Fischer's Last Words: “Nothing eases suffering like human touch”

" Bókin, or The Book, is essentially a 1950s version of New York’s Strand Bookstore. Besides the books stacked head-high, under card tables, and on plywood shelves, the first thing you notice about Bókin is its smell, decayed and airless. Walking inside the 35-year-old establishment is like entering a Parisian flea market without the noise: overwhelming, a paralysis of the senses. But it was here, between narrow aisles lined with thousands of fraying biographies and history books, sitting in an ordinary chair whose varnish had worn thin, where Bobby Fischer could be alone in his thoughts. It was here where he could contemplate his place in history by poring through books on outlaws and rebels from Russia, Britain, Libya, and the Soviet Union with whom he could relate. And it was here, beneath the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights above, where Bobby Fischer could, for at least a few hours a day, seem to live a normal life."
An endearing account of Fischer's last days in Iceland reading books at the back of The Book.

Fischer-Pascual

In 1967, Robert James Fischer played simul chess at the University of Mindanao in Davao City. He, playing white, beat Pascual with the Sicilian Sozin in 28 moves. The game is a classic because Pascual's king pawn went on a rampage eating Fischer's knight and bishop until it reached the seventh rank and even checked Fischer's king. Pascual's name was not even mentioned (was he the Jose Pascual who won the 1962 Philippine Chess Open?) but he's here in posterity.

Jinky Ong, where are you? US3 M waiting for you

This seven year old daughter of chess superpower Bobby Fischer is set to inherit US$3 million.
Former Benguet Gov. Raul "Rocky" Molintas, director of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines, said that somebody connected with the estate of Fischer told them that the heir of Fischer is entitled with this windfall. Fischer died of kidney failure in Iceland at the age of 64.
Molintas said that they needed the birth certificate and other documents that can ascertain that the father of the heir is indeed the eccentric but brilliant Fischer. Justine Ong's birth certificate was reportedly filed at a hospital in Baguio. Molintas said that they have started looking for Jinky and her mother, Justine, in Davao City, their last known where-abouts.
One problem is that a national newspaper printed the wrong name and a NCFP official in Davao started looking for Fischer's surrogate wife as Marilyn Young. That started the confusion in NCFP.
Jinky Ong was born in early 2001. Reports about her are sketchy and her whereabouts are known only to close friends of Fischer like Filipino grandmaster Eugene Torre.
Tim Krabbe, Dutch writer and chess champion, once wrote about Jinky.
Krabbe said that in May 2000, Fischer came to Baguio from Japan and sought the help of friends about perpetuating his genes.
Krabbe said that Fischer's friend, Gene, set him up with possible candidates including a 22-year-old lady named Justine Ong.
"A contract was signed, Justine received the genes, and nine months later she gave birth to a girl, who now grows up in Davao City, under the name of Jinky Ong," Krabbe wrote.
Rene Chun, a New York-based journalist, also said that Jinky Ong does exist.
In his Atlantic Monthly article last December 2002 and entitled "Bobby Ficher's Pathetic Endgame," Chun described Justine as the girlfriend of Fischer.
Chun said that Justine was a twenty-two year old (in 2002) Chinese-Filipina from Manila "who couldn't care less about chess and had no intention of writing a tell-all memoir."
He also said that Fischer's friend tried to keep his fatherhood a secret and hoped that he would change.
Fischer visited his daughter every one and a half months until his detention in Japan in 2004.
While in Japan, Fischer's supposed relationship with Miyoko Watai, 64, a four-time Japan chess champion, was brought out in the open.
Watai said that they have been living together since 2000 whenever Fischer was in Japan. When Fischer went on exile in Iceland, Watai followed.
Iceland was where Fischer beat Russian grandmaster for the World Chess Championship in 1972. It was the height of the Cold War between the US and Russia and Fischer's victory was played up to the fullest by the West. Fischer failed to defend his title against Russian challenger Anatoli Karpov in 1975 because of the American's eccentric requests which were not granted.
Karpov's successful defense of the crown against Viktor Korchnoi of Switzerland was held here at the Baguio Convention Center in 1978 after 43 games, making it the longest ever.
Fischer had slid into obscurity, although in some instances, most notoriously right after Sept. 11, 2001, Fischer riled against the US and the Jews using Bombo Radyo in Baguio.
Because of his Cold War victory, Fischer was called the most powerful chessplayer by the New York Times in their obituary.
Watai in news reports disputed claims that Fischer has a wife and child in the Philippines.
There are indeed doubts whether Justine was married or even a girlfriend of Fischer but the existence of Jinky is most certain. Only, her hereabouts remained unknown.
Because if Ong is not found, an Icelandic newspaper said that Watai is set to inherit the money.
Visir, an Icelandic newspaper, said that Watai will get 140 million Icelandic Kronur (about $2.1 million) plus his apartment there. Most of the money came from the prize money worth almost $3.5 million which he got for a rematch with Spassky in 1992 in Yugoslavia. Fischer won but he lost his American citizenship because he fought in a disputed area.
The money is deposited in a Swiss bank, Visar said.

