Bobby Fischer vs. the Rest of the World: Updated in 2009, with a New Foreword and scores of all 25 games between Fischer and Spassky, with diagrams and some chess analysis by Sam Sloan

by Brad Darrach, Sam Sloan (Foreword)

In 1972, an epic chess match took place in Iceland between representatives of the two great super-powers of the Bobby vs. Boris. Boris was backed by the Mighty Soviet Union, with late night phone calls coming from his handlers in Moscow, telling him what his next move should be. Meanwhile, Bobby stood alone against the might of the opposing nation. But, Bobby was not exactly alone. The Americans did not need to tell him what moves to make on the chessboard. Bobby already knew how to do that. Rather, what the Americans needed to do was somehow to get him to sit down at the board and play the game. Here is the story of that titanic One half of the world trying to get Bobby to play, while the other half was trying to defeat him assuming that he did play. Hence the Bobby Fischer vs. The Rest of the World. In the end, Bobby won. Émigrés from the Soviet Union often state that, more than any other single event, this defeat led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Genres: Chess

334 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2008

Reviews

[Shelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who would've guessed Bobby Fischer had a Chess board on bis ceiling above his bed as a child... Very relaxing read. Very interesting read on the preparation for his big/ final game (for nearly 30 years)...

[Keely · Rating 4 out of 5]

I became close friends with the author of this book back in the 1970s when we worked together at Time magazine. He gave me a copy of the book with the numbers $20,000,000 hand written in front of the price. That was the amount Bobby Fischer was suing him for after the book was released. I'm serious. The case was thrown out of court. Sorry if you are reading this expecting a review, but I couldn't resist telling that little story. There's more, to be told at another time. I'm prejudiced about the book so I can't give an unbiased review. I will say that I loved it at the time but could also understand why Bobby Fischer wanted to sue him. I have not read the revised version, which was published more than 10 year after Brad Darrach died.

[Tapani Sammalvuo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Contains a lot of libelous content which has been proven to be untrue. Darrach also breached a written contract with Fischer in which he explicitely agreed not to write a book about Fischer.