I don't have a copy of Profile of a Prodigy available to check, but my recollection is that it was fairly well done. I don't remember the prose style well enough to compare, but it seemed much more focused on facts that would interest a chess player (and contained annotated games, which this one doesn't), while this one seems more focused on reminisces and speculations about personal motivations and such, and still seems geared towards the non-chessplayer (which may explain some of the difference in style).

My mistake, I have to retract one. Brady does go on (on page 281) to mention not only the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, but also sections 1701, 1702 and 1705. He does confusingly say that it was signed by Bush (it wasn't, it was an Act of Congress, and Bush only signed the Executive Order saying "we're going to enforce this"), but I have to give him credit here. Brady does in fact mention the law Fischer broke.

I'm impressed that he even found it. I've quoted it many times, but I only saw it mentioned in one or two stories back in 2004. Since then it's been one of those things that people have done their best to ignore, to the point that "he broke no law" has almost become an article of faith.

Page 292



I may have to retract my retraction, at least partly. In calling it "Bush's Bill", he's clearly conflating the Executive Order (which was not a bill) and the law (which was one), and hoping that the reader will confuse the two, while reducing the actual lie being told to an absolute minimum (the substitution of "Bill" for "Executive Order", which might plausibly be called an error). Notice that he never says that nobody else was ever charged under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, only that nobody else was charged under Bush's "bill" (obviously not, since the Executive Order didn't name anyone else).

He did name the law, I have to give him credit there. But he's gone on to use a lot of sleight of hand to make you either forget about it or think that it wasn't a law at all, just a whim of Bush the Elder. I wonder if Brady ever practiced stage magic?

That idea that there's somehow something inconsistent in charging Fischer, a US citizen under US law while not charging Spassky (a French citizen), is also something that you heard constantly on the internet back in 2004. You could point out that Spassky was a French citizen all you wanted, and people would just pretend not to hear and repeat the claim.

Boy, I'll be glad when this book is done.

This again, from one of the better reviews of the book on Amazon:



re: Brady playing both sides of the street. Here's a pretty typical example of that (from page 309).

You may remember that Fischer charged that every move of every game of not only all the Karpov-Kasparov matches, but also the Karpov-Korchnoi matches were pre-arranged. Here's how Brady describes it (watch the bold and red, which I've added):



In this passage, Brady comes down about as hard on Fischer as he does anywhere in the book. He points out how absurd Fischer's claim was, and clearly does not agree with it himself. But even in a passage like this, Brady leaves a little weasel room to appease the hard-core Fischertarians. Notice:

1) "not incontrovertible evidence": It's not evidence at all, of any kind. It's Zero Evidence. But Brady says no, it is evidence, it's just not "incontrovertible". So, even while saying Fischer was wrong, he tries to plant the idea that maybe he was right... but probably not.

2) "almost all grandmasters": Same as before. Playing both sides, by trying to puff zero evidence into more than zero. There was enough here to convince some Grandmasters. He really wants you to think that some credible people agreed. Just not any that he can name (the 44 pages of footnotes fail to deliver the goods yet again).

3) "many other members of the chess community": Same as above, trying to elevate Fischer's view from lunatic fringe status to being merely the minority view of a genuine controversy.

4) "near total defeat of Petrosian": You see this a lot in Brady's discussion of Fischer's chess acccomplishments, trying to make even great accomplishments sound better (we saw that in the Fischer-Matthai game, which he altered from being a lost game that Fischer saved to being a game he should have won). 72% is certainly a great result, but it's hardly a "near total defeat", especially when discussing a match that was dead even for more than half the games.


Here's the KK game in question:

Karpov-Kasparov, 1985

I can't imagine any GM would be willing to put their reputation on the line with accusations against this game. Not even Lev Alburt, who still considered Fischer to be reigning world champion in 1985.

Incidentally, is that what happens when people pre-arrange a game? They make a lot of moves on the light squares? Funny, I don't remember ever hearing that before.

Anyway, here's another famous pre-arranged game.

Cohn-Rubinstein, 1909

You can tell that this game was pre-arranged, because after move 7, Black makes 21 consecutive piece moves, then doesn't make another piece move at all for the rest of the game! Dead giveaway.


Brady's obviously not in the tank for Fischer on this story, but he's definitely playing both sides of the street, and so shamefully that it's embarrassing to watch.

Another bit from the same review:



And here's my favorite example. Brady's psychoanalysis of a famous photo:





Do you think he might be reading a bit much into it?

Nice example of a rhetorical question. I must confess that I didn't read all your posts on Brady's book, but it really seems to be an unsolvable problem not to affront Fischer's more resolute fans without twisting the truth too much. To be honest, I've divided Fischer's life in two phases for most of my life with his win of the world championship against Spasski as the turning point. While I think you didn't have to be paranoid to feel that the Soviet chess players had to treat Fischer as their public enemy No. 1, some of Fischer's "speculations" about the way they did so tend to be so absurd that they might be taken as early examples for his loss of reality at the end (to say the least).

I took a look through both Chess Life and Chess Review to see what comments, if any, Fischer might have made about that tournament. Neither one had much in the way of comments from any of the players. That seems to have been the reporting style in those days. Everything was in the form of comments from the press room, with few on-the-field interviews.