Dead at 64

Fischer tried to abandon chess but chess refused to abandon him. He died, like Nabokov's character in "The Defense" at 64. Only non-chess playing writers would not see the poetry there. We talk about his anti-Americanism now but if you were a young boy still learning the ropes, his games are the best you can find because they go against the logic and so directed at winning. He may lose a queen but the opponent's king would be pathetically pinned down by a knight and bishop. At 13 years old, he was already KO'ing greats like Donald Byrne with this move (after Byrne's 17th move 17. Ke1-f1):
Fischer moved not his threatened queen but his bishop to e5. Quiet move. So after 18. Bxb6 (thanks for the Queen), Fischer gets the lowly bishop and checks. B's King moves to g1 and F's knight checks him at E2. So it was pinning back and forth (20. Kf1 Nxd4+ 21. Kg1 Ne2+ 22. Kf1 Nc3+ 23. Kg1 axb6). How great was that? A year after that game, Fischer won his first US championship. He would win seven more times including the 1963 to 1964 where he won 11 times with no tie or loss. That was US championship level!
Of course, out of the playing board, Fischer was another story.

G.K. Chesterton on why Chess Players and Literary Critics Go Crazy and Great Poets Don't

There is a notion adrift everywhere that imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous to man's mental balance. Poets are commonly spoken of as psychologically unreliable; and generally there is a vague association between wreathing laurels in your hair and sticking straws in it. Facts and history utterly contradict this view. Most of the very great poets have been not only sane, but extremely business-like; and if Shakespeare ever really held horses, it was because he was much the safest man to hold them. Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination. Artistic paternity is as wholesome as physical paternity. Moreover, it is worthy of remark that when a poet really was morbid it was commonly because he had some weak spot of rationality on his brain. Poe, for instance, really was morbid; not because he was poetical, but because he was specially analytical. Even chess was too poetical for him; he disliked chess because it was full of knights and castles, like a poem. He avowedly preferred the black discs of draughts, because they were more like the mere black dots on a diagram. Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one great English poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry was not the disease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept him in health. He could sometimes forget the red and thirsty hell to which his hideous necessitarianism dragged him among the wide waters and the white flat lilies of the Ouse. He was damned by John Calvin; he was almost saved by John Gilpin. Everywhere we see that men do not go mad by dreaming. Critics are much madder than poets. Homer is complete and calm enough; it is his critics who tear him into extravagant tatters. Shakespeare is quite himself; it is only some of his critics who have discovered that he was somebody else. And though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators. The general fact is simple. Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens.

Fischer in Lowwwwve

Nice idea for a movie: Fischer and pregnant girlfriend holding hands pa sway-sway pa in Burnham Park. Music is "I Believe I Can Fly." Then they passed by Igorot Park where street chess is going on. He plays and wins them all. Threw the pieces joyfully in the air (Choir part of "IBICF"). Then thought of something. Calls us the radio station to curse USA, Ichiro and Dadyews for 10 minutes. Smiles and hugs girlfriend. Very touching. If only Fischer is alive to dispute it all.

