The Chess of Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer is regarded as the greatest chess player of all time. A movie Searching for Bobby Fischer was made about two of the times he disappeared.Although there are many books about Bobby Fischer, this is the only one that deals in depth with his second, in 1992, match against Boris Spassky and the one that explores in greatest depth his playing style and thought process.In The Chess of Bobby Fischer, the author employs his long experience as a chess analyst to transform the technique and insight of the greatest player of all time into a unique teaching tool. This, he shows, is how a great player wins games. Robert Burger first got to know Bobby as a precocious youngster when, in 1957, Fischer's mother called him to ask if he would watch over Bobby in San Francisco at the U.S. Junior Championship. As a director of The Mechanics' Institute, where the tournament was held, Burger was also familiar to the participants as the co-editor of The California Chess Reporter. A National Master, Burger also has the distinction of being a grandmaster of chess composition, of the U.S. Chess Problem Society. He is also a Fellow of the British Chess Problem Society and the author of numerous nonfiction books. Among his other chess books are Grandmaster Chess and The Unknown Tal. He has reported on chess tourneys and matches throughout Europe. Among his collaborators on chess books have been Isaac Kashdan and Vladimir Nabokov (yes, that one!). The current edition of this classic is the most complete, referencing the second Fischer-Spassky match -- in Yugoslavia in 1992. Burger has always maintained that the real Bobby was among the most generous and statesmanlike of grandmasters, with this anecdote as an example: In 1964, when Bobby made his first, great tour of the United States following his sweep of the U.S. Championship, Burger was one of thirty players in a simul at Mechanics' Institute in San Francisco. On the twelfth move, Fischer resigned after seeing that he had lost a piece. Robert Burger is especially noted for the one game, his win against Bobby Fischer in 1964.