I think Brady tries, but I doubt he'll be too successful. Take the bit about all the Karpov/Korchnoi/Kasparov matches being pre-arranged. From what I've seen, the hard-core disciples don't want to talk about that at all, and they won't be mollified by the tiny little bones Brady tries to throw them that make it look slightly less nutty, while still making it look nutty. The True Believers I've talked to get extremely upset when certain subjects are so much as mentioned, particulary the anti-Semitism, the charges that Korchnoi threw games in 1962, the charges that every championship since 1972 was pre-arranged, et cetera.

This really is a book for non-chess players, and Brady almost says as much in the acknowledgements. Says that he's trying to paint a picture of Fischer the man, without focusing so much on on his tournaments and accomplishments. But with a book about Fischer, chessplayers are GOING to read it, whether it's directed at them or not, so you've got to satisfy them too. And there's no point compromising the truth to try to satisfy the hard-core. That's like our various attempts to get the Taliban to like us, while still fighting them.



From what I've seen, the Soviets didn't really properly appreciate the danger he represented until it was far too late. They certainly weren't afraid of him in 1962. I think they were more afraid of Larsen in the late 60's. It seems silly in hindsight. After all, Fischer shut Larsen out, but that was 1971. But earlier on, Larsen was playing, at a time when Fischer was hiding. Larsen was in two Candidates series that Fischer opted out of, and won two Interzonals in a row. He was awfully good in the late 60's. If the Soviets had properly appreciated the danger that Fischer represented, I think they would have fought harder to keep him out of the 1970 Interzonal (Brady says zero about that entire business. Not a word about Fischer skipping the Zonal or about Benko giving up his spot.) In 1970, Botvinnik of all people still thought he could beat Fischer in a match and would have tried if Fischer hadn't walked out at the last minute. I don't think the Soviets got really scared until the Taimanov match, but it was too late then. In 1969, most of their top players had winning records against him, and he was always opting out of events any time things weren't just perfect. It was that last big leap in 1970 that vaulted him out of being "One of the Top Players" to "Clear No. 1".

Brady omitted the Benko story? That's a pretty serious omission.

Petro, fantastic posts!! What a great way to come back to the boards!

I spotted a few problems with Brady's book, too.

Most of the book is a tired rehash of his earlier, much better, book (the literary quality is there in the first one, and not at all in the second).

About the 2nd game of the Euwe-Fischer mini-match: this was published in 1995, in Bobby Fischer, Complete Games of the American World Chess Champion, compiled and edited by Lou Hays, as game number 54 (top of page 35, in the paperback edition). It was also published in 2009, in GM Karsten Mueller's book, as game number 60 (page 64). Since Endgame was published in 2011, Brady had plenty of time to get it right. So, what else, if not sloppiness, explains "--the complete score of the Fischer-Euwe draw has not only gone unpublished," (Endgame, p. 67)?

I think you're correct, the Soviets did not perceive him as a danger until it was too late. However, Brady has something about the Soviets creating this special group to study Fischer's play, and if that checks out, it would bolster his claim that they feared Fischer more than might generally be thought, since to my knowledge no other non-Soviet player was acknowledged in this fashion.

Basically, the book is a big disappointment and a waste of money, and that's a harsh thing for me to say about any chess book.

I should point out that there are still plenty of mistakes being made, in stuff written or broadcast about Fischer, specifically concerning basic knowledge widely available, and worst of all, by chess players. I've seen stuff claiming Fischer had never played the Benoni before the 3rd game of his title match against Spassky. Totally wrong. Not counting an exhibition game, before the big match, he had played it nine times, scoring 6 wins, 1 loss, and 2 draws. Even such a good chess writer as GM Seirawan screws up a bit on Fischer's use of the Benoni. In his book No Regrets, he says, speaking of Game 26, after 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5!?, "Though Bobby used the Benoni to good effect in Reykjavik 1972 and in Game 16 in this match, I suspect that he doesn't believe it to be completely sound." No? Well, he used it in important tournaments, including the 2nd Piatigorsky Cup (Santa Monica 1966), the Havana Olympiad of 1966, the Sousse Interzonal of 1967, and the Palma de Mallorca Interzonal of 1970.

The same thing occurs with respect to the Pirc. In Fischer World Champion!, by GMs Max Euwe and Jan Timman, in the coverage of Game 17, there is this howler (after the moves 1 e4 d6) "For the first time in the match Fischer, as Black, decides to play an opening he has never used before." (p.129) This is also in Bobby Fischer Goes to War by Dave Edmonds and John Eidinow: "As for the seventeenth game itself, once again Fischer unpacked a shock opening: a Pirc Defense (named after Slovenian grandmaster Vasja Pirc)--Fischer had never used it before in tournament play." (p.241) Then what to make of Filip-Fischer, Stockholm IZ 1962, a draw in 24 moves. A loss to Benko, in Curacao 1962, and a win against Kholmov, in Skopje 1967--?

It seems that a lot of obvious Fischer facts are confused or forgotten in the rush to push the material. This even happens in movies. Annika and I started to watch a recent Michael Caine movie in which he's the old military guy going for revenge, and his character is a chessplayer, and in one scene he's talking to a woman about studying the games from the Fischer-Spassky match ('72, of course), and he says that Fischer won the seventh game, using a Pirc--wrong opening, it was a Sicilian, and a draw--when it was the sevenTEENTH game that featured the Pirc, and that was also a draw.

It's like obvious mistakes made about firearms in the movies and television. Who cares about accuracy when so few movie or tv watchers carry or even shoot guns? Who cares when so few play or study chess?

Well, a few of us still care, and we're out there...watching!

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I just happened on my copy of Profile of a Prodigy. It is free of the bombastico that Petro is quoting. I wonder if Endgame is ghosted.