Ichiro vs Bobby Fischer

"Ichiro has no business playing in the US and for a US team," Fischer says in his 2004 rdio interview with Bombo Radio. "Point two: The game has changed so much, the ball's livelier, the bats are livelier. The old records were much harder to make. Point three: I believe this has been staged between the Japanese and US governments. They could easily have stopped him from breaking the record, simply by giving him walks. Let's say he had been originally from Cuba and still pro-Castro. Do you think they would have let him break the record like that? No way. They would have given him walks or tried to hit him with the ball. I saw [Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro] Koizumi on TV congratulating Ichiro. Me he has put into prison, him and Bush working in conspiracy. That's perfectly okay for him. But he would never dream of putting Ichiro into prison, on an immigration charge."

Bizarre Chess: Bobby, Eugene and Pablo

January 14, 1999 radio interview between Bobby Fischer (who died yesterday), first Asian GM Eugene Torre (a long-time Baguio resident) and Pablo Mercado, news anchor of Bombo Radyo. This was before the now infamous Sept 11, 2001 radio interview which is now under review under the War Against Terrorism (Twat)

Pablo Mercado: (???) Bobby Fischer. You can just lift the. Eugene you can just lift the phone and let's put it on the air, that's easy, ok?
Eugene Torre: Bobby? Yeah, This is Eugene. I'm here beside Mr. Pablo Mercado.
Bobby Fischer: Yes
Eugene Torre: He's the radio announcer here in Bomba Radio in Baguio. So good morning Bobby, how are you?
Bobby Fischer: Ok, Mr. Bomba is it?
Eugene Torre: Wait wait. Mr. Pablo Mercado - here wait.
Bobby Fischer: Oh, pardon me, Mr. Pablo Mercado of Bomba Radio, excuse me, ya
Pablo Mercado: Yes, uh, how are you Bobby?
Bobby Fischer: Thank you, very well, yes.
Pablo Mercado: You've very well. You see, Eugene Torre is here with us right now and he related to us your present problem regarding your memorabilias in the States. Can you tell us something about it Bobby?
Bobby Fischer: Yes, well, umm, this is just the latest in a long line of crimes against me by the World Jewry and the Jew controlled United States of America.
Pablo Mercado: Uh huh. Why is it so? Why is it so? Why are they doing this to you?
Bobby Fischer: They don't like me.
Pablo Mercado: *laugh* as simple as that. as simple as that that they don't like you.
Bobby Fischer: Ya.
Pablo Mercado: All right. Which of these properties that you have are now being sold by the States?
Bobby Fischer: No .. they're already been sold. They're gone.
Pablo Mercado: Really?
Bobby Fischer: Ya ya. They said I owe them a few hundred dollars which is, you know, without contacting me, nothing. they just sold it all off - stuff that it took me a lifetime to accumulate. I had it in. They broke open my safes and they broke open my file cabinets and everything. and just sold off everything. sold off like a hundred boxes of my stuff and sold off my photo album, my letters from President Marcos, my photo album with President Marcos, everything.
Pablo Mercado: Uh huh
Bobby Fischer: This is just a conspiracy against me by the Jews.
Pablo Mercado: Why? Why?
Bobby Fischer: Those filthy filthy bastards. You know they've trying to take over the world.
Pablo Mercado: Why?
Bobby Fischer: You know they invented the Holocaust story. There's no such. There was no holocaust of the Jews in World War II.
Pablo Mercado: Really?
Bobby Fischer: They've been pulling this shit from time immemorial about persecution. They're a filthy lying bastard people. That's all they ever do. that's all they'll ever be.
Pablo Mercado: Why do you have this thing about the Jews?
Bobby Fischer: I have no thing.. They have a thing about me.
Pablo Mercado: *laugh*
Bobby Fischer: Study the history.
Pablo Mercado: Really?
Bobby Fischer: Are you a Christian?
Pablo Mercado: Yes, I am.
Bobby Fischer: Well, you know. The Catholic Church taught for a long time about that they're guilty of the murder of Christ, right?
Pablo Mercado: Yes. So? *laugh*
Bobby Fischer: You know.
Pablo Mercado: *laugh* Anyway, Bob, this memorabilia that has been sold that you owed.
Bobby Fischer: That I owned? I still own it. This is all stolen property, you know?
Pablo Mercado: All right. all right. uhhh would you?
Bobby Fischer: I have spent on this .. just in storage fees alone over 10,000 dollars. I have spent in buying the custom made safes, custom made file cabinets, with secret built in safes in the file cabinets, another file cabinet, a safe with special drill proof doors, with a second door inside, combination locks, both timers, in case somebody tries to force you to open it. The works! to preserve my memorabilia. My stuff from Marcos, my letters from President Nixon, books dedicated to me by President Nixon, former President Nixon when he dedicated the books, but he was President Nixon when he wrote to me. All kinds of stuff, photo albums, statues, the works! They have stole every fucking thing and sold if off. The dirty Jews that want to put me in prison for 10 years. They have sold off all of my memorabilia which I collected over years. They have confiscated, they have stolen my book My 60 Memorable Games. They have come out with the illegal movie called Searching for Bobby Fischer which is exploiting my name for money. They've made tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars on this movie. I never get a penny of it. They came out with the illegal. the Jews have come out with the illegal CD-ROM called Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. Zero for me. I get nothing. even from the legitimate edition of My 60 Memorable Games. Nothing. These fucking Jews are thieves, they are liars, they are mother fuckers, and it's time we took care of these bastards.

This goes on until Pablo brings out Eugene to the topic.

Bobby Fischer: Ya ya, Hi Eugene.
Eugene Torre: Hi Hi Bobby. Well, uhh, not much questions. I think you have expressed, uhh, quite good your side, and exposed these people, you know? *laugh*
Bobby Fischer: Hey Eugene, what's the difference between a good Jew and a bad Jew?
Eugene Torre: Yeah. What's the difference between a good Jew and bad Jew?
Bobby Fischer: The good Jew fucks you slower.
*All laugh*
Eugene Torre: OK. so.. It's ok, Bobby. I think it should be over now, and
Bobby Fischer: OK
Eugene Torre: and I have good news. I was able to contact. anyway, maybe you can get in touch with me later, ok?
Bobby Fischer: OK, I'll call you at home, OK?
Eugene Torre: OK, ya, and uhh
Bobby Fischer: OK, what time, I'll call you what, in about 10 minutes, half an hour?
Eugene Torre: Maybe in half an hour, ya.
Bobby Fischer: OK. OK. did we go out live? did we go out live?
Eugene Torre: This is live. This is live Bobby. Everybody hears. .. ..
Bobby Fischer: OK, good. you know, because that's the only way to go, you know. I don't like to be edited, you know.
Eugene Torre: No no. no editing here. Here, it's live.
Bobby Fischer: Get a copy. Get a copy of this, ok?
Eugene Torre: Ya, I got already here a tape of this conversation, this interview, ok? So give me a call after thirty or one hour, no?
Bobby Fischer: OK, take it easy
Eugene Torre: OK, Bye.

Deep Blue Funk

From The Hindu, I read in their Chess section:

Shyam Sundar stuns Deep
Mary Ann Gomes on the road to victory

OMG, Indian girls beating Deep Blue regularly!
Turned out it was Deep Shengupta, who is the fourth seed. Back to the doldrums. You know what? Our sportswriters in the Philippines have degenerated into boring hacks who are also into covering only "sponsored" teams or events. They even fell off their seats when someone suggested that they give 'color" into their stories and not rely too much on "cartelized' or PR stories. What was wrong with that comment, di ba?
Just a case in point. Wesley So became the 7th youngest to ever become GM, joining a truly illustrious cast. The headlines were ho-hum.
Why not: SO! SO'S NO SO-SO or SO YOUNG AND SO GRAND or A GRANDMASTER BEFORE HE CAN MASTUR.
Inquirer's Roy Luarca (whom I admire, no B.S) had this headline: 14-year-old Filipino is Newest Grandmaster. Whoa! How exciting!
gmanews has: So is now RP's Youngest GM, World's 7th Youngest. Manong Percy Della was right about the state of RP's sportswriting. Hoy Manong, diay red wine ko ha?

But I digress. I would like to thank the famous Mr. Mesina for giving me my first calendar for 2008. Hmmm. Cowboys. Thank you. I am also 5 cups short for the Starbucks calendar. Last year, I lost two cards which only needed a few cups before I can complete them. Talk about dedication. I have only written my diary until the first weeks of January.

Tonight We Mate in Hell