Re: Searching for Bobby Fischer

Interesting post, Sam.  Thanks for taking the time to write it.

DJV

"Sam Sloan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Searching for Bobby Fischer
>
> I just replayed the movie "Searching for Booby Fischer" on video. Of
> course, I had seen the movie before, but this time I saw a few things
> I had not seen previously.
>
> I think that we as chess players can learn a lot from this movie. It
> is a masterpiece in the way that it takes a subject most people would
> find to be deadly boring and turns it into an exciting drama. Best of
> all, the main events actually happened in real life and all of the
> characters are or were real people, although some modifications were
> necessary to make it into a good movie which the general public would
> enjoy.
>
> The plot line: Talented seven-year-old boy defeats his main rival to
> win National Scholastic Chess Championship. Already, there is a little
> fib. In real life, Joshua Waitzkin was about 13 when he won the
> National Scholastic Championship. That was no big deal, so they had to
> cut his age to seven to make the story more interesting.
>
> In your typical Bruce Lee Movie, in the grand finale, Bruce Lee fights
> the grand wizard to the death. Here instead, two seven year old kids
> battle for the title. In the movie, the opponent is Jonathan Poe.
> However, in real life, the final battle was fought by Joshua Waitzkin
> against Jeff Sarwer.
>
> To those familiar with the background, there is a reason for this name
> change. Shortly after the real life tournament, the real life Jeff
> Sarwer was taken away from the custody of his father by the child
> welfare authorities. I do not know the details of what happened, but
> it is clear that no court appointed guardian would ever agree to the
> portrayal of Sarwer and his father the way that they are portrayed in
> this movie.
>
> So, the movie commits another fib. It says that the man who is
> bringing the Sarwer character around to chess tournaments is not his
> father at all. This man says that the parents have given the child to
> his guardianship at age 4, that all he does is play chess and that he
> never goes to school. The real life Sawyer, whom I once played in a
> tournament (I beat him) never went to school either, but as far as I
> know the man bringing him to chess tournaments was his real father.
>
> Still, the guardian/father of Sarwer delivers one of the most
> significant lines in the movie: "Eventually you realize that you have
> taught them all that you can, and you just have to let them be what
> they are."
>
> Every line and every word of this movie is significant. It is a
> masterpiece of writing and editing. This makes it easy for the viewer
> to miss important points. It would sometimes be difficult to follow,
> as the movie constantly shifts back and forth between real events and
> fantasy. For example, there is actual footage of news broadcasts of
> the real Bobby Fischer and as well as vintage photographs of Edward
> Lasker, John W. Collins and other famous chess players.
>
> There is the eternal conflict between the boy and his father. There
> are also conflicts between the public school teacher and the parents,
> the parents with each other, the parents and the coach, and the coach,
> an actor, Ben Kingsley playing Bruce Pandolfini, and the chess hustler
> in the park, Laurence Fishburne playing Vinnie a/k/a Vincent
> Livermore.
>
> In real life, Vincent Livermore died of AIDS just before the movie
> came out. I asked Joshua Waitzkin about this (I asked the real life
> Joshua Waitzkin, not an actor playing him in the movies) and he told
> me that the character "Vinnie" is a composite based in part on Vincent
> Livermore and in part on another chess player.
>
> This movie has had a profound effect on the lives of several chess
> players. The real life Bruce Pandolfini has become a wealthy man
> giving chess lessons for $250 an hour to parents who are convinced
> that their brilliant tyke needs lessons from the real Bruce
> Pandolfini.
>
> On the other hand, FIDE Master Asa Hoffmann is portrayed in the movie
> as a raving schizophrenic who talks to himself. In real life, Asa
> Hoffman does not do that and is a much stronger chess player than
> Bruce Pandolfini, but Asa has a hard time getting paying chess
> students, so he reduces himself to hustling strangers every day for
> five dollars a game in Liberty Park near the former World Trade
> Center.
>
> It must be mentioned here that the producers of this movie paid the
> real Asa Hoffmann a very large sum of money for the rights to have an
> actor portray him, so Hoffman is not complaining. In the movie, the
> Bruce Pandolfini character says that Asa Hoffmann is the child of two
> Park Avenue lawyers and attended Columbia University. I learned
> something here. I knew that the father of Asa Hoffmann was a prominent
> lawyer. I did not previously know that his mother was an even more
> famous lawyer who argued before the United States Supreme Court.
>
> There is a chess player who in real life acts the same way that the
> Asa Hoffmann character in the movies acts. That is Larry Gilden, but I
> have not seen him in years and I doubt that Joshua Waitzkin has seen
> him at all.
>
> In one of the early scenes, Bruce Pandofini takes Fred Waitzkin,
> Joshua's father, to see a real chess tournament. The room is filled
> with smoke and it is not possible to see from one end of the room to
> the other. Playing in this smoke filled room are Joel Benjamin and
> Roman Dzindzichashvili, playing themselves in the movie. The point is
> that these are the best chess players in the country and yet they are
> playing in squalid conditions.
>
> However, I have never seen such bad conditions in a chess tournament.
> Smoking has been banned in chess tournaments for years.
>
> There are so many other little details like that that I cannot
> possibly list them all, but the big conflict in the movie concerns
> chess strategy. Beginners at chess usually want to move out their
> queen right away, but experienced players try to keep their queen
> safely behind their minor pieces. Bruce Pandolfini, the chess teacher,
> teacher Joshua to play positionally and to keep his queen back.
> Vincent Livermore, who plays Joshua two minute chess in Washington
> Square Park, teaches him to bring out the queen early.
>
> In one of his first tournaments, Joshua plays an early Qf3, in an
> obvious beginner's attempt at a Scholars Mate in which White plays the
> moves 1 e4 2 Bc4 3. Qf3 4. Qxf7 mate. An adult watching the game
> smirks at this move. You have to be a chess player to understand the
> reason for the smirk.
>
> The climatic showdown comes when Joshua is on stage battling for the
> championship. His rival Jonathan Poe arrives. It will be a fight to
> the finish.
>
> I have worked out the moves. I do not believe that anybody else has
> done this, so please pay attention. The game starts with a Queens
> Gambit Accepted as follows: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 c6
> 5. a4 Bf5 6. Ne5 e6 7. Bg5.
>
> This game is being watched on TV by the parents and coaches in another
> room. Laurence Fishburne says, "Bring her out". Bruce Pandolfini says
> "Don't even think about bringing her out." They both repeat themselves
> several times and exchange dirty glances.
>
> What they are talking about is Joshua's next move could be either Qa5,
> developing the queen perhaps prematurely, or Be7 or Nd7 which are both
> normal developing moves.
>
> This is a key point in the drama. Finally, Josh plays Qa5, disobeying
> his teacher.
>
> I tried to figure out which moves came next but it is apparent that
> the next bunch of moves are just random moves or more likely were
> edited in out of sequence. Eventually, they reach the following
> problem-like position: White has a king on e6, rook on e5, knight on
> e4, bishop on g5 and pawns on f6 and h4. Black has rook on c8, bishop
> on d8, knight on b6, king on c2 and pawns on a7 and g7.
>
> This looks like a problem created by Grandmaster Pal Benko, but
> Taghian Taghian told me that Bruce Pandolfini and another chess player
> worked it out. Pal Benko was a consultant to this movie, however. The
> last move by White was Kd5. It is now Black to play and win. It is a
> cute solution. I do not know how difficult it is, because I know the
> solution already, since I had to work backwards from the final
> position to get to this position. It is almost ridiculous to suggest
> that any seven year old child could find over the board the solution
> to this problem which was perhaps composed by Grandmaster Pal Benko.
>
> OK Ready? The solution is: 1. ...  gxf6 2. Bxf6 Rc6+ 3. Kf5 Rxf6 4.
> Nxf6 Bxf6 5. Kxf6 Nd7+ 6. Kf5 Nxe5+ 7. Kxe5 a5 8. h5 a4 9. h6 a3 10.
> h7 a2 11. h8=Q a1=Q+ 12. Kf5 Qxh8 White resigns 0-1
>
> By the way, it took me about an hour of playing back and replaying
> this video before I got all the pieces in their correct positions and
> all the moves right too.
>
> The point is that White has queened his pawn first but Black queens
> with check on the long diagonal and wins White's queen. A cute and
> unusual solution to an endgame study.
>
> By the way, in real life the game ended in a draw.
>
> Sam Sloan
>