When I was seven years old, I came across a world almanac book. I remember breezing through it and reaching the sports section, where it was normal to every year show the world champions of the most important sports in the world. Being an American, I remember feeling very proud every time I saw the name of an American being champion at a sport, especially if there was a long track record of American dominance: track and field, basketball, tennis and well... chess. Chess?
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| When I saw this table back when I was seven, I thought the same thing you would when thinking about Soviet Union and United States "rivalry" ? |
The chess section in the almanac showed that since 1937, the USSR (former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), had a complete dominance in chess, personified by champions such as Alekhine, Botvinik, Smylov, Tal, Petrossian, Spassky, until 1972 where the sole name of an American interrupted the nearly 50 years of Soviet dominance: it was Robert Fischer, more commonly known as Bobby Fischer. I remember his name had an asterisk "*" next to it, with a bottom page note that read "* = Fischer was stripped from his title as he refused to defend it against challenger Anatoly Karpov, who was pronounced new world champion". I remember thinking to myself "wow, these Soviets are really strong at this chess thing. This Fischer guy must have been very good, since he's the only non-soviet who has been champion of the world." All of these thoughts went through my mind when I first saw his name at the world almanac when I was seven. Later on, I would learn the incredible story of Bobby Fischer becoming world chess champion.
When Bobby was six, he got a chess board as a gift from his mother and became fascinated by the game. After reading the rules of the game, he was able to teach himself basic openings and strategies, that led him to beat his sister, his neighbors and his friends. His mother placed an ad at a newspaper, inquiring if other chess players wanted to play his son. Eventually, Bobby was brought to the Manhattan Chess Club, where he was mentored by some of the top players back then, and again, sooner than later, he found himself beating more people than losing.
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| This young kid wasn't just "good". He was special... |
Bobby was a genius, with some sources claiming his IQ was around the 190-195 range (keep in mind Einstein's was 160). He also had a photographic memory, but more importantly, he had the one ingredient I will be concentrating on this entry: Passion. For Bobby, defeating his opponent was not enough; he wanted to crush his opponent. When Bobby was fifteen, he decided he was going to quit high-school and become world chess champion. This statement is particularly interesting, because you don't see many fifteen year old "deciding they are going to become world champions..." of anything whatsoever.
I'll skip some of the specifics of Bobby's story and move forward to 1970, but before that I'll make a quick parenthesis to explain something.
Three world championship cycles had gone by Bobby. To become world champion of chess, you have to become "world chess challenger", which means, to win the world championship cycle, which is basically a series of "free-for-all" tournaments in which all the players who aspire to challenge the world champion are in. First locally, then national, then regional then worldwide. The world chess challenger then faces the world champion, and if he beats him, the title is his.
The first cycle Bobby attended was the 1959, when he had just turned sixteen years old. He managed to finish fifth out of eight players and was only surpassed by Soviet players. The second cycle was the 1962. By then, Bobby's rating and skills were already strongh enough to face the world chess champion, but the Soviet players were not going to allow this to happen. So in the final round of the world championship cycle, which was a round-robin format, they decided to fix the games among themselves, drawing their matches in order to save strength to play against Bobby. Bobby immediately discovered the conspiration and denounced that he was quitting the tournament. The third cycle was the 1965. Bobby was leading the tournament, but was hurt by poor scheduling from the organizers, forcing him to play multiple players with no rest, which in his mind, was also a conspiration to prevent him from becoming world champion. Eventually, he withdrew from the tournament. End parenthesis.
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| Fischer's bitterness towards Soviet Players did not include all the team. Former champion Mikhail Tal was known as a true gentleman and was highly regarded by everyone. When he fell ill during the 1962 cycle, Fischer was the only player who visited him. |
Enter the 1970 cycle, a few changes were made to the format of the tournament. The most important one was that the final rounds would be played using a bracket format instead of a round robin, meaning there would be no place for match-fixing or inconvenient scheduling. Everyone had to play someone on exact similar conditions. Unfortunately, the first rounds of the tournament were still under the old rules, which caused Bobby once again to sit out from the cycle, as he felt they were unfair. However, one of the qualified players gave up his spot and allowed Fischer to play instead of him. Fischer accepted, and that is how the most amazing world championship run story began.
