<TheFocus> You have two hands so what's the issue here!? :)

<parisattack> I will be sending you an advance copy by the end of the year.>

That's true.

<your contrarian zeal to upend the Fischer-worshipers on this site>

Levy, in his work <How Fischer Plays Chess>, noted that the typical five-hour session became roughly seven hours long--lot of extra strain for even the young man Fischer was then.

In "Bobby Fischer – Profile of a Prodigy" Frank Brady describes the move transmission process as follows:

Fischer sat in a playing room with the board, a chess clock, a referee (a different referee was used for each round, and Frank Brady was the referee for the second round), and a bust of Philidor, perched on top of a display case of chess sets. I personally don't think that the bust of Philidor gave Fischer any advice, but again I don't know. :-)

There was a separate sending room where the teletype was located (the ASR-33 is a noisy beast and I doubt that Fischer would have tolerated its noise). After Fischer had made his move, a courier would deliver it from the playing room to the sending room (no indication of how far apart the two rooms were) to be punched out by the teletype operator using words like the following:

"HELLO HAVANA THIS IS AMERICA CALLING. WHITE'S FIRST MOVE PAWN TO KING FOUR. TIME THREE THIRTY. STANDING BY FOR CONFIRMATION."

Needless to say, this would take longer than transmitting "1.P-K4"! Brady does not describe what form the confirmation took but presumably it would be something similar; e.g. "HELLO AMERICA, THIS IS HAVANA CALLING. CONFIRMING WHITE'S FIRST MOVE PAWN TO KING FOUR AND TIME THREE THIRTY." Of course, America's transmission most likely would first have to translated to Spanish and the likely Spanish-speaking teletype operator would then transmit the confirmation, in Spanish, to the US. Then a Spanish to English translation would have to be made so that the US referee would know that the move was correctly received. If there was a hiccup along the way, then the process would have to be repeated. And after the confirmation was made, a courier would presumably have to go to the tournament game room and inform a proxy of the move which the proxy would make on Fischer's opponent's board.

Not his fault, to be sure, not really an excuse for not finishing first either, as it affected both players equally.

Thanks to the fanboys, Fischer's woulda-coulda-shoulda victories outnumber his actual ones. Riverbeast once told me that Fischer was the best player in the world from 1962-1981, basically multiplying his 22 month title reign by more than a factor of 10. At one point, Rookfile seemed to be working on a master list of excuses for all Fischer defeats in the database.

Well, Riverbeast was extremely weaselly on the question (and indeed on most questions). If absolutely pushed to the wall with the facts about Fischer's play and results at that time, he would admit that he failed in 1962 because he wasn't the best yet. But then the moment he thought your back was turned, he'd turn around and start saying the exact opposite. It got so confusing that I don't think he could keep his own stories straight (He told me that 1962-1981 business only about a week or so after admitting the exact opposite).

I eventually had to killfile him because although he was smart, I couldn't believe a word he said. He simply couldn't tell the truth even when caught. A good example. For a long time, his source for the idea of a drawing pact at Curacao was (you'll never believe this!)... Brad Darrach! Of course, that's funny because anything Darrach printed he got <from> Fischer, he wasn't an indepedent corroborator. But Riverbeast could never be bothered to quote exactly what Darrach said. So I looked it up myself. In fact, Darrach never said any such thing. He DID repeat Fischer's claim about Korchnoi throwing games, but didn't say anything about draws.

So that's it. He was proven wrong, right? Nope. Even when confronted with the proof that the quote in question didn't say what he claimed it did, RB continued to maintain that Darrach had said it... Somewhere or other, goodness knows where. And he felt no need to show where it was because it was all so obvious. How do you argue with a guy like that?

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White played 31.Ne3? and Black quickly found the best reply 31...Ng4! with equality (Stockfish 12 evaluation: +0.39). Nevertheless, according to the engine, White missed a stronger move with a very high evaluation, namely 31.Qa7! (evaluation: +2.65). A sample variation would be something like this: 31.Qa7! Rc8 32.fxe5 Be6 33.Rd3 Bxe5 34.Ne1 Qh2+ 35.Kf2 Qh4+ 36.g3 Qg5 37.Ng2 h5 38.Qb7 Bf6 39.Kg1, when White has a winning advantage (evaluation: +2.97) (see diagram)

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From this position, the engine gives 39...Rxc5 as the best move for Black, with an evaluation of +2.86. In the above variation, instead of 33.Rd3, White might also try 33.Qb7!? Bxe5 34.Rxe5 Qxe5 35.Qe7 Qe4 36.Ne3 Qf4 37.Ba6 Ra8 38.b5 h5 39.Qb7 Rc8 40.Qb6, and here too, White has a winning advantage according to the engine (evaluation: +3.17) (see diagram)

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It was a pity, since Fischer had played very well throughout. The machines give either 37...Be4 or 37....Bd7 with equality, very likely a draw. After 37...Bh6?? 38.Qf6!, Geller obtained again a winning position (Evaluation: +3.63). On 38....Bg7 39.Qxf7 Qd1 40.Qc4 (40.b5!) h4 41.Qe2 (41.b5) Qa1 42.Kh2 (42.b5) Bd4 43.Bf2, the following critical position was reached:

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