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