One thousand nine hundred and seventy-six

• The women who played Bobby Fischer, Rappler, April 8, 2019

Manila, Philippines – What does one feel playing face-to-face against a chess legend? A few weeks before the 1976 Haifa Chess Olympiad, former national women’s champion Lita Alvarez received a call from then World Chess Federation vice president Florencio Campomanes. Did she want to play Bobby Fischer, and if yes, he would fetch her at noon at Solidbank and go to Manila Hotel. “Campo fetched me by car and we drove to the Manila Hotel where I met Fischer. We played near the swimming pool. He was business-like. He took a White Pawn in one hand and a Black Pawn in the other and then crossed his wrist. He said, ‘Choose’. I picked the right hand and it was a Black Pawn”, recounted Alvarez in an interview Sunday, March 31. “He beat me easily”, added Alvarez, now 78. Fischer, the American who lost his world title by forfeit in 1975 to Anatoly Karpov of the then Soviet Union, was visiting the Philippines to discuss with Campomanes holding a big match. Campomanes asked him if he would agree to play the men’s and women’s team before they head for Haifa, Israel. Fischer agreed. Fischer met the women’s team, led by then national champion Hermie Cartel, physics and chemistry teacher Mila Emperado, student Andrea Lizares, and Alvarez, who won the 1956 national women’s championship at the age of 16. The games were held at the house of Lizares’ aunt in Urdaneta Village. [Read more].

Robert James “Bobby” Fischer with (from left) Andrea Lizares, Lita Alvarez, and Hermie Cartel, members of the first Philippine women’s team to the 7th Women’s Chess Olympiad at Haifa in 1976. Photo: Lita Alvarez/Rappler.