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| Miguel Najdorf (who invented the Sicilian-Najdorf strategy) was the first top player who felt the Fisher power. Fischer defeated him in the interzonal... using the Sicilian-Najdorf strategy against him! |
Fischer finished the interzonal round of the cycle with seven consecutive wins. Let me explain something here first: you don't normally see "seven consecutive wins" in chess. Wait, let me stand corrected: you don't see "seven consecutive wins" in chess. That is simply unheard of. Normally top players finish tournaments with a draw of two consectuve wins, maybe three. Never seven. Finishing a tournament with seven consecutive wins over top players, is like winning the last 40 games of a baseball or a basketball season. As winner of the interzonal, Bobby had to face Soviet Mark Taimanov in a match that consisted in a series of 6 games. Allow me to pause for one second:
In chess, matches are scored on points: wins are worth one point, draws are worth half. So normally chess matches end up with a score of 4-3, or 5 1/2 - 4 1/2, or 5 1/2 - 3 1/2. It's as common as soccer (football) matches with scores of 1-0, 2-1, 3-2, 3-1, and by common I mean 99.99% of the time. This means that in a normal match against top players, half the games they play are drawn and they score two or three wins and one or two losses.
The result of quarter-final cycle match Fischer vs Taimanov (left) was six wins in six games for Fischer: 6-0.
Next in line was Bent Larssen (right). The result of semi-final match Fischer vs Larsen: six wins in six games for Fischer, in other words another 6-0.
Now let me put this in context. You NEVER, and I emphasize NEVER, see two back-to-back six wins no draws no losses 6-0 matches in chess. In fact, it had never been seen before, and... it has never been seen since. To win two back-to-back matches by perfect scores in chess, is something like
- In football / soccer: Winning six straight world cup matches by a score of 11-0.
- In baseball: Winning 40 consecutive games, by scores of 20 runs to 0.
- In football / NFL: Winning all 16 games of regular season and all playoff games up to the Super Bowl by 70-0.
- In basketball: winning 20 games of regular season and 8 games of playoffs with +60 point difference
- In track and field: winning the 100m dash in 9 seconds flat and the 200m in 17 seconds.
- In tennis: winning back-to-back grand slams (whichever grand slam) by winning all 14 matches with 6-0/6-0/6-0 score
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| Despite the astounding score difference, the 1992 Dream Team's results were expected. Fischer's results were both astounding, unexpected and impossible to achieve by anyone but him. |
The embarrasment was such for the Soviet federation, that they punished Taimanov by stripping him from his Grandmaster title. Bent Larsen never again showed up for a competitive tournament. Next in line: former champion Tigran Petrossian, who called Fischer's run "a thing of luck" and predicted he would beat Fischer.
The first game saw another Fischer victory, who extended to twenty his streak of victories against top grandmasters. Finally, the streak came to an end when Petrossian was able to score a win in the second game. Three straight draws followed and then Fischer once again shifted gears up and scored three wins to end the match and become the world chess challenger to face Boris Spassky, reigning champion. After conceding the first game to a horrible blunder and forfeiting the second game to fall at a 0-2 score, the Fischer juggernaut continued, winning seven games, drawing eleven and losing just one.
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| Spassky's body language says it all in this picture of the 1972 World Championship. There was nothing he or anyone could do against the Fischer juggernaut. |
Thirteen years after Fischer decided to become World Chess Champion, he was crowned as the best player in the planet. He single-handedly took down the entire Soviet empire of chess dominance. The long term objective had been achieved.
While not a personal hero to me, there are many lessons that can be learnt from the Fischer accomplishment and that can be extrapolated into our lives and our planning and setting of long term goals, even when I'm sure most of your long term objectives and goals are nowhere near becoming World Chess Champion:
Even when I'll go into some of the details of Fischer's routine, they will be mere consequences and implications of an inner emotion that comes from our brain, our hearts, our soul, or whichever source you wish to label as source for inspiration.
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| It's always an inspiration to be one step closer to your goal. |
There are seven main bottom lines for this point.
1. Passion drives everything
Fischer LOVED chess. In order to engage in a long term goal, you MUST LOVE the path that will drive you to that goal. In other words, this is the fuel that ignites your passion.
2. Motivation comes within
Second: Motivation comes from the inside. Nobody was next to Fischer every day, reminding him to study chess books or play games against stronger players. It is YOU who start the engine every day.
3. Small rewards feed you more than food
In this interview, Fischer states the greatest pleasure he finds (found) in chess was "when you break his (opponent's) ego". These small rewards become more effective than any vitamin supplement.
http://youtu.be/MPlXC3M8hbg?t=3m25s
4. Build bridges to help you cross rivers, walls and other barriers
Fischer taught himself several foreign languages in order to be able to study foreign chess books and magazines.
5. Distractions are an enemy
Note that a distraction is something that pulls you away from the path that leads you to your objective. It doesn't mean a recreation is an enemy. In fact, recreations are your friends because they will help you clear your mind and relax.
6. Defend your rights and fight for what it's fair
Fischer made a statement and fought for fair conditions which included his rights and an environment that was balanced for him to keep towards his goal. Note that I didn't say "he fixed the environment", but instead he balanced the environment, which means: sometimes you'll have to face your surroundings.
7. NEVER give up
Long term goals are exactly that: long term.
They are not achieved in days, weeks, sometimes even months and years. Nevertheless, you have a huge advantage: there is always time.
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