Bobby the maximalist

Fischer even swam as if victory were only option
Saturday, July 12, 2008 2:55 AM
By SHELBY LYMAN

Bobby Fischer was a maximalist who set his eyes on the world chess championship before he became a teenager. In person, he could be genial and even seemingly relaxed, but most of his conscious moments seemed subsumed to his ultimate goal.

Like a Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, he was uncompromisingly competitive. His striving for the maximum manifested itself in various and sometimes surprising ways.

When he wandered the streets of New York in his teens and 20s, he walked much faster than most other people.

A Yugoslavian sportsman of exceptional endurance and ability confessed to me that he found it difficult to keep up with Fischer.

“Bobby’s legs seemed to be stretching out to the horizon with each step,” he said.

Fischer might have possessed more than a little athletic ability. A New York teacher remembered him as “the best underwater swimmer” at a summer camp.

At the chessboard, “the kid from Brooklyn” was mercilessly competitive, exhausting his opponents by relentless and prolonged efforts to win.

But his competitiveness could also have a boyish quality, as when he taunted Boris Spassky while they swam in a hotel pool during a 1966 tournament that took place in Santa Monica, Calif.

“I swim faster than you,” Fischer told his Soviet foe.

Or when, during the same event, a construction worker overheard him declaring: “I’m going to crush Nadjorf and Larsen! Petrosian doesn’t stand a chance. Just wait until I get to play Spassky.”

Source: Columbus Dispatch