Portrait of a chess artist

Portrait of the artist as a grand master
May 26, 2008

Hay festival 2008: Perhaps he lacked the killer instinct of his rival Bobby Fischer, but Boris Spassky played chess as a beautiful game

There must have been times in his career when the former world chess champion Boris Spassky, something of a rebel within the old Soviet chess establishment, feared being packed off to Siberia. At Hay, he finally found out what it would have been like.

Happily, he quickly charmed away the wintry weather. Here was the most gentlemanly and, whisper it, sane of chess players – proof that the great game does not, contrary to popular myth, attract only those who would spend their lives in an asylum if they were denied the sanctuary of the 64 squares.

Chess players, pointed out the interviewer Ronan Bennett, can be unpleasant – they want to crush their opponents, do whatever it takes to win. Spassky is not like that. “I preferred to fight on good terms, enjoying the life,” he said. “It’s not a sport in which I had to kill.”

That was Spassky’s strength – and his weakness. It is the right approach to games-playing – and, indeed, to life: no victory is worth treading on your rivals – but when he came up against Bobby Fischer and the American’s ferocious will to win in their world title match in 1972, he had no answer.

From what he said to Bennett, it sounded as if, even before a move had been played, he had convinced himself Fischer was the stronger player and would inevitably dethrone him. Moreover, the pressure of being world champion, the burdens of office, had unsettled him; losing the title was a release – he could resume his life.

“What attracted you to chess?” Bennett asked him. “It is an enigma,” he said. But he answered the question later, albeit indirectly, when he referred on several occasions to the “harmony” of chess, the way a beautiful game can aspire to be art. One was reminded of the chess-mad Marcel Duchamp‘s famous quote that “while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists”. Tragically, in my case, it is not true – I am more of a comedian – but manifestly, in Spassky’s, it is.

The question returned later in a more poignant form. “Mr Spassky, you obviously have a very good brain…” – this, too, was obvious from the precision with which he composed his answers. “Do you ever regret devoting your life to a game.” Long pause. “Ask second question, please,” said Spassky.

He was in his mid 30s when he lost his crown to Fischer; knew his best playing days were behind him; that ahead lay only decline. Chess players, like composers, mathematicians and Premiership footballers, peak early. Who wouldn’t have doubts on the way down about the path one had taken?

But they are unnecessary: to have been world champion, to have played the unforgettable 1972 match against Fischer – the ghost in this room, with Spassky on one occasion breaking down as he recalled his old adversary and friend – and to have created some wonderful, artistic, harmonious games is surely enough. Banish any regrets, Boris. You won.

Source: guardian.co.uk