Chess Talk by Larry Parr and Carl Haessler

Chess Talk on Robert James "Bobby" Fischer (1943-2008) by Larry Parr and Carl Haessler On 26th August 2009

On the 26 August 2009, NM Ron Gross could not come to Malaysia due to medical allergies. Instead the lecture was conducted by the duo of Larry Parr and Carl Haessler, both from the U.S.A. Larry Parr is the ex-editor of US Chess Life and Carl Haessler is an 2100+ Fide-rated US player.

Larry (in white shirt and red tie) touched on the rise of Bobby Fischer who passed away in January 2008. Bobby Fischer was the World Champion from 1972 to 1975. His father was an Hungarian physicist from whom Bobby Fisher learnt his chess skills and his mother was Virginia Fischer. Bobby Fischer’s chess had put chess on the world map. His fame grew from his playing days when he was invited to play a simultaneous game against 60 reknown chess players of the Manhattan Chess Club in New York and he won 59.5 to 0.5.

Another story was recounted of the amazing memory of Bobby Fischer by Taimanov, when a chess ending that Taimanov, himself, had analysed reappeared in a game between Bobby Fischer and Taimanov. With time trouble on Bobby Fischer’s clock, Fischer did not even waste time thinking his moves but moved his chess pieces almost without thinking when Taimanov played his moves. The game ended with a win to Fischer based on Taimanov’s previously published end game analysis, of which Fischer remembered every move. With this incident, most opponents began to fear Fischer, not only with his chess skills, but also his accurate memory of past games.

Carl Haessler (picture above) had reminded the audience of mainly young children, about the basic principles of playing chess and these were as follows:

a.Fight for the center,
b.Develop all pieces,
c. Get 1 of 5 advantages as follows:
i. Material;
ii. Attacking Force;
iii. Space;
iv. Time;
v. Pawn Structure.

Then the lecture went through two typical games of Bobby Fischer, one as white and the other as black with amazing combinations and one game where Fischer played against his long time friend, NM Ron Grossman, experimenting with a gambit opening. The talk ended at about 2.00 pm.

Overall it was a wonderful lecture about Bobby Fischer and chess delivered by two veteran guest speakers who spoke from their knowledge and experience and hardly referring to much notes.