Secrets of the Spas

On Sunday, november 14, 1993, Bobby Fischer, in a voyage which touched also Italy, stopped at the Grand Hotel Le Fonti in Chianciano Terme, Tuscany, which at the time was managed by International Master Stefano Tatai and his wife. Fischer, who was accompanied by Grandmaster Pál Charles Benkő and his wife, and International Master János Rigó (who acted as a driver), stayed in Chianciano Terme until Thursday, November 18, 1993, when he left to go to Abano Terme, but Tatai could honour his guests with his presence only the first two days. Then Fischer asked to be left alone. Tatai himself wrote a detailed account of his “close encounter of the third kind” which was published in Torre & Cavallo, No. 1, January 1994, pp. 7-8. As Tatai writes, it’s worth noting, however, that the rules of Fischerandom chess were already formulated as it is today in the fall of 1993:

But yet Bobby the Champ did not deny himself even in the dining room. As soon as he sat down, he took out his pocket magnetic board, eager to analyse or play a game. He took care at once to explain to me that chess has become too studied, and canvassed to such an extent that what matters most today in tournament play is preparation and memorisation of the openings. Often the true game begins only after the thirtieth move, which favours more the “greasy grind” rather than innate talent. But there’s a way out of this dead end, “Fischerandom” chess (this magazine also wrote about it a few months ago). In it the initial position changes: the Pawns are placed on the second ranks as in classical chess, but the starting position of the pieces on the first rank is randomly “shuffled” by means of a computer — the arrangement of White and Black figures being mirror-symmetric. There are only two constraints: the King cannot be in the corner (so as to guarantee the possibility of castling on both wings) and the two Bishops must be placed on opposite-colour squares. According to the calculations the number of possible starting positions is 960. Thus any theoretical preparation would be impossible, at least for a few decades, if not for some centuries. In every other respect the game would retain all of its strategic and tactical elements that make it so exciting. We played several games in this mode during the first two days’ meals, and only once I managed to put him in difficulty, eventually drawing the game. Bobby is always Bobby, after all.

“Bobby was probably an inch or two taller than me, but the age sometimes plays bad jokes”, Tatai writes. “In Chianciano he seemed less tall than me; in Havana, where I met him for the first time (he was 23), he was taller”. Photo: Stefano Tatai.