Fischer-Pachman: A Classical French Burn Struggle

Robert James Fischer (1943-2008) won the world championship in 1972 from Boris Spassky and stopped competing, except for a match with Spassky twenty years later. He became a legend and is considered by some to be the greatest chess player ever. Others, note that his greatness was limited by his withdrawal from chess. Certainly, Garry Kasparov and others showed the chess public great chess for more years. At least we still have Fischer’s games to study, despite his output being limited. The game presented is one of his played at the age of seventeen. It includes two others played two years later in the Candidates Tournament.

Fischer’s opponent in the main game was Ludek Pachman (1924-2003). Pachman won the Championship of Czechoslovakia seven times from 1946 to 1966. He was champion of West Germany in 1978. He played in six interzonals from 1948 to 1976. His numerous chess books were published in five languages. His career score with Fischer was 50%. In the game shown, Pachman played the French Defense. The annotations will show how the three Fischer games could have been played differently and not resulted in three wins for Fischer, but possibly a loss and two draws.