Drifting off at board is no tired joke
Saturday February 25, 2012 9:47 AM
Have you ever seen a football or basketball player fall asleep during a game?
Of course not. The idea is preposterous.
In chess, we can more easily imagine such an absurdity — but one would not expect the culprit to be Bobby Fischer.
New York grandmaster Arthur Bisguier recalls the following incident from a 1963 game: “Paired against Bobby, I noticed he was taking a long time to move. Then I saw that he’d fallen sound asleep. I awakened him. He yawned, made a move, punched his clock and proceeded to beat me.”
Fischer was usually brimming with energy and super-alert at the board, but, in this instance, he had been up all night playing high-stakes blitz games.
I recall, as a youth, a 15-game simultaneous exhibition in Merida, Mexico, during a seven-week automobile trip to the Yucatan.
One of my opponents, a 93-year-old man whom everyone called Maestro, had to be awakened each time I came to his board.
When I offered him a draw on the 10th move, his face brightened.
“Thanks be to God!” he exclaimed. “That will save the little sight I still have left.”
And he promptly went back to sleep.
Source: http://www.dispatch.com
Sad but true.