru Varna 1962
08 068 Thru end-1963
09 074 Thru end-1964
10 083 Thru Havana 1965
11 092 Thru end-1965
12 095 Thru prelims Santa Monica 1966
13 100 Thru Santa Monica 1966
14 108 Thru prelims Havana 1966
15 117 Thru Havana 1966
16 121 Thru Monaco 1967
17 128 Thru Skopje 1967
18 133 Thru Sousse 1967
19 142 Thru end-1968
20 151 Thru end-1969
21 158 Thru Zagreb 1970
22 168 Thru Siegen 1970
23 174 Thru Palma 1970
24 182 Thru Taimanov 1971
25 189 Thru Petrosian 1971
26 201 1972 Negotiations I
27 213 1972 Negotiations II
28 221 1972 Will he play?
29 230 1972 Arrival in Iceland
30 241 1972 Spassky match
31 258 Psychology & future
-- 269 90 games [last is 1972 g.21]
-- 403 Tournament & Match Record
-- 406 Index of players
-- 409 Crosstables of major tournaments
-- 425 General index
-- 436 [last + 1]

[Chapter, start page, title (my description)]

ENDGAME (2011)
-- ix Author's Note
01 001 Loneliness to Passion [chapter titles from book]
02 019 Childhood Obsession
03 038 Out of the Head of Zeus [thru 1957 U.S. Chp (zonal)]
04 080 The American Wunderkind [thru Portoroz 1958]
05 109 The Cold War Gladiator [Yugoslavia 1959, Church of God]
06 123 The New Fischer [money, Mar del Plata 1960, Leipzig 1960]
07 134 Einstein’s Theory [thru Curacao 1962]
08 150 Legends Clash [thru Santa Monica 1966]
09 162 The Candidate [thru Petrosian 1971]
10 172 The Champion [1972 Spassky match]
11 205 The Wilderness Years
12 231 Fischer-Spassky Redux
13 259 Crossing Borders
14 279 Arrest and Rescue
15 295 Living and Dying in Iceland
-- 320 Epilogue
-- 329 Acknowledgments
-- 333 Notes
-- 379 Bibliography
-- 385 Index [not present in the advance copy]

Time/Life Archives

Some months ago I posted about LIFE Magazine on Google with pointers to find copies of complete articles. If you're just looking for photos, don't miss Life.com: 1170 results 'chess'. Also worth knowing is Time.com: 1397 results 'chess', which highlights 'Covers' (for sale if you want to frame a copy) and 'Photo Essays' (just one, published at the time of Fischer's death). You can restrict the search to include, for example, only articles from 1972.

Similar results for Sports Illustrated are available at SportsIllustrated.cnn.com: 1348 results 'chess', although even when you sort by 'relevance', you get many articles on other sports where chess is used as a metaphor. First on the relevant list is currently 'Nadal is Federer's greatest foil'.

As long as I'm posting about mainstream news and photo archives, I might as well mention Google News Archive Search. It starts with a graphical overview of all articles from 1880-2011, then lets you drill down by period. The all time peak chess news coverage was in 1972, and I doubt this will ever change.

Fischer - Benko, U.S. Championship 1963

Like the two previous games -- Unzicker - Fischer, 1962 Varna (26 moves) and Fischer - Najdorf, 1962 Varna (24 moves) -- the next game in this series titled 18 Memorable Games is a short, sharp win by Fischer over a world class GM. The game Fischer - Benko, U.S. Championship 1963, is no.46 in Fischer's 60 Memorable Games and no.72 in Kasparov's Predecessors IV. As usual, the PGN is given here with the punctuation by both Fischer and Kasparov.

[Event "US Championship"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1963.??.??"]
[Round "10"]
[White "Fischer, R."]
[Black "Benko, P."]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B09"]

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.f4 Nf6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Bd3 Bg4 {FIS: '?'; KAS: '?!'} 7.h3 Bxf3 8.Qxf3 Nc6 9.Be3 e5 {KAS: '?!'} 10.dxe5 dxe5 11.f5 gxf5 12.Qxf5 Nd4 13.Qf2 {KAS: '!'} 13...Ne8 14.O-O Nd6 15.Qg3 {KAS: '?!'} 15...Kh8 {KAS: '?!'} 16.Qg4 {KAS: '!'} 16...c6 17.Qh5 Qe8 {FIS: '?'; KAS: '?'} 18.Bxd4 exd4 19.Rf6 {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!!'} 19...Kg8 20.e5 h6 21.Ne2 {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!'} 1-0

The only real point of disagreement between the two former World Champions involves the 15th moves for both sides, which Kasparov believes is a double inaccuracy: 15.Qg3 {KAS: '?!'} 15...Kh8 {KAS: '?!'}. To play through the complete game, see...

Robert James Fischer vs Pal Benko; US Ch. 1963
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008421

...on Chessgames.com.

Annika at Pinocchio Park

Checkmate - Collodi, Pinocchio Park © Flickr user Bjørn Giesenbauer under Creative Commons.

Visit Pinocchio Park in Collodi: 'Pinocchio Park was opened in 1956, not as a customary theme park but as a journey through the fairytale.' • Carlo Collodi: 'Carlo Lorenzini (November 24, 1826 – October 26, 1890), better known by the pen name Carlo Collodi, was an Italian children's writer known for the world-renowned fairy tale novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio.'

***

Signing off 2010 with best wishes for 2011!

Janos Kadar Chess Set

For the last edition of Top eBay Chess Items by Price in 2010, I didn't choose the most expensive item of the previous fortnight, although it's one of the most interesting. The title of the chess set shown in the composite photo was 'Chess Set of Hungarian Communist Leader János Kadar'. It attracted 61 bids, finally selling for US $731.

The description said,

This chess set of historical value was given to Hungary's communist leader János Kádár in 1983 by Husak Gustav, the communist dictator of Czechoslovakia. The set was carved in wood by the Czech artist J.Vanek in 1980, in a modernist neo-cubist style, signed by the artist on the side of the box.

Communist leader J.Kádár was known as being a quite skillful chess player and supporter of the chess movement, this is the very reason of this kind of present. An evidence of this is that he was even immortalized on a huge fresco in the Hungarian House of Parliament, playing chess in his early years, theme of a widely disputed controversy nowadays, whether it should be removed or not.

Provenance: shortly after his death in 1989, his widow put up on charity auctions most of the large number of the official presents he got through his long dictatorship, from 1956 till the collapse of communism in Hungary, in 1989. The set comprises from the 32 pieces and an inlayed box with red lining. King 11 cm, Queen 10 cm, Pawn 5,5 cm.

For more about Kádár, see Wikipedia's János Kádár.

Blitzing Fischer

Get ready for a Bobby Fischer media blitz. This is my sixth consecutive post on this blog about Fischer and it's no coincidence. Since receiving an advance copy of ENDGAME by Frank Brady (Crown Publishers), I've been immersed once again in details about the 11th World Champion's unusual career. (For more about the book, see my recent post The Bobby Fischer Saga.) I've already spotted one review on another blog that I follow regularly -- Definitive Book on Bobby Fischer (jimwestonchess.blogspot.com) -- and there are certainly more to come. The back cover of the advance copy promises,

National print attention • National and local NPR [National Public Radio] • Author events and interviews from New York • Frank Brady audio podcast and Bobby Fischer timeline available for online promotion • Outreach to chess, gaming, psychology, and technology bloggers

plus much more. When I was writing for About.com, I posted three reviews of books on Fischer

• Bobby Fischer Goes to War, by David Edmonds and John Eidinow (May 2004; 4.5 stars out of five)
  
• The Wandering King, by Hans Böhm and Kees Jongkind (March 2005; 2.5)
  
• Garry Kasparov on Fischer : My Great Predecessors, Part IV (March 2005; 4.5)

and summmarized my opinion about his complex personality in an introduction to the two reviews from March 2005: Tales of Two Fischers. Long after that I summarized my opinion of book reviews in two posts on this blog: In Defense of Chess Book Reviewers and The Purpose of a Book Review. Those previous efforts make it easy to be specific about what I'm looking for in Dr. Brady's latest book.

First, given the great mass of material that is already available, what can one say about Bobby Fischer that hasn't been said? Even detailed computer analysis of Fischer's games has been undertaken by Kasparov in 'Predecessors IV'. Second, what can Frank Brady say about Bobby Fischer that he hasn't said in 'Profile of a Prodigy'? I'll need at least another week to finish reading the book and organize my thoughts. In the meantime I have ideas for related posts on my two other blogs -- Chess960 (FRC) and the World Chess Championship -- both linked in the right sidebar.

Finding a Constructive Plan

The diagram shows the critical position in Unzicker - Fischer, 1962 Varna. Unzicker played 21.h3 and the game continued 21...Rc8 22.Rfe1 h6! 23.Kh2 Bg5 24.g3? Qa7! 25.Kg2 Ra2 26.Kf1 Rxc3!, when White resigned. The punctuation in that sequence was given by both Fischer and Kasparov. White's woes stem from a loose Pawn position quickly penetrated by Black's line pieces. The moves 21.h3 and 24.g3 both weakened White's second rank and left the White King unprotected, leading to disaster.

Varna Olympiad 1962
Fischer, Robert

Unzicker, Wolfgang
After 20...Qb6-a6

Of the diagrammed position, Fischer wrote,

It's hard for White to hit upon a constructive plan. At Curacao 1962, Tal played against me 21.Rad1 Rc8 22.Nc1 b4 23.Nd3 bxc3 24.bxc3 and now 24...Rxc3 wins outright. If 25.Nxe5 dxe5 26.Qxe5 Bb4 27.Qxc3 Qxf1+.

Kasparov agreed with this, and added,

Of course, White had to give up dreams of an advantage long ago, but also his problems should not be exaggerated. Forty years later Huebner nevertheless found a constructive plan -- 21.g3!, leaving the h3-square for the King and intending to meet ...Bg5 with h2-h4, while if 21...Qa8 22.Qxa8 Rfxa8 then 23.Kg2 -- 24.Kf3 with a probable draw.

After 21.g3, which is also the machine's first choice, Black has better ideas than trading Queens with 21...Qa8. For example, Fischer's next move in the game, 21...Rc8, looks just as good here. It threatens 22...b4, and if 22.Kg2, Black can continue 22...Rcc4, with various themes on the a- and c-files. One variation the machine points out is 23.Rxa4 bxa4 24.Ra1 h5 25.Nc1 Rc5 26.Qd3 Qb7 27.Rxa4 Qxb2+ 28.Ne2 Rxc3 29.Ra8+ Kh7 30.Qxc3 Qxe2+ 31.Kg1 Bg5 32.Ra3 Qxe4, giving up the exchange for a couple of Pawns and play against the other, overextended Pawns.

It's useless to go into too much detail here. Playing through Fischer's short wins is often an exercise in frustration. You wonder how he would have played against better defense and feel deprived at not being able to see the logical outcome of his own deeply conceived